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NEVER GIVE UP

On January 12, 2004, Kimani Maruge knocked on the door of the primary school in his village in Kenya. It was the first day of school, and he was ready to start learning. The teacher let him in and gave him a desk. The new student sat down with the rest of the first graders: six- and seven-year-old children. However, Kimani Maruge was not an ordinary first grader. He was 84 years old—the world’s oldest first grader.

FIGHTING TO STAY IN SCHOOL

Kimani Maruge was born in Kenya in 1920. At that time, primary education in Kenya was not free, and Maruge’s family didn’t have enough money to pay for school. When Maruge grew up, he worked hard as a farmer. In the 1950s, he fought with other Kenyans against the British colonists.1 After years of fighting, Kenya became independent in 1963.

In 2003, the Kenyan government began offering free primary education to everyone, and Maruge wanted an education, too. However, it wasn’t always easy for him to attend school. Many of the first graders’ parents didn’t want an old man in their children’s class. School officials2 said that a primary education was only for children. But the school principal,3 Jane Obinchu, believed Maruge was right. With her help, he was able to stay in school.

Maruge was a motivated and successful student. While in primary school, he studied Swahili,4 English, and math. He did well in these subjects. In fact, he was one of the top five students in his first grade class. By the second grade,

Maruge became the school’s student leader. And even though life was sometimes difficult, Maruge stayed in school until the seventh grade.In 2008, Maruge had to move to a refugee camp because of fighting in his village. However, even during those difficult times he continued to go to school. Later that year, he moved to a home for the elderly. Some of the residents of the home were illiterate, and Maruge taught them to read and write. He also continued going to school.
INSPIRED 5 TO LEARN

In 2005, Maruge flew in a plane for the first time in his life. He traveled to New York City, where he gave a speech at the United Nations. He spoke about the importance of education and asked for help to educate the people of Kenya. Maruge also wanted to improve primary education for children in Africa.

Maruge died in 2009 at age 89, but his story continues to inspire many people. The 2010 movie The First Grader showed Maruge’s amazing fight to get an education. After watching the movie, many older Kenyans decided to start school. One of those people was 19-year-old Thoma Litei. Litei said, “I knew it was not too late. I wanted to read, and to know more language, so I came [to school] to learn. That is why it is important for his story to be known.

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2 years ago | [YT] | 1

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What happens in a single day on planet Earth? In 2010, a team led by film director Kevin Macdonald tried to find out. The team asked people around the world to film their life on a single day—July 24—and to send in their videos. As a result, people uploaded 80,000 videos to YouTube—a total of more than 4,500 hours. The videos were sent by people from 192 countries, from Australia to Zambia. Macdonald’s team used the videos to produce a 90-minute movie called Life in a Day.
The movie begins as most days begin. People wake up, get dressed, wash their faces,and brush their teeth.Parents take care oftheir children. People laugh and cry. As the day goes on, we see changes in people’s lives. A man thanks the hospital workers who helped save his life. A woman learns that she is pregnant.1 A man calls his mother and asks, “What should I say to the woman I love?
Macdonald understood that what may be normal to one person may be extraordinary to another. For example, the movie shows cultural differences in the different ways that people travel to work. Macdonald explains, “What we might see as banal, living in our own culture, is not banal to somebody growing up in Dakar.”
2Macdonald’s team also asked people the following questions: “What do you love most in the world, and what do you fear?” People speak of their love for family and friends, of football and fast cars, a pet cat, or even a refrigerator. Children speak of being scared of imaginary monsters3 and of real-life lions. Some Ukrainian farmers worry that wolves are going to eat their goats. People around the world talk about their fear of guns, of war, and of the loss of natural beauty.
Macdonald says that Life in a Day was possible because of the way we are all connected. “The film is doing something that [was not] possible pre-Internet … The idea that you can ask thousands, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people all to contribute to a project and all to communicate about it and learn about it at the same time.”

One of the people in the movie is a Korean cyclist named Okhwan Yoon. After traveling alone for nine years through 190 countries, he arrived on July 24 in Kathmandu, Nepal. “When I close my eyes,” he says, “I can see all the different people in the world, from town to town, from country to country. I can feel it. I can touch it. I can see it.” The Life in a Day team hopes that, after watching the movie, others may feel the same way.

2 years ago | [YT] | 2

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What does an iguana look like? An iguana is quite a large lizard; its body length is on average 2 meters (7 feet), with a weight of 5 to 9 kg (11-19 pounds). Although, some iguanas are smaller. For example, the blue spiny iguana has a body length of 30 cm (0,98 feet).

Like other lizards, all iguanas have scaly skin. The scaly skin depends on the type of iguana and can have different sizes and colors. Like chameleons, iguanas can change their color, though they do this not so easily and naturally as chameleons. An iguana’s color depends on the ambient temperature; if it is colder, the iguana darkens. On the contrary, as the temperature rises, the iguana becomes brighter

Different species of iguanas have different colors. Usually, the color scheme for them is created by nature in such a way as to mix in with the surrounding landscape, so iguanas living in the jungle are usually green, with all possible shades of green.

How to distinguish an iguana from other lizards? Indeed the iguana similar to other representatives of this vast zoological family. A characteristic feature of the iguana is the presence of a prickly ridge on its spine. This prickly ridge serves not only for beauty but also for protection.perature rises, the iguana becomes brighter.

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This man has dark .......................

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