Sudoku! And some digging

It REALLY IS the small victories and baby steps of progress that get me through. Today I had both!

And I got to talk to my dad!

One of the learners I nominated for a Deep Roots Scholarship (see previous post for what that's about) is a clever, clever boy. He and a girl named Merlin always vied for the high score on tests in Maths last year, and the maths teacher he has this year has said that he's doing well. His marks reflect that. He's also an inquisitive kid and showed an ability to reason and deduce (!) at levels higher than his peers.

With all that in mind, I've been meaning to give him a sudoku for ages, but for this reason and that reason, hadn't until today. I told him to make a turn to see me, that I had something to do with maths that I thought he'd like and would make him smarter. I actually told him to come see me yesterday, and then forgot, so he made a turn this morning, and of course I was in the middle of 18 things, so he came a third time (already showing a rare trait – persistence in something kind of academic), and I was ready for him. I gave him 2 easy sudokus, and explained how to do them, I told him to do them at home, and if he liked them, he could come back for more tomorrow. 35 minutes (!) later he walks into the office and hands me the 2 finished puzzles and says “Miss, these things are nice.” So I told him I'd print some more for him, then found a nice website with printable puzzles in 5 different levels of difficulty in sets of 8 (thanks, www.krazydad.com!). I printed 24 easy and 16 intermediate for him to work on while I'm in Windhoek. This is really much bigger than a small victory. And, I know that the other learners will see them and want to at least try them, and it will be good for Jeremia to explain how to do them.

I should add here that I tried for ages to get the Grade 7 maths teacher to give at least the smarter (and therefore often bored) learners some easy sudokus to do, and he maintained that they were too difficult for them. I think the problem is that he couldn't do them, and therefore couldn't really explain how to do them.

Anyway, a victory. I'll take it.

After school I did some permagarden-style double-digging with Yolande and her mom. It was an hour and a half of good digging. We dug 3 beds, and plan to dig 2 more tomorrow. It was glorious. I know her mom was skeptical about the double-digging/permagarden, but after we started digging and things became a little clearer, she saw how things were shaping up and was pleased. The neighbors were perplexed by this crazy white lady digging a garden bed; some of them came to watch. We explained about controlling water movement to slow it, stop it in catch holes and get it to sink into the watertable instead of running off. We talked about how double-digging enables the roots to grow deeps instead of wide. Teachable moments! And the roots of sustainability. Oh, the glory.

The first 4 are before photos from March, just to showed what they were already growing, and that it was a bit diorganized.

Yolande digging today.

Yolande's mom and me digging today.

One portion of today's labor.

Yolande and her mom hosting parsley

I've been to the namdoctor in the last 2 weeks both for the cncussion last week and this week for some suspicious lumps in my neck, and to document the aftereffects of the concussion. I've been experiencing some short term memory loss that is alarming to me, since I've never experienced anything like it before. I've also had some issues with language, mainly not being able to find words. All things considered, I'm ok! At least, that's what the doctor told me.