Latest Update: Renk Hebrew Program

Ellen Davis' Latest Update:

Jo and I both just spoke to Megan, who phoned to get some advice about how to proceed with the Hebrew class and to vent some teaching-relatedfrustration. Cross-cultural and cross-language instruction in a third language is not easy, as you can imagine. The main news for all of you is that they both seem to be fine, but the Sudani Hebrew-teacher-in-training (Fr. Abraham) is absent, covering for Fr. Joseph at a conference, while Fr. Joseph attends his wife in the hospital. That is understandable, but it undercuts the point of theprogram, so now I am frustrated, too.

Latest Update from Gary F.:

It is hot and raining in Renk today. The power has been coming on from 8 PM - 11 PM local time each night. (Sounds a lot like my last few days in DC.) I talked to Elizabeth right before the power was scheduled to come on in Renk tonight so keep your fingers crossed. Although, now that I think about it, she hasn't mentioned a lot of electrical appliances such as a fan or ice cream machine so maybe they only have lights.

As it turns out, the 4th of July is NOT a holiday in Sudan so they had class yesterday & today. Elizabeth has the "intermediate" class and Megan the advanced. Most of the better English speakers are in the advanced class so progress has been slow for Elizabeth. I think she's going to try hand puppets tomorrow.

Before we got cut off, Elizabeth said she was having a really good time and that she's been able to catch up on her sleep a bit. I guess it's all relative since she only stayed asleep until about 2:30 AM last night. They must have really strong coffee there - or something.