Tutoring

So I tutor at this center called Cyril Ross, which is a home for kids with HIV. It is a really great part of my week to go there, but it is so sad too. The youngest kid I’ve seen is under two years old and it just boggles my mind that this child has to deal with such a harsh reality already. I wonder how much the kids know about the disease they have and what it means. Unfortunately for them, they also seem to be disadvantaged at school. Many of them seem to have passed without really knowing the material…the tutor coordinator seems to think it might be the teachers passing them on in sympathy of the disease, but it is really hurting not helping.

I worked with a girl today that must have been 13 or 14 and she really struggled with reading. She would sound out each letter of the word than kinda just guess, usually coming up with a word that was way longer or shorter and had totally different letters. Every time she looked at me, hoping for approval my heart dropped a bit. She is so ill-prepared for what she is going to face and I didn’t even know how to really help in the best way. She also didn’t usually know what the word meant or what whole sentence was saying or asking. We went over the problems in a quiz that she had missed and she could barely read the question let alone understand it and the choices enough to pick the right one. It did really make me realize that reading is hard!! I don’t know how we remember all the letter and sound patterns when there are always exceptions to the rules. I give a lot of credit to early childhood teachers because it so much about foundations! Which makes me remember how amazing the letter people were!!

Ok well this has been depressing. Good things have been happening too. My research is starting to move along. The ethics approval process is well underway for both Trinidad and back in the States. I have meetings set up with the head of the Ministry of Health (really exciting, really scary!) and other major players in the health community. I’m hoping to learn how to make stewed chicken, I’m going back to Tobago this weekend and I went on another hike on Sunday. This one wasn’t quite as good as the first since we left too late and had to stop too much for the slower ones (I was in the middle and a little impressed by that!) so we didn’t get to make it to the top of the mountain. So that has been life in a nutshell…next week is the Fulbright Enrichment Seminar so I’ll try to write again soon!