Here they are...some of them

Pictures! Yay!

Grade 1 children and my cat - you can figure out which is which... :)










:)

:) ...a Sheepish Post

Hi. Are you still there?

:)

Much has happened since November! Christmas and New Year's were fun but different not being with family and old friends. My digital camera isn't working well so pictures will be coming after I can steal them from housemates. ;)

I've now been teaching grade 1 for 3 weeks and am feeling settled and comfortable in the classroom again. The kids are fun and fairly easy going and I have a helpful teaching assistant. Again..pictures forthcoming...

In other news, I have a cat! He was named Cat until last week when he was officially christened Mister Rodgers. This coming from his original name of Ginger Rodgers - when we thought he was a girl.

He's not.


We've also had many power problems. Yesterday our water was literally charged. Touching faucets or streams of water gave you quite a shock! And when we turned off our water pump, we lost all power! Hmm... not normal, I don't think...

But TANESCO (the only power company) and a fundi came and now it seems to be working! Yay!!

More coming...pictures coming...

Thanks for reading!

:)

License to Drive

I've got it!

I actually gave up after two more trips to the Police station and asked a Tanzanian SIL employee to help out. He took my papers to the appropriate offices and I got my license yesterday.

Yay! I am an official Tanzanian driver.

...and I almost did the whole thing myself....almost.


:)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sadly, Tanzania does not recognize Thanksgiving as a national holiday so I have spent the bulk of this Thanksgiving day working.

Here's a brief recap of what I've done today.

I got up at 5:30 (I know!) and spent about 35 minutes on the roof, just watching the sunrise, praying and listening to music.

I went to school around 7:00 and began the day writing reports for every primary grade for ICT. Not as difficult as it sounds, believe me!

I then had a meeting with the two 12th grade girls who will be helping with yearbook come spring - well, come January. We are holding a yearbook theme contest (any ideas?!?) for the whole school and may 'influence' the nominations just a bit. :)

I also finished some last minute organization of the sports day for my secondary service learning class (see below).

At 8:30 I had my two 5th grade ESL students. We are reading the book "Holes." Really good.

9:30-10:00 was first break. On Mondays and Tuesdays, because of the way my schedule works out, I take lunch with Secondary school from 11-11:30. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I follow the primary schedule and have two 30 minute breaks from 9:30-10:00 and 12:00-12:30.

During break I proofread a newsletter for Delicia, one of my roommates. Check out her blog here: Because He Said Go - Delicia in Tanzania

After first break I took my third grade ESL student and we worked on spelling and vocabulary, the writing process and managed to finish a card he's making for his mother.

I then ran up to the computer lab where Kindergarten met me for an hour of ICT. We would usually do a simple typing program but HOPAC has recently had problems with our server and the kids' programs aren't quite back up to working order yet. So we played games and watched videos on interesting subjects using Encarta. Fun times!

I then ran back to my office to prepare for a visit from 160 kids from a local primary school. Thankfully only 80 actually came but they were late, so we only had about 30 minutes with them instead of the hour we were expecting. Our 6th-8th grade students prepared games and activities for the students. They were amazing! So organized and prepared. I was very impressed. Because of the time constraint all of the local school children weren't able to go to every station but I think they still had a good time. It had rained a little today which meant it was very, very humid and we were all sweating - a lot - but it was still fun.

Then, the most exciting thing! Just as I was typing this blog (it's after school now) my housemate Juli came in with a package for me!!

Thank you Morgan, Nick, Karis and Niko!!!!!!!!

I *love* that there's a book and 'Heroes' and spaghetti sauce packets and M&Ms and pictures and paintings and mail and a note from Karis. I even like that it was padded with newspaper from the LA Times. :) What a fabulous Thanksgiving present!


Thank you so much!


:)

Package!

My wonderful friend, Emily sent me a package which arrived today!
Thanks, Emily, you made my day! :)

:)