Day 5

(Rhia’s comments are italicized)

Wherever you go in Botswana, so much innovation can be seen; from children making clothes for their dolls out of old, deflated balloons and paper to others setting up stores at the bottom of their gardens.

To my delight, this innovation can also be seen in education as the country tries to understand and support students with dyslexia (my passion).

The whole reason for our journey to Africa this year is for Rhia to speak at a Reading Conference in Gaborone, Botswana (in July). The organizer of the event, Ms. Bonolo Boitshwarelo, is the founder of Lowapi School, an innovative school specializing in teaching literacy to students who struggle with reading and writing because of dyslexia and other challenges. These students leave the public school class sizes of 50-60 students and enter Lowapi School where class sizes are 8-10 students and where there is greater understanding of dyslexia! The school has been operating and growing for the last five years, and Bonolo is working hard to help all the country’s educators and support staff understand these challenges better.

Thus, we visited Lowapi School today. Immediately, you could feel the heart and soul of this special place. To welcome us, the staff sang (an unrehearsed) hymn…in beautiful harmony! It was soulful in a way that I’ve only heard in some African countries and Wales!  In the United States, I have heard a musical artist use samples of African singing in his arrangements, but listening to it in person was exciting. I loved it. It gave me goose pimples/bumps. In two minutes of song, this group managed to convey the spirit of Africa to Dan in a way I’ve not succeeded in 27 years of trying!

One of the things I learned from visiting the classrooms was how polite African students are. I also learned that many of the students have names that are beautiful and meaningful, such as Humility and God granted my prayer. In speaking with the staff we learned that some translations aren’t as meaningful though. For example, one shared that she has a cousin named Furious, and another shared she has an aunt named Anything! I can just imagine how that conversation went…

Husband: What do you want to name her?

Wife (who had just survived a very difficult birth without any pain control medication): I don’t care…name her anything!

It was humbling how much can be done on limited resources when you have a leader with passion and drive and you wonder what could be done with the resources of the Western world. I know that Ms. Bonolo will continue to advocate for students with dyslexia and won’t stop until she has effected change in Botswana. So I have a request: Bonolo is finding it difficult to find sponsors to send teachers to the Reading Conference. The cost is $200 per teacher for the whole conference and I was wondering if anyone visiting this site would like to sponsor (or partially sponsor) a teacher…or know someone who could. Please don’t stop visiting this site if you can’t as I don’t normally make such requests. But if you can, please contact Bonolo directly at: director@lowapi.org

Tomorrow we leave Bonolo’s hospitality and begin our travels. Bonolo is quite worried that we have nothing planned…I told her the rest of you would squeeze together to make room for one more in that boat 😂

...now let’s see what mischief we can get into…