Getting the Hang of It..

I started off today teaching more computer skills at Aysha's informal settlement. I had 3 kids show up to my class of capacity 4, which was relatively good attendance, and the kids actually listened to me! I'm teaching them how to type one pair of fingers at a time; we started with the thumb and the index finger keys, and today we added the keys covered by the middle fingers. So, we're well on our way to conquering the entire keyboard! They don't have a lot of speed yet, but it's a work in progress :)
I even had one of my students chastise her partner (we normally work in pairs, with two to a computer/keyboard set) for not using proper keyboarding hand position! Maybe I am getting through to these kids! I couldn't help but smile at that.

I focused on budgeting in today's morning class, using Excel as the medium. We talked about everything from the importance of budgets to a very simplified version of how stocks work (putting the stock market into little-kid language is harder than you think, by the way). I showed everyone how to do a budget with income and expenses and then asked them to make their own weekly budgets. I set them to work and came back thoroughly surprised - they did almost the entire thing on their own, with very little help from me. What's more is that it seemed like they were proud of themselves; this made sense to them because they knew they would use this in the "real world." We talked about what happens when net income is negative, and everyone really seemed to understand. I'm gonna call my morning class my "Advanced Kids."

My afternoon class was mostly new kids, which was slightly frustrating because I had 1/3 of the class on an advanced level and 2/3 on the beginner level. People had trouble paying attention, and we didn't get through as much detail as I would have liked. My beginner class is gonna need a little work, but we'll get there in time.

I came back to Lucinda's to eat lunch and then work on things for the website, but I didn't get a whole lot done before I had to leave. I did find out that we got a large donation of food and other supplies from NedBank here (they also gave financial seminars to the women), so that was good to hear. Here's a group photo they all took after the big day:


Back at home, Philly cooked fish cakes (think crab cakes) and potatoes - good, as always. Also, I've begun to miss sweet tea quite a lot; here, they drink hot tea a good bit, which I've grown accustomed to, but it's still not the same. I think I may sneak into the kitchen and brew some up one day. I tried to make an individual cup of sweet tea by taking hot tea, mixing lots of sugar into it, and then putting ice into it; epic fail. We'll see...

Also, note to self: Don't watch CSI reruns before you go to bed: this makes for very interesting dreams.