Paper clips and scotch tape, isn't it?

I hope this somewhat odd title captured your attention! I have made many new discoveries about the African educational context over these past few months, and I'd like to share a few of them with you.


TAG ENDINGS... You may not know what these are, so here is an explanation from an ESL teacher. A tag ending is the ending we tack onto a sentence to make it into a question. Think of sentences like "It's a nice day, isn't it?" and "You live in North America, don't you?" Well, one of my jobs this semester was to observe the teaching of our professors, as part of our effort to improve education at KIST. Imagine my surprise when I heard some of our African faculty say sentences like "We can see that God is at work everyplace, isn't it?" and "We looked at page 32 yesterday, isn't it?" Turns out, "isn't it" is the catchall tag ending here. So, I've been having some discussions about "isn't it". Everyone assures me that this is "not correct", but is rather because of a lack of English development. So... we're working on "isn't it", aren't we?!


WHAT CAN YOU EASILY MANIPULATE WITH YOUR EYES CLOSED? Have you ever thought about that? What objects can you handle without difficulty, without looking or thinking about them? I bet paper clips and scotch tape would be among them. Well, I got another surprise when I asked my first-year students to turn in their final project paper-clipped together. They had been working all semester towards a final essay, and had collected notes, an outline, and several drafts. I provided large paper clips, and asked students to each bring up their pile of papers and paper clip them together before handing them to me. This, I thought, would be a quick procedure. I was not prepared to see students struggling to know how to use a paper clip. It seemed as though some had not used them before, and even the ones who showed some familiarity took much longer than you or I would to clip together a packet of papers. Paper clips are just not a part of the daily life experience for many students before they come to us.
The same thing happened with a roll of American scotch tape. Here all they usually see are plain rolls. When I handed my students the advanced technology of tape with a built-in dispenser, I could see some looking it over, impressed with how much easier it was than tearing off a piece of tape with your teeth.

Rod speaking to a large women's meeting -- at a 6:30 a.m. service!

Now equipped with some new understandings of the life experience of the people among whom we minister, we are moving forward in many ways. Following are a few pictures of our recent endeavors to make the difference He would have us make in this context. Enjoy the pictures. And... if you do not receive our ministry letter which gives more details about some of these events, just write to me at jan.dormer@gmail.com!

We were amazed at the response as women came forward to pray.

The choir in a church where Jan gave a talk on marriage.

Our KIST teachers learning to make lesson plans!

Our KIST talent show

Talent show judges -- "American Idol" - ish

Finally, we are SO GRATEFUL for our missionary family here at KIST! The Baylors, Baltes, Nicholases and Dormers at our Christmas meal in the Dormer house.