Thursday, May 27, 2010

who stole my voice?

so, the stuffy nose has progressed into a congested chest. lovely. this means that my asthma has been acting up as well. of top of that word around here is that 'a monster ate my voice and left me with his' which is kind of what it sounds like. well, it did until this morning. today i have a sqeaky, whispery type voice; not at all condusive to teaching grade 1 and 2 children! praise the Lord tomorrow is Friday and i only have 1/2 a day! now to make it through today.



Happy Birthday Lina!! i'll try and keep my germs to myself today! ;)

Monday, May 24, 2010

toes are useful for many things...

Most of the craziness has passed and things are finally settling into a regular routine. of course because i dared to take a breather i ended up with a throat infection. But i dutifully dosed up on Oil of Oregano and ibuprofen and this morning woke up with only a stuffy nose, which i'm pretty much used to now.

After a couple of paddles and many marches last week, most of the children seem to be remembering the rules and are beginning to buckle down and get their work done. I was beginning to wonder if what would ever happen! There have definatly been some good moments though. I'll share a cute little story that took place this morning in math class. We begin each math class with a "Mad Minute" this means the children are given a sheet of paper with 16 (as they're only in grade 1 and 2) addition questions on it. they have just one minute to answer as many as they can but the most important thing is accuracy. so this morning i looked over and see my youngest grade 1 with his shoe off and his foot on his desk. this is not too unusual for him as he is quite the wiggler and is often sitting in strange positions. however i asked, "what are you doing" to which he innocently replied. "counting!" the question he was stuck on was 9+9 and he had run out of fingers! :) although i had joked with past students about doing this before, i have to admit that this is the first time i've actually seen a student count with their fingers AND toes. :) never a dull moment!

well, the mound of marking is still hanging around so i better get out the red pen and get on it!

just want to add a quick thank you to those who faithfully email me. i AM endeavering to get caught up with replies, i think i finished most of the ones from the first week of MAy. i WILL get to you i promise!!

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

a little bit of whining...

Wow, only a week has past and yet it seems like longer! usually i feel like time is going too quickly but this week definatly dragged on! with michelle away i was quite literally teaching two classes at the same time. although i have done this before, the students never have so they were quite distracted and distracting! the first day back was the only day in which they behaved. sigh.
michelle is supposed to be coming back tonight, which means that i can hand her classes off back to her... maybe we'll get some work done in class this week! today has been especially long as the only break i have had away from the children was from 1-1:30 (rest hour). after supper i stepped into the role of 'girl's dorm mom' as it's the dorm mom's day off and the person who usually takes over was covering for the boys dorm parents as there was a medical emergency (someone from the village) and the dorm mom is also the nurse. thankfully it all sorted itself out while the children were watching their wednesday night video, so i don't have to tuck them all in tonight. i just had to make sure they were clean and changed ready for bed. now i've got some "me" time. and i'm gonna completely ignore the very large mound of marking sitting beside me! i think tonight calls for a large cup of tea and a good book!
good nite all!

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Ready or not...

The first day back went surprisingly well, despite the fact that i didn't really plan a lot of stuff to do. We spent most of our morning going over all the new changes in the room and to our schedule as well as remembering the rules, which of course are the same but seem to be forgotten rather quickly. I somehow managed to be the "lucky one" to have the kids down at the river for 2 hours this afternoon but this time i managed to do it without losing anyone! :D

The rest of this week should be interesting as the other grade 1/2 teacher will be away until next wednesday, which means i will have to somehow manage on my own or plan it all for a substitute either way it looks like i won't be getting my afternoon off, thankfully i get this first weekend off. i'll probably really need it!

well, i have lots of planning and schedule re-arranging to do so i must be off...

Monday, May 10, 2010

Game Drive

We didn't think we were going to be able to go on one, but in the end it all worked out and Crystal's last afternoon in Zambia (Saturday) we went on a game drive at

at first we didn't see much, the animals were shy and hiding in among the trees but eventually our trip paid off. we saw a variety of deer including sable, impala, dik-diks hardibeast (and many i can't remember the names of) we saw one wart hog (which was too fast for me to get a pic of) and just after we were told that we probably wouldn't see any zebra, out they came. they stood nicely and waited to be photographed and even let us get pretty close. we also got pretty close to a huge herd of Sable, they are so majestic looking! we saw one snake, a yellow and black puff adder which slithered away from the ditch beside the pathway. all in all it was a great time! i wish i could put up all my pictures, but i can't, i'll try and get them up on facebook soon, but no promises as facebook has been acting weird lately.

The Last 2 Weeks

The last two weeks have flown by! I've had a great time showing my friend Crstal around and just hanging out with her. We visited the market near Kalene Hospital but unfortunately didn't get to climb Kalene Hill. Crystal has been a great help getting my classroom set up and gave me some great ideas for bulletin boards. I think the best part so far though was our trip to Solwezi. For those of you who know Zambia, Solwezi is not exactly as "tourist trap" infact its quite a dirty little town. Originally we were hoping to go to Livingstone and see Victoria Falls etc. but in the end we realized we had waited to long to make that spontaneous descision, and Lina and I would have to be back at Sakeji before we'd had enough time to really look around. In the end we decided to go to Solwezi because some missionaries from the Congo were heading down that way and we could hitch a ride. The roads are still really bad, worse in fact in some places, however it has now dried out a lot as the rains have pretty much stopped. here are now new 'roads' going around the worst parts of the road. overall it wasn't a bad trip down and Crystal was able to see some of the Zambian countryside. The first day (Monday) we only drove down as far as Mwinilunga. We stopped and checked out a large (and pretty stinky) market where Lina and Crystal bought some yitenge. We were able to find a "guest house" fairly quickly, it was pretty cheap and clean so we decided to stay there for the night. The other missionaries were heading back to Nyongombe for the night. The 3 of us girls amused ourselves playing Dutch Blitz on the front lawn until we realized it was time for supper. We figured it wasn't too far to walk, so we saved ourselves some cab money and walked back to the market where we had seen a fairly new looking restaurant. I have to admit i wasn't at all impressed with the food, but that's probably more because i'm a picky eater then anything else. It was great to be able to drink real pop though :) After walking/stumbling back in the dark to our house (we did have flashlights but it was really dark!) we played a few more card games and called it a night. we had to get up early to catch the bus for Solwezi. The next morning we awoke to find there was no power and no hot water so we dressed and packed by the light of our flashlights. our hostess had called us a cab who came in a not-so-roadworthy car but we managed to make it to the bus stop on time in one piece. the bus was very crowded, some even had to stand in the isle for awhile until people got off. we weren't sure how long it would take to get there we had been told about 4 hours but our driver must have been training for the Indy or something because we made it in just over 3 hours and that was with stops! it didn't take too long to find a cab who once we got to Solwezi, infact we were practically shoved into one. unfortunately this was the worst cab experience i have had here to date. he got us to our hotel, but not without stops, police bribes and detours first; we weren't too impressed. however, once we got to the Royal Solwezi Hotel we didn't let it bother us. The room was really nice, 2 queen sized beds, air conditioning and the most amazing shower! we spent the rest of Tuesday and wednesday shopping, swimming, eating at the hotel restaurant and playing card games etc. basically we had a pretty sweet time relaxing and enjoying each others company. lots of good memories!