Monday 4-28-14

4-28-14 Monday

                We went to breakfast with the kids in hopes of getting them to eat the breakfast. They ate the porridge for the first time and decided it wasn’t as bad as they thought it would be. We had some also; it was thin and at spots a little gritty, but good still. Good means a different thing here as one might have been able to tell.

                Same basic school stuff as usual; flash cards, attempt at getting chekechea to read, etc.  I did leapfrog letter factory with a small group of chekechea kids in the afternoon. They loved it. I did however have to send Vincent to the wall toward the end of the leapfrog movie; he just wouldn’t stop messing around. During story time I read three books. After each book I would ask the kids if they liked the book “yes teacher”, but when I would ask “what did you like about the book?”, only Jove would answer. Absolute silence from everyone else is what followed.

                 I got to go into std 2 for a while to get a feel of the class and where about they are since when Asa leaves I will be helping to run those classes. Ayla and Jove did great in school today. They both tried to answer questions and participate. The teachers informed Mamaliz that they are very pleased with both Ayla and Jove’s adjustments to going to school. They are now eating, participating, and not crying.

                Yesterday some kids came over and found a baby bird that had fallen out of its nest. They are of a different world and think a baby bird is a toy. And so they would pick it up, pull on the wings and throw it up in the air. We told them to stop and they didn’t. They wouldn’t listen and so we sent them home. The bird ended up dying and Ayla made a small memorial sight with flowers and such. It was very sweet. In school today to needed to get them to understand why that is not okay, Asa picked up the smallest kid in the class and showed them how he is way bigger and stronger. How, if he wanted he could throw the child against the wall. They understood and thought it was funny, but hopefully the lesson sunk in. We read “be nice to spiders” to help with the lesson as well. As soon as we finished reading the book to the Std. 3 kids, we noticed a big brown spider in the corner of the room. We all decided to name it. A few of the kids offered the name ‘blacky’, but when it came to vote, ‘Bibi’ won out. So the classroom spider is named Bibi in honor of Mamaliz.

                When school was finishing up we heard Ayla leading the prayer in her class. She quickly became flustered and a different student took over, but she said she asked if she could. I thought it was sweet.

                After school Asa and I went up to the Monday market to get a few things to be able to make spaghetti for dinner. Since there is a language barrier we got overcharged for some stuff. But that kind of stuff happens since we don’t have a full grasp of the language or the money. While up there in the main part of the village we went to “I Love Stan’s” to pick up the kids uniforms for school. We are so pleased with him. He is learning English from his son Samweli and is very happy about it. It is very nice to see that he is trying so hard to learn and so pleased to pick anything new up.

                We ate pasta twice today, but we eat what is easy to make. For lunch it was a  simple garlic parmesan pasta for lunch and a great spaghetti marinara for dinner. Dr. Sion even brought over some beef that Mama Demoso brought over for him. It made the dinner very nice.

Asa ended the day by sharpening pencils that we brought home from the school. Poor Asa got blisters on his fingers from sharpening so many. What a trooper.

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