Nothing Big, Just Making Gravel

                One of the first sights that hit me at my homestay was waking up to Alfred at work.  Alfred is a Zimbabwean that works for my homestay mom doing labor intensive odd jobs to make money for his family back in Zimbabwe.  The first job I witnessed was making gravel.  Alfred takes a large metal pole with a metal plate on the bottom and smashes large rocks to make gravel.  He does this from 6am to 12pm, when the water shuts off.  As I mentioned above, this is why I pour my bucket bath water on the rocks.  Now I imagine the water makes a difference, but smashing rocks is smashing rocks. 

What is Development?

            During my first classroom visit, the Social Science topic for the day was development and the image of Alfred popped in my mind.  After talking about transitioning from subsistence farming to commercial farming, the students looked at a chart that broke down countries by percentage of the population in agrarian, industrial, and service sectors.  The USA was one of the options pinned against 6 African countries, China, and India. 

                After the students concluded that what African countries are good at is an agrarian lifestyle, I felt the urge to ask a question about production and shyly asked the teacher I was supposed to just be observing if I could pose a question to the learners.  I asked the students which country they thought produced the most food.  I let them think in pairs then raise their hands when they had an answer.  Every student I called on picked the African nation Tanzania and said because they have the highest percentage of its’ population working in the agrarian sector. 

                Initially, I was just glad to see them think and justify their answers, but then I let them know that the USA produced more food.  I should have given them another thinking moment, but I felt like I was taking more time that I was allowed to, and informed them that this was because of our use of machinery.  They were pretty confused, but taking their environment into the classroom will be key.  Showing them Alfred’s tool and how a jackhammer works would blow their mind.