First week & 1/2 of school... done!

Wow, it’s been ages since I’ve blogged; in fact I’m behind in all my correspondence (nothing new there tho).
School has been underway for about a week and ½ now and things are going relatively smoothly which is very nice! Erika (one of the ‘new girls’) has been a tremendous help as she’s in my classroom most of the day. I’m not sure how I’ll survive when she goes home! It’s nice to have an extra pair of hands and eyes helping out and she’s great with the kids!
My students are finally back in to the school routine (mostly) and I was pleasantly surprised over the progress some of them had made over the school break. Obviously some of their parents took my report card remarks seriously, which is nice to know. :) The little girl who I was the most worried about is doing a little better, her reading is really coming along. But she still struggles with working independently. This is ok at the moment as I have help, but when Erika leaves she’ll have to learn that the work needs to get done even if I’m not sitting beside her nagging!
Last weekend I ‘shadowed’ Vickie in the kitchen trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do when It’s my weekend ‘on duty’. Thankfully it’s not overly involved really. This weekend is my first weekend on duty and so far it’s gone well. I didn’t even screw up the cookie dough this morning :) In about 15 minutes I have to go slice the roasts (not my fav job) so hopefully I won’t have any major problems there! My biggest issue is the amt of time it takes as I have to cut it all by hand an d my hand starts cramping after about 20 mins! Oh well, that’s life I guess.
Not too much else to report at this time. I’m a little jealous of all the Canadians who get the day off tomorrow (Victoria Day) I just can’t convince them here that it should be a stat holiday… even if it was, we ‘d still have 70+ kids to supervise. :P
Must go… the roasts await!

Catching up...

I am sorry for being so remiss in writing. I’ve had some trouble again trying to get the website to publish my blog which is most annoying! I believe the last time I wrote I was in Lusaka. Since then I have (obviously) arrived back home to Sakeji safely but not without difficulties on the way home. My three biggest issues were that I had somehow picked up a tummy bug the day before we left which did not make for a comfortable 2 day trip. On top of that the Police had their little stops EVERYWHERE and Lina and I were hauled over a few times. I received a fine for having “the wrong plates” on my vehicle; no amt of (polite) arguing would convince them not to give me one. So I paid the K180,000 (about US $40). The last annoying thing was that we weren’t able to take our driving tests as the guy decided not to do testing on that day! This bothered Lina more than me as I wasn’t feeling well enough to do it anyhow but it was still irritating. After we left the tarmac I got stuck in a massive very muddy puddle but were able to get ourselves out with prayer and determination!
Since arriving home I took some more time to just relax and enjoy the break before I got back into my classroom and started rearranging furniture and bulletin boards. I still have two rather huge bulletin boards to do and am hoping some wonderful inspiration hits me today (Monday) as the students come back tomorrow!
The Brass Tacks team has done a great job with our new dining hall so far; the walls are coming up nicely. They’ll continue with this until about August with different groups coming to work on the various aspects of it. I keep forgetting to take pictures of the work (sorry Dad) but will try and remember to get some this week which I will post on Facebook as I can’t seem to put pictures up here. (there are pictures from my trip on facebook already).
Next term seems to be getting all sorted out which is good as classes start up on Wednesday (1/2 day). Friday we had our teacher’s meeting and then yesterday was our first staff meeting of the term. Both seemed to go rather well. 2 big changes: 1) We have three new ‘short termers’ now who arrived yesterday just in time for the meeting 2) with Bethany on furlough I’ll be ‘supervising’ in the kitchen every other weekend. I’m a little nervous about this but more worried about the early morning on Sunday as I have to be in the kitchen well before breakfast; thankfully it’s an hour later on Sundays!
The three girls who came all seem pretty cool (and I’m not just writing that because they told me the read my blog!) and willing to help wherever needed which is always awesome! I’ve already put in my requests for times I’d like help in class, now I just have to wait and see how lucky I am. :)
Well that’s all for now, I probably won’t write again until after school has started. Happy (belated) Mother’s Day to all you Mom’s out there but especially to my Mom and Grandmas! :)