The Fosters

Can you imagine prouder parents? Josiah has done so well in his pre-primary class at a local school here in Musoma. We initially sent him because it was getting too hard for Ranette to keep him occupied at home. What we didn’t expect was for him to actually learn anything! After all, he was only 3.5 years old. My now almost 4-year old, can write his name, knows all the letters of the alphabet, and can read single-syllable words. He can count, add, and subtract. And the cool part is, he’s fully bilingual in both English and Swahili.

He had a real difficult time when he first started and the poor guy stood out like a sore thumb! All the other kids called him “Mzungu” which basically means “white person”. He would lash out at them and say, “I’m not Mzungu - I’m Josiah!” Some days, the only thing that kept him going was the bus ride (for some reason he loves busses).

Tomorrow is his last day of school before we leave to go on assignment in Canada so this morning we went by the school to take some pictures and say thank-you to his teacher and headmaster. It was amazing to see him and the other kids playing an laughing. The little boy that once stood out, now fits right in.