April 9 "Work Day Saturday"

9:00 hours came way too quickly this morning, but that’s when we had to be ready for our teacher training number two, although we knew that we wouldn’t be starting until 9:30. Well, we actually didn’t start until 9:45, but that’s Zambian time frames for ya! So T and I planned our Easter Retreat lesson while waiting to start TT2. It was a small group this morning, really small, like three, but it was very interactive and a lot of fun. We had a good group. In our two and a half hours we jammed packed the time by talking about educational games, character education through academics and behavior, anticipatory sets, and no opt out. It was a busy time! The teachers were coming up with examples for their own classrooms and getting really into it; I was impressed! They all said they enjoyed their time too, so hopefully word will spread and our final training session at the end of the month will be even better.

The rest of the day was nothing special. We actually ended up working most of the day unfortunately….We did normal Saturday things like laundry and making grilled cheese for lunch been then got down to business. No time to reflect upon the training as we have a limited amount of time before leaving for a week and a half! We planned our Easter Retreat lesson which includes a story, acting, a game board, singing, and creating a vase/candle holder. The fun part of the afternoon was practicing the craft. J Next, it was time to battle with my telephone yet again. I tried unsuccessfully for ages to call Malawi. Who would have thought that calling the US to reach my bank would be much easier than calling Malawi next door? Eventually the person I was trying to reach called me, and everything worked out. J After that, we continued the streak and hit the next item on the to do list: reconcile all the expenses we’ve made here. Now, we’ve been keeping an extensive spreadsheet for the past two months, but it seems there were some questions, so T and I looked to rectify the situation. Many moons later (I don’t want to admit how long we crunched numbers. It’s sad. It was like allllll day), the situation isn’t fixed, but definitely a lot better.

We took a break from the mentally exhausting task to grab some grub around 8 pm—we had found POPCORN at the store last time we were there. Hallelujah! We ventured over by D&D too to borrow books for our journey and snag some Easter Retreat lesson materials. Afterwards there was more number crunching and some quick emails before leaving. The last work related tasks of the night (before packing that is) were to straighten up all our school supplies which had made their way all over the living room and to type up and send all the pen pal letters to the States. By this time it’s past 11 pm and I haven’t thought about packing yet, and our ride to the bus stop leaves at 4 am. I’m going to attempt to stay up all night (packing, reading, skyping, and movies will hopefully help!) so that I can hopefully sleep on the TWELVE HOUR BUS RIDE tomorrow to Malawi. Ugh. Wish me luck! I hope we arrive in one piece!