We’re alive! J I woke up early to turn on the water heater light, glad that the inswa attack was done…for the night. I’m sure it’ll happen again. But as I woke up early and couldn’t fall back asleep, I once again visited the carnage of the flies in the living room and peered outside to see if any monkeys were eating the maize. I have yet to see a monkey do that here, but apparently they do it most mornings around 4 or 5, so I thought I’d try it. Fail. Anyway, after falling back asleep, I decided to ditch the run this morning because I knew it would be REALLY muddy. T and I pondered what we were going to do if it was pouring, since we tutor outside, but luckily, we didn’t have to answer that question today. For our morning session, the skies were clear. While we taught English in the church, that’s when it rained. When we returned to the guest house after classes, Mrs. A was sweeping up the remains of HUNDREDS of the inswa wings outside that were on our front step. Mr D&D was here fixing T’s light switch and was telling us that the locals here eat the inswa. I didn’t believe it, but it’s true! I guess these weren’t big enough to eat, otherwise we might have gotten to try those….All the rain and mud has caused many a frog to hop outside our door. The smallest are as big as your pinky fingernail! And I may or may not have kissed three of them today, but no handsome prince appeared. Shucks. Anyway….let me tell you about my students, as I haven’t done that yet! For M/W morning tutoring I have D&O, two boys who like to joke around, but they know I mean business when it comes to English class! Meanwhile, T teaches M&V—both girls—our lower group. On T/TH mornings, we flip flop groups and I have the lower level students while she has the older ones. I have R&J who are in third grade. They are shy boys, but really fun. J T, meanwhile, teaches J&E, our higher level girls. On T/Th afternoons, we team teach our bigger group of M/T/G/B, all girls, who are a bit higher level and grades than the morning groups. After their sessions, I work with A, a cute little second grade girl, on her letters and reading, while T works with M&M, our two high school girls. We have so many sessions because of the different levels of the students, when they attend school, and for management purposes. I have found it a struggle to manage the children at times because they get so excited and don’t always know what I’m saying when I ask them to do something. They know when they do something good and something bad, but that’s about it. I realize I need to have a lot of patience with them , especially because of the language barrier. Speaking of patience, that brings me to preschool, where I see 13 smiling faces stare at me. Man, I have had kids standing in the back for the past three class periods! Hitting is unacceptable in preschool or anywhere. I think I caught them off guard when M, one of the girls, wasn’t coming to me when I asked more than once and I bust out “Bwera Kuno” aka come here. That got them listening! And this time I even got them to apologize….in English. The preschoolers get so excited when we are they; they know we have fun chants and songs for them to learn along with their letters and numbers. I love seeing their excitement for learning! Today we even taught them to say thank you when you receive your crayons. After a rousing game of duck duck goose, preschool was done for the day. Sadness. Did I ever tell you why I feel like I live in Biblical times? Well, my feet are constantly getting dirty here, so I tend to watch them more than once today. Today’s nemesis? Mud. After cleansing my feet, I headed outside to hang with the kids again. They went nuts over my camera. And they all wanted to impress me, so they began singing “King of Kings” and “I just want to be a sheep” which we taught them last week. LOVE IT! J I’m gonna miss them so much…..Lastly, our ladies. We have them in two groups currently. I work with the upper group, or N/S/E for reading our novel and conversation time. I teach the actual lesson on our topics to the lower group: O/F/J/D/J/V. They’re all lovely ladies and I love seeing them bring their littlest children every day. Alright, those are my students. Don’t you feel like you know them? After school it was time for….wait for it…..lesson planning! You guessed it! M/W nights have less lesson planning than the other nights, so that was helpful. T and I took a brief walk around campus before our dinner of nshima, potatoes, pumpkin leaves, and beef with gravy. Afterwards, we finished the night with lesson planning, watching Antz (great movie, you should watch it), taking silly pictures, and dancing to songs on our touches. Lots of fun. J
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