Our travels to Berega Tanzania for Hands4Africa: May 2014

Friday, May 30, 2014

Friday 5-30-14

Our morning went well. I made apple cinnamon oatmeal, but Jove chose to have just an apple with cinnamon and sugar on it. Apparently oatmeal is yucky now. He can be such a silly boy. Thank you Mamaliz for picking up the apples from Dar, they were really good. I still wasn’t feeling well, so I tried to relax as much as I could before school. I couldn’t even get a cup of coffee down, which always means the day will be long. I went through the midterms to see what I wanted to do our testing on today. I managed to pick a few things and wrote them down to try to make things a little easier on myself once at school.

The kids and I got to school right on time. We would have been there sooner, but internet came back on right as we were getting ready to leave, so I wanted to check emails and messages first. I had the kids help move in a few extra desks so we had enough room to spread out. I had std2 and std3 together for testing, so 24 kids all to myself. We chose teams and I got everything set up. I was so busy that the day ended up going by very quickly. The teachers doing the std1 testing finished twenty minutes early. I let them know they were done very early, then I went on and continued with our testing. Well, I guess I chose something that took too long to correct, because I ended up in a frenzy at the end trying to get all the papers corrected, scores recorded, then the totals figured out. I didn’t want any of the kids to go to lunch late, so I had one of our students that is very good at math help me start the totals while I was finishing up correcting the papers. I let them know who the winner was and they came up to get their prize of a plastic egg with a few jelly beans inside.

After we cleaned up the room a little, the kids and I went home. We were only there a short while then we went for a walk down to the duka so the kids could buy something with their money they have earned. They each chose to buy two suckers and a half cake. I got a half cake as well because they were just so fresh and hot. I still had to make myself eat it since I wasn’t feeling well, but it was worth it. I do so love half cake nice and hot like that. No donut is better. We walked down the path and bought some bananas from a nice older man. Then it was back up to the house. The next few hours were spent me curled up on the couch reading my book while the kids played outside. Samweli kept coming inside to check on me then tell me “Sorry teacher”. He is such a sweet boy. He calls me Mommy now.

Ayla and Jove found a few animal friends today. Well, I found one. I was laying on the couch trying to rest and out of the corner of my eye I see movement on the pillow next to me. I jumped a little. It was only a little inch worm going crazy. I called the kids over and Jove picked it up. He went to find something to put it in and he yelled then came over to say he found a big scary bug. Turns out he found some kind of African praying mantis. How cool is that? He let it crawl all over his shirt. Then they decided to put it with the worm. The mantis immediately started attacking the worm. The kids decided the mantis was mean and they needed to take care of the worm. They are too goofy sometimes. But they released the mantis and true to their word, they took care of the worm. They found a nice grassy spot away from foot traffic and made the worm a nice ‘bed’. I love when they are like this.

Farida came by to see if we could do math. I let her know that I was sick, but I would make some flash cards to help her. So I ended up putting my book away and decided to make up the flash cards. I figured that making them up would be more fun with a movie, so I put on Lord of the Rings. It wasn’t long before Ayla, Jove, and Samweli were all snuggled up next to me watching the movie also. Ayla tried to explain to Samweli the movie is about a ring. He kept pointing out when there would be a bad guy or a very bad man. It was funny. I finished the flashcards and like the way they turned out. She is having trouble grasping division. She does fine with multiplication and I have tried to explain that it is basically the same thing, but she just can’t get it. So, on the flashcards I have in long division form a problem. Then below that I have the same problem written with the division symbol using the line and dots. Finally below that I turned the problem into a multiplication problem with unknown. (5 X __ =25). I really hope that it helps her. She gets so embarrassed because she is the only one in the class that is having a hard time with that. It is because she was in Std2 and was doing so well she got bumped up a level. These kids are just so competitive that she wants to be just as good if not better than all the rest of them.

I made beans, greens, and rice for dinner. I know how much the kids love it and I thought it might be something I could eat. It turned out very good and I ate two bowls without issue, so I was happy.

I got the kids cleaned up and read to them while they were in the tub again. We are now reading Beverly Cleary “Sox”. Two chapters and an hour later, I tucked the kids into bed. Every night Ayla has such a hard time just going to bed. I will give her kisses and all that and for the next half hour it is always “mommy, when you are done with your journal can you come give me another kiss?”, “mommy, I need water.”, “mommy, I love you goodnight, see you in the morning, have a good night.” The last one will be repeated every thirty seconds to minute until I finally end up snapping at her to just go to bed. She is just so sweet it can drive a mommy crazy J

Now it is time to see if the hot water in the shower is going to be nice to me. Hopefully it will be. A nice hot shower may help me feel a little better. Then it is off to bed. I don’t even think I can get any reading done tonight. I am just beat.

Thursday 5-29-14

I woke up with the roosters, as usual. I was worried about going to bed without an alarm clock since it is all on me to get to school on time, but apparently one cannot sleep in here, so all was okay. The kids were up just a moment after me. They were thrilled when they learned that they could stay home until I went to school again. They even used the time to do homework type things. Jove practiced his letters and Ayla practiced her addition and subtraction with borrowing and carrying. I am very proud of them. I tried using the morning to finish my journal from yesterday. I was so tired that last night I only wrote bullet points down, and I wanted to turn that into a proper journal entry today. The kids, although using the time to learn, also pestered every few seconds, making it difficult to write. But I got it done and we all had a good morning, so I suppose that is all that counts.

The first portion of the morning was good. Again, Robert in std.1 gave me a hard time. He didn’t do his homework because someone stole his notebook, so I gave him some paper enough for the day to do the work and to write his old homework and his new homework so he could do it in the notebook he had at his house. Later in the day, his notebook showed up in the chekechea (preschool). Either way, he still had to do the new homework for letting his notebook get taken. We got through a decent amount of material and before I knew it, it was time to go to std.3. We did English in there today and the kids did pretty well with it. I love doing our word recognition sheets with them. They are really getting the hang of how things are pronounced. That class is even getting the difference between ‘r’ and ‘l’. I love having them say things like parallel. It is cruel, but fun, and they enjoy it also.

At lunchtime, I gave the kids big love, and then went home. Logan came as well; he didn’t want to go to the lunchroom again today with the kids. But he did go yesterday when Ayla and Jove asked if he could. I made pretty much the same lunch as yesterday because it was so tasty. I tried to talk with Asa, but he wasn’t on, and the power was off. They had the generator on for the office, so I was able to have internet for that little while, but not now and my battery will not last very long as I write this. It was almost time to leave for school and I remembered that we were almost out of bread. So, I got some dough ready so it could rise while we were at school.

Back to school for std.2, I always have fun with this class, but today many of them were not listening and I was not feeling well, so I very much looked forward to the end of the day. The end of class finally came and we went to the house to start our after school lessons with the few students. We did that quickly and we were off. Logan was going to go pass out pictures with Samweli (that turned out to be a bust because most of the people live farther away and we will have to do that on a weekend when we all have more time). I had to go visit Stan at ‘I love Stan’s’. I had some fabric for Stan so that he could make me a few skirts and make Jove another two shirts and Ayla another two skirts. He said it would only be three weeks, that way I could take them all home with us instead of giving them to Mamaliz to give to us at a later point. I am very excited to see how they turn out. One will be Tanzanian style and the other will be more hippy flowing, basically the kind of skirts I already have, but with a new pretty fabric.

After Stan did his measurements of me the kids and I went to Bismillah and got some dinner of rice, beans, and goat. They were thrilled and I even let them each get a soda. What could be better than that in the eyes of my children? J

We then came home and I gathered laundry from the line so I could hang it up around the house to finish drying. It looked like we might get rain tonight. There is still no power, but luckily we do have a solar light in the living room. The kids played for a while, but when it started to get dark I had them come in.

Abdullah stopped by to bring the few things I had Mamaliz pick up for me in Dar. I let him know that I wanted to take the kids to Mikumi again before we leave and he seemed very excited about it. The kids just ate some apples since we now have those. I have a feeling they will not last too long. Jove really loves his fruit and we can only get the apples in Dar es Salaam which is a five hour drive away.

I currently have bread in the oven baking so we will continue being able to eat sandwiches and toast, but that is about the plan for the rest of the evening. Get the kids bathed. It is an absolute must do every night with how dirty everything is here. Then I borrowed a book from the school library so I could read it to the kids. Katope, the story of the boy that was made of brown earth. Mamaliz said it was a good book and the kids seem pretty excited.

And right as I finish writing this, the power came back on. Very nice, very nice, now I don’t have to bathe the kids in a dark bathroom or a barely lit kitchen. Yay.

UPDATE: I read Katope to the kids while they were in the bath and the story was about heeding the warnings of mothers. At the end of the book, Katope didn’t listen to his mother and he got rained on, which caused him to melt into mud. Both kids said “poor Katope!”. I then tapped them on the head with the book and said “That is why you always listen to mommies because mommies know best.” Jove’s reply was, but daddies know better. Oh my boy. How cute you can be!

Wednesday 5-28-14

I had a very hard time sleeping last night. It was about one in the morning when I finally fell asleep, then of course I woke up way before I needed to. But I got up, spent a little time with Mamaliz when it was quiet, then I got the kids off and we all saw mom off. Anne and David came by to give her a hug and say safari njema (good travels).

I let the kids stay home for the morning. I figure with all the extra work I knew would be having, I won’t be able to play with the kids as much or give them quite as much attention as they are used to. So we will have more time in the morning. They got to relax take their time, and even watch a little of a favorite movie (teen beach movie) instead of get ready in thirty minutes and get out the door.

My morning classes went great. For the most part the kids were listening. I did have a few students that needed to do sentences as homework for me. One such student, Robert, just would pay attention in class, then he tried to cheat off of another kid’s paper. And the kid he was cheating off is one that isn’t the brightest in the class. Leonard is the sweetest kid, but he is a dope, which makes Robert an even bigger dope for cheating off of him. So Robert ended up with 100 sentences of “I will not cheat” and 200 of “I will pay attention in class”. That one went from one hundred to two hundred because he was trying to do his homework in class. I told him once not to do it, that homework is for him to do at home, then he tried to do it again, then lied about it. Silly kid, as if I wouldn’t know. I am already adopting the “I am the Queen” statement that mom used to tell them. They seem to listen better when I say that. I told them in the beginning, before Mamaliz left that when she wasn’t at the school and it was just me, that I was the Queen and when we are both at the school, then she is the Big Queen and I am the Little Queen.

Std3 was finished and we accomplished a decent amount in the little bit of time we have for that class. I grabbed my things and went out of the classrooms to give the kids some hugs and kisses before they went over to lunch. There were going to have their ugali, beans, and greens, so they were both excited. I got outside and everyone had already gone over to the lunch building. I felt horrible. I guess I took so long finishing the class up that I didn’t get to see the kids before they went for lunch.

My lunch break was a much needed relaxing time. I talked to Asa on the computer which I always need. He helped me to be brave enough to tell my parents about Mamaliz leaving. I was very worried about this, but I didn’t want to lie to them. He always helps me see how strong I can be in so many different situations. I don’t know why I doubt myself so much, but I know I am a very lucky woman to have a husband that loves me so much that he is always there to let me know when I am not giving myself enough credit. Whist talking with him I enjoyed a cheese and mustard sandwich on homemade thick cut white bread with tomatoes on the side and a nice cup of chai. It was a very good lunch. I even got to upload my blogs onto Facebook since internet was working enough. It has been a week since that had happened, so it was nice to finally be able to update everyone.

I went back to school a few minutes early so that I could be able to see the kids before they went back into school. I gave them big loves. Std.2 went well, we made our way through a few topics and found out a couple of the areas that we will have to continue working on before the midterm. But it was nice that all three of my classes went well on my first day. It helped a lot with the stress level I was having before. My pencil and eraser monitors all kept track of the number there should be in each classroom canister. Crazy how all of a sudden when the kids are in charge, the pencils and erasers stop going missing. I have a feeling it was one of the teachers. But the kids are doing a great job, hopefully it continues otherwise we will have to have their parents start to buy the pencils and erasers once again.

We went home after school and I jumped into after school tutoring with some of the kids with Logan’s help. We had our four that Mamaliz wanted us to try to continue with, but then two others joined the list and they do need the help, so I didn’t want to deny them. I did finally have to tell everyone else no and to the few girls that need/want help in math that we would have to try on another day. It was 5-5:30 before we were all the way done, that is just too long of a day. I was able to talk to Mamaliz a little about it and she let me know to tell the girls to chill out and that they are just fine in their math skills, they don’t need to be perfect.

I got the kids a simple dinner. I asked them what they wanted. Jove ended up eating three bananas, a slice of cheese, and two pieces of bread, one with Nutella and one with peanut butter. Oh and he drank some tuna juice (gross kid). Ayla had tuna in a bowl, some bread, and cheese. She is a much more normal child. They ate their dinner pretty quickly then went outside to play with all the kids. Luckily most of the kids ended up going just a little away from the house to this hill Ayla and Jove call the mountain. It is a big hill and they love to slide down the kill on their butts, sometimes on some pieces of wood, as if the wood were a sled. I love how anything can be a toy here.

While the kids played, I decided to make up some cookies and I even cleaned the house a little.

Anne from next door came over to invite us over for lunch on Sunday. It was very nice. My opinion of her has completely changed. She is so very nice, even if she was politely rude to Mamaliz on a previous visit. She said all her company will be gone by then and so it would just be like hanging out with a grandma and grandpa. It was sweet. The kind gesture nearly made me cry. It is because of them that I still feel safe being here with Mamaliz gone. I have English speakers right next door that have been here many times and know the ropes (even though I basically know all I need to know also). I know that if anything happened they could help me.

Ayla wasn’t able to finish her tuna so I had the other half of that with a few crackers and after the cookies were done I had one of those. I was just too tired to cook anything else. I am going to continue trying to keep up this pace for the next week, but if I can’t I will have to cut down on some of the after school tutoring. I just hate to do that because so many of them need it and are trying. I want them all to do so well.

I talked to Asa some more while kids were outside playing and I was baking. I have to say, I love this whole internet working thing. It is quite nice when things work they way they are supposed to.

I got the kids bathed and ready for bed, then Logan came back over to get his phone from the charger (not many places have power here, but we are lucky enough to have it in the house). The kids were telling him about Jove’s long hair and how he wears skirts at home and they wanted to show him a picture. So I pulled up my Facebook pictures and found a few to show him. He ended up staying and looking at quite a few pictures with us. I know it was good for me to see pictures of home and everything. It really seemed like it was good for the kids too. They got to show off their pets, and yard and everything back home. Logan even seemed to enjoy it. He could not get over Asa’s beard. He just kept saying how jealous he was. At first he wouldn’t believe me that it was his real beard. It was funny. He said that sometimes being in a place like Africa, it is just nice to see the pictures of the life you are normally used to. I agree. It was very soothing. I may make that a normal practice so long as there is internet. Just look through my photos. Now, I need to go to sleep because I haven’t had nearly enough over the past few days and I still need to shower.

If I can continue to do all of this stuff, this next month is going to fly by. I was so busy today, but I had such a great day teaching those kids. Knowing that it was just me in there, no matter what I wanted to teach them today, I could. It was a very freeing thought. I settled for simply beginning our review of materials that will be on the midterm next month. I want to see what we will need to focus on. Lots of greater than and less than, some rounding to nearest tens, and even some ‘when to use ‘a’ and when to use ‘an’ and when you can’t use either’. The day was very long, but it really was a great day. I am very pleased that I got brave enough to accept this. Especially since it would have been difficult and costly to do otherwise J

Tuesday 5-27-14

Much and more has happened since the last entry. It was a rough night last night. We had some news that my brother in law and my own brother are both having some pretty bad issues. Mamaliz is needed and is going to Hawaii to try to help Louie through some personal issues. So I was faced with the idea of doing the next month without her. I will be here in Africa with the kids. And she will not be back again most likely until after we are gone. The idea of this scared me because of my anxiety. I don’t like being on my own, I get something similar to cabin fever when I am unable to speak to another adult. I have plenty kids here to talk with, but very often no adult seeing that there are only a few that speak English here. I decided that because I wanted to go home so badly for missing Asa and my dog, I needed to stay. With Mamaliz leaving, I know that if I did figure out a way to go home at the same time, there would be no way I would ever forgive myself for abandoning these kids during a time they needed me to teach them most. And lastly, I am always telling my own children how important it is to follow something through even when they get scared or overwhelmed from not knowing. I cannot tell them that and when I am faced with a situation that scares me and not thinking I can do it turn my tail and run. So there that is. I will, for the next month be the head teacher of St. Mary’s School in Berega. I never saw that happening in my life, but this will be a great opportunity for me to see how I do. I would love to replicate what they have accomplished with this school in South America. I can really see us doing something like that.

We went to school and did all of our stuff there as usual. Mamaliz said her goodbyes and explained to the kids that her son was sick and she needed to go back to America to help and be by his side. In std.3 I had the kids write goodbye letters in their journal and many of them decided to write letters to Louie also and told him how they would be praying to god for him to get better. It was very sweet. A few even brought up maybe bringing him and Teacher Asa back with her when she comes back because they would love to meet Louie and have him teach them, and they miss Teacher Asa so much.

We got home and Mamaliz went into some packing while I went over the exams for all three classes a little and chatted with Asa since our internet was working. We had some visitors often for coffee or tea through the day so they could say goodbye to Mamaliz. I began working on dinner which I decided would be spaghetti marinara since I had a crazy amount of tomatoes. Right after I finished cooking the noodles, I noticed that the kids were all up front having a little dance party. Hannah and Dr. Chris had put their music on a loud speaker and the kids were having a blast. I quickly drained my noodles and went outside with my small camcorder and a camera to get some on film. We had Ayla and Jove, the few adults, our school kids, and even some village kids. The village kids were a little confused and a few of our school kids were shy at first, but as it got darker the moves started coming out. I had so much fun watching them and dancing with them occasionally. I really needed it. I went back inside to finish getting dinner situated and realized that since I didn’t stir the noodles around at all as they dried a little, they became a massive soggy lump of nasty. So I had to make new, but that just means that some lucky dog gets fed tonight. Hamna Shida!

I got dinner finished up and we decided it had been dark for twenty minutes so the dance party needed to end otherwise we would get eaten alive by mosquitoes. Dinner was very good. I got the kids fed, then Mamaliz gave them a few Oreos that Teacher Logan was nice enough to bring her from California. Then Teacher Logan even cut them up some mango. They were just so pleased. Bath time, brush teeth, story then in to bed with them, and only an hour later than normal. Lucky little buggers got to stay up until 9:00. That never happens.

Mamaliz still had some visitors after the kids went to bed, so I waited and semi visited, but once they left, I had Mamaliz help me write up the areas that need to be on the Std.3 midterm exams since I will be administering those next month. We got that all figured out and found the areas that need to be changed on the other classes exams and I am now feeling much better about being left in charge. I do very well if I have a game plan, but without a plan I get lost, and when I get lost my anxiety takes over. But as stated, I feel much better now and although I still wish she were staying, I can actually say I am a little excited to have my own class. It is crazy that last night I cried myself to sleep, actually crying a lot, and now I am going to sleep feeling renewed and brave. Thank you Asa for constantly telling me that I can accomplish so much more than I realize, I really needed you to say that over and over this time I guess. You truly are my rock. I know I can do all these things, I suppose I am still afraid sometimes to let myself believe that I have grown up that much and become so much my own person. I am no longer a little kid anymore. I am almost thirty and I am in Africa teaching kids. How many people can say that?

But the exams are now written, I have gotten the blog written and I am up three hours past the point I enjoy going to bed. Bathing might just wait until tomorrow morning. I need some sleep.

Monday 5-26-14

I was very tired when it was time to wake up today. There were two mosquitoes trapped in my bug net last night. Somewhere in the early morning I did manage to kill one of them against my face. It was a natural reaction, but because of this I slapped myself in the cheek pretty hard. Oh well, I got the little bugger. The other one though kept me awake the rest of the night.

Time to wake up finally came. I managed to get the kids a piece of the trail mix bread toasted up in a pan with butter and even cooked up an egg for each of them. We came across the first bad egg in the ones we have had so far. There was no blood or chicken in it, but when it was frying, all of a sudden the yolk exploded and steam and clear fluid came out. Yup, that one went to outside to the dogs. Disturbing enough, it was the chickens that came along and ate it first.

The kids went off to school and Teacher Logan showed up for some tea. We relaxed and enjoyed the few moments of internet that came on to surprise us. As ever, even when there is internet, it is barely there and I had a hard time getting any messages out.

We went off to school. In std1 I rearranged the tables a little so that the kids would have more space to work on the blackboards that we have surrounding the whole room. We practiced our math flashcards and our word recognition sheets, and then we went into reviewing nouns and the difference between a common noun and a proper noun. We went over verbs a little and even introduced the future tense. I was very pleased at how the kids did. Even the ones that don’t understand most things, they at least seemed to grasp this concept.

I had to go into std3 late because Jove was throwing a fit outside. He got overwhelmed with Teacher Logan because Jove just couldn’t understand the math. If anything, Jove hates not being able to do something. Teacher Logan had no idea what to do with him, so I went out to try to talk to him. He just couldn’t calm down. I thought I was going to have to take him home and make him spend the day in his bed. I ended up telling him he could have one more chance to calm himself down but if I heard the high pitch whining I was going to come back out of the classroom and take him home. I went back to helping in std3 and next time I looked out the window I saw that Jove had fallen asleep outside on the bench. After about 20 minutes of napping, he fell off the bench and woke up with a little cry. He calmed himself down and went inside his class to listen to Teacher Logan read a story. I was very happy I didn’t have to drag him home. That would have just been unpleasant.

We came home for lunch and luckily the leftover veggie soup stuff was still okay even though the fridge is broken down again. I heated that up and ate a bowl then quickly fell asleep on the couch. Mamaliz left me there to sleep since apparently I needed the sleep. I got to sleep for a few hours and then by that time it was just about time for school to get out.

Samweli and Farida took Logan and I up to the Monday Market. I didn’t need much but I did need more tomatoes, bananas, and greens. I found everything I needed and I was even able to find each of the kids a throw blanket. They were the same blankets that I almost got in Morogoro. The only difference was that in Morogoro they wanted 30,000 tsh and here they were only 5,000 tsh. I was very pleased that when in Morogoro there was only the one causing me to not buy them.

Once back at the house I attempted at messaging with Asa, but the internet just didn’t want to cooperate, so another day without getting to talk to my husband. This is getting really old. I decided to distract myself by making some banana bread. It was a hit with the kids. Dinner came and I made up some curry rice for Mamaliz and I and some simple parmesan noodles for the kids.

Now it is near the end of the day and I will finish getting the kids ready for bed. Once they are in bed I will read my book and force myself to take a bucket shower today. I was bad and did not do one last night and I have felt pretty gross as a result all day.

As everyone can I’m sure grasp, I am using cooking and baking as a way of staying sane here. So I am sorry that most of my blogs have become explaining the food I cook, but this is now much of my day. I still love playing with the kids also, but after a day of teaching, I just want some quiet.

Sunday 5-25-14

Facebook and the internet are taunting me! Facebook is the only page that will actually open, but it won’t work enough for me to message anyone or load my blogs. This is getting beyond frustrating. Either work or don’t, put it really needs to stop taunting. That is just not very nice.

For the first half of the day I didn’t want to do anything. I did get up and get the breakfast bread ready for the kids, but I didn’t want to do anything. I have been sad and missing my husband pretty bad today. I tried to use Mamaliz’s phone to call, but all of a sudden it says it only takes emergency calls. I tried to call using the land line, but that won’t work apparently because it only works when the internet is working, and the internet hasn’t been working for a week now and I can’t contact him in any way. But I did make the kids special breakfast bread. I made some scrambled eggs and some decent coffee. The rest of the morning I read my book, then Teacher Logan came by and visited for a little while, but there is truly little to do other than visit.

Around lunch I decided to start making up some bread to rise for bread to have this week. I also got some good veggie stew made up for dinner. The kids played and played hard. There was much about today that I very much enjoyed, but at the same time there was much and more that I just did not have a decent time with.

The kids played marbles with Teacher Logan and of course Jove lost a marble. The kids tried to help him find it, but no luck. I let Jove know that next time we play, he can’t play with everyone since he lost a marble. He can’t play at least for a while. Samweli Stan had his little brother with him. He was maybe a year and a half. I asked if I could hold him. Sameweli handed him over and sat him on my lap. Soma started to cry though because he didn’t know me and so I gave him back. Right after that I noticed that my lap is soaking wet with urine. So much for these new clean pants that fit. The rest of the evening we visited. I let Logan know he could bathe here since we had hot water and he did not. Chris and Hannah came over and we visited and talked of what they saw at Mikumi. Luckily, the day is over and I just don’t want to talk about anything more. Today has very much been a day where I am ready to pay any amount to go home early. The phone, the internet, nothing works, there is no communication with the outside, and I miss my husband. I love it here, but without Asa, it just isn’t worth it.

Saturday 5-24-14

So, I refused to get out of bed until about 8:00 today. I stayed up until nearly midnight just talking with Mamaliz, it was nice, but I like my sleep and usually I am in bed by 9pm. The kids were not too happy about this, but they had things they could get and eat, and I was tired and wanted to sleep. I did finally get up and I got some bread dough going so we would have bread with dinner tonight. But first thing was first and coffee was made and consumed. I made Mexican mochas for Mamaliz and I. Granted it was third world, but still quite nice.

I had beans soaking nice and early, and then I decided to head up into the village to get some goat to go with our dinner. Teacher Logan (known to Mamaliz as “the kid”) was getting in today and was most likely going to eat dinner with us, so I wanted to have something nice. On my walk back from getting the goat the bag ripped and the goat fell right into the dirt. I simply picked it up and brought it home to rinse the dirt (or what I hope was only dirt) off. I did the best I could getting all the connective tissue and bone shards out, cut the goat into cubes, and then coated with flour and spices. I browned it up then threw it into a pot with some water so that it could get a nice long cooking; otherwise it is very chewy and tough. I was very pleased with how good the dinner turned out. We not only ended up with Teacher Logan, but also his friends. They were going to go up to Bismillah for dinner before they left back to Morogoro, but when they got there they were told there was no more food. Only here can a restaurant survive with only one option for food and even that option not always there. They were all very happy that I had enough dinner for everyone.

I even found time to make bread up for breakfast tomorrow filled with nuts and raisins and things like that. I discovered that the little blender I brought for Mamaliz can blend sugar into powdered sugar, so I will even be able to make a nice frosting glaze for it. Granted I spent the entire day in the kitchen cooking, cleaning, and baking, but I had fun, and in the end that is what counts.

Samweli kept coming in and saying hi. Mamaliz says he has a crush on me. I would have to agree. He made me some pictures today and since he saw the ones Ayla made for me say ‘xoxo’ and ‘I love you’, his had those on there too. He even went so far as to try to tickle me at one point. It is sweet, but the tickle was taking it too far. Hopefully he doesn’t do anything like that again or I will have to have a talk with him.

Ayla and Jove have been very good today. They have almost not been inside at all. They have gone exploring with their friends, playing games, and just being kids. I have been so pleased with them. It is days like this that I truly remember why I brought them to Africa. When we first got here Ayla was afraid to leave my side, now she is outside all day having fun just being one of the kids. This is what they needed.

Our internet came on, but for all my trying, it doesn’t want to load anything that would allow me to send any kind of messages. Sometimes this internet issue is really frustrating.

Oh and a note to my dad:

The kids have been looking in the dirt trying to find see through stones like Papa said. They found a few in the front yard that look like large kosher salt granules of a pinkish hue. They were happy with themselves.

Friday 5-23-14

Oh my has today been oh so very long. I started waking up at about 5:30 and knowing my alarm on my watch doesn’t work very well, I had a very hard time actually falling back asleep. I got the kids off to school okay then went up the hill to buy some chipati for our trip to Morogoro in the afternoon. Mamaliz said that I needed to go nice and early to be able to get any, so I went at 7:30, got up there and “bado” not ready yet. Darn. I came back down the to the house to discover Mamaliz had a bad stomach. So I had to go off to school and get the kids set up for testing on my own. I was a little nervous, but it went just fine. She even showed up right as I was starting the math flashcard portion of the test. During the English portion of the test, I greatly enjoyed when Mamaliz made the paragraph with ten mistakes for the kids to correct. The paragraph was all about her bad stomach and hoping she didn’t vomit in the car on the way to Morogoro. One of the things the kids tried to correct was vomiting to Vomiting. Because apparently vomiting is so important it should be capitalized.

11:30 came around and we hurried off to the house. I bought a few half cake for the trip since I couldn’t get chipati. We made it up to the house and got our stuff together and after about a half an hour of trying to get out, we were on the road. There were six of us all crammed into a truck. It did have six seats, but keep in mind that two of those were tiny middle seats. It was a rough ride there and even harder on the way back home. We did get the fridge and the stove for the volunteer house and the mattress will be picked up in a few days. We just couldn’t get everything to fit in the one trip. I got some grocery shopping done which made me happy. I do wish I could have easily come across a bread pan, but I will find something and make do. We went to Ricky’s Café for early dinner. It was just the kids and I since Mamaliz still had the fridge and stove to deal with at that point. I got the kids one hamburger and fries to share so that they would have enough room for the cake and ice cream they were so excited for. The little stinkers at like two bites of the burger and claimed they were full. They had it last time we were there and loved it, so I know it wasn’t that they didn’t like it. I got so upset with them, I finally gave up and told them ‘fine don’t eat, but I am taking some of your allowance you have earned for wasting food I have just bought for you, and you will get nothing else for the rest of the night”. While at the market getting our last few items, Mamaliz bought bananas and not remembering what had happened with their dinner, offered a banana to Jove knowing how much he loves them. It was too late so I had to let Ayla have one also. She almost complained because it was a very ripe banana. I let her know very clearly that if she didn’t eat the whole banana without any complaint that I would not feed her tomorrow. She got it really fast and ate it down. So the kids were pains, but while there I saw this old man making pretty simple but very cheap sling shots. I bought two of them, one for each of the kids. I let them see them, but told them they couldn’t have them until they could prove they were going to be good and earn having them. Then even when they did, it would be a sometimes thing, and most likely more for when we get home and take them out in the desert where there are not a bunch of other kids around to get hit by a flying whatever they throw.

We are back to the house now after a very long drive back. I surprisingly was able to do some reading in the car and didn’t get too sick for doing it. It was nice because it made the drive go by a little faster. Kids are in bed, I have a nice hot cup of green tea, and best of all there is power and internet, which is better than when we left. It was not the best of days, but the way I see it, is that I am so much luckier and better off than so many of the people around here that even on my worst days, I should not complain because it could be much worse. I am grateful even for my bad days.

UPDATE: I forgot that when we were in the car ride back, we had another person in there with us. He started talking to the kids and sang them a counting song in Swahili. It was a way that kids can learn their numbers 1-10. It was so cute, and the kids just loved it. Jove kept asking him to sing it. I finally had to tell Jove I would sing it to him so he could learn it. He told me he didn’t want to learn, he just wanted us to sing to him, so I stopped J

Thursday 5-22-14

Nothing like waking up late. At nearly 7:00 Mamaliz hollered that I should really start getting the kids up and ready. Crap! Okay, come on kids, time to get up. I am happy to say they did so well getting ready faster than they ever have before they earned a bonus for their weekly shilling total. I was very proud of them. It could have been a very hard morning, but it was still very pleasant.

My sourdough starter had doubled in size faster than it ever did back home, so I get to attempt at more fresh bread today. I figured sourdough can be a win or a miss, so I shall start with a half batch. Make one loaf and see how it is. They rise here from initial mixing to baking in a matter of a few hours whereas back home I would be waiting all day long. So if it is good, I may be getting another batch started before the night is done. This lady is definitely going to need more flour, and fast. I have gone through nearly a five pound bag in the past two days, and I don’t even care, it is just so tasty.

We went to school and had a pretty good day. Nothing too different to talk about in any of the three classes, but at one point in class Ayla truly showed that she was her daddy’s girl. We had random numbers written up on the board, and one of the questions we asked was “what numbers when put together will make 31?” Ayla came everyone else is doing one number plus another number, and then Ayla did 19+14-2. What a way to think outside the box. At the end of school a few of the kids in Std.3 started trying to tell me about a letter to me. I thought they were confused and trying to tell me about letters they were getting back from their penpals, which Teacher Anne had just told them about an hour prior. But then Teacher Beatrice gave me a stack of papers, and told me that the kids wrote letters to me. Out of the whole class, only one was written to a different teacher. I was so shocked and awed that I almost cried. When Mamaliz and I got home for the day, I read them. Nearly all the kids asked me what tribe I was from. Ima Mkulati even told me he loved me and asked if I loved him too. He is our Maasai boy, and he is just the sweetest kid around.

Mamaliz was invited over to the neighbors for tea and so I got to work in the kitchen. I baked up my parmesan sourdough bread (it was left too long on the final rise so it was huge but flat, still very airy and good though), then on to cutting veggies and chicken up. I was in the middle of working on flaying the chicken out when one of the backbones cut my finger pretty bad. Asa is just so much better at that than I am. But Jove and Mamaliz showed me how much they liked it by going back for more a few times. Ayla on the other hand had some issues with eating and when she finally claimed she ate, I noticed the chicken leg still had at least half of the meat on it. It went in the leftovers, because let’s face it, meat is meat here. It is precious.

We pulled out the shoes and the underwear and had some of the teachers come by to look though. We have been giving many away to the kids whose shoes are broken or don’t fit them, but for the teachers we were selling the shoes and the money is going to go to buy the kids more journals for school. Many of the shoes are gone, and that is a very good thing. While the teachers were here the power went out. Luckily we had the solar light we could turn on, but it did make bath time much harder for the kids and getting them to go to bed without a night light is near impossible. I promised them I would do my journal quick, take a fast tote bath then come in the room with them. I may try to read a little, but I am very tired and I have been hurting very bad. My joints are killing me, so I may just take some medicine and go to sleep and hope when I wake tomorrow, the pain will be gone and the power will be on. Either way, we go to Morogoro tomorrow for the day only to buy some things for the new house, and so we will have some tasty food. The kids are very excited over a hamburger and fries, then cake and ice cream. We do love Ricky’s Café.

Wednesday 5-21-14

As I lay in bed last night, and got to relax a little more this morning, I found myself pondering my life up until this point. I have done many things right and many things wrong. I married the person whom I loved so much, and I have been lucky enough that we make things work together. We have had hard points, but every low has come with a high and it has all been one of the best things I have ever done. I love you so much Asa. My children, although I was young having them, they are among the top of that list. As a mother I doubt much and more of what I do, but I think that every mother does. That is what makes a good mother, or parent for that matter. If you know you are doing everything correct, you are NOT. As I child, I wanted to be a teacher. Nearly my whole life I wanted to be a teacher, or something very similar to such. As I went to college, every path I choose for my career had to be something that paid more money. I thought I needed the money. I thought about going into psychology (something higher that would pay), thought about a nurse, but in the end, I came to Africa to teach these kids and I am doing it for no pay. This experience has made me realize that teaching is truly what I desire to do with my life. I want to teach, and I want to teach somewhere that it will truly be appreciated. Somewhere outside of America is where I want to be. Of course this cannot happen overnight, but I believe that within the next five years our family will be somewhere in South America teaching an English medium school. Mamaliz has even said she will take a break from whatever she is doing here and help us set it up. I look forward to our next steps and all of our adventures to come.

We had a great morning today. No whining from the kids, no fighting of any kind, just happy appreciative kids. The fridge seems like it is going to start working again, much to my delight, but we shall wait and see. Because the kids were so good, I let them have a homemade peanut butter cookie with Nutella on the side and a banana for breakfast. They couldn’t believe I was letting them have a cookie for breakfast. I even let them watch a small show on the computer while eating. I explained to them that when they are good like this it is easier for me to reward them with little things like that. I got to actually relax and enjoy my morning. I had my cup of coffee while working on getting some French bread started to rise. Hopefully it works because I have never made bread before without all my contraptions back home. Even if there are things I greatly miss about home (like hot water that I don’t have to boil, or water out of the faucet that can actually be consumed without worry of worms) I am very much enjoying living more simply. No one needs a pantry filled to the brim with food, or a closet filled up with different kitchen toys. So much of what we have back home, is simply not needed.

While in std1 I got to work with again on the carrying and borrowing in addition and subtraction. I had Michael, Leonard, Elisha (boy), and Angel. Angel had me wanting to pull my hair out. That girl is just unteachable. It will go in one ear and a minute later it is gone. I had worked with her for nearly an hour going one problem then another, over and over again. Then Mamaliz was going over the rest of the kids quiz, and there were a few questions like that. So she called Angel to do one on the board. It was a simple carrying addition problem, but she just couldn’t get it. Angel couldn’t figure out that 7 plus 5 was not, 8 or 1 or ‘you can not do’. I finally gave up and brought her to the back blackboard and had her do it there. It took about five minutes, but I made her do it. She won’t understand it tomorrow, but at least today I made her do it. This girl was in std 1 until this time last year when she was pushed back to chekechea and she came back to std 1 this year and is not doing any better. The girl, I hate to say it, but just isn’t doing well in this school where you are expected to do well to pass.

In std.3 we did our usual stuff, but when Mamaliz was in chekechea doing story time, I had the kids write in their journals. Each child had a different topic. They had ten minutes to write however they wanted, real or fiction. Mbuli wrote this entry, that I will have copied off and posted when I am able. This kid needs to be a writer. He wanted to have his topic as ‘Samweli’s mother’. Teacher Liz told him okay, so when it came to listening to the entries… Mbuli met up with Samweli Stan’s mother and killed her. Then he killed Samweli and beat the father. The father did not die and called the police. After a while our pets, Buddha, Marshmallow, and our snake came into play to help Mbuli. They helped him carry water for the school I believe. He even talked for a moment about how Teacher Asa was in America. It was so funny, I had a hard time not crying from laughter. Many were very good, and again, I will copy and post some when I am able.

Mamaliz and I came home for lunch and I punched down my bread dough, which is doing so well. I heated up a little of the leftover veggie soup for lunch because the fridge is once again not working so things need to get eaten. Not to mention I do so love to eat soup. Mamaliz was on Facebook (we actually had internet today) and she saw that Asa had two typos or misspelled words on a post he made whilst sharing the Hands4Africa site. For anyone else this would not have been anything, but Asa however is a grammar and spelling Nazi. I very much enjoyed giving him a little bit of a hard time because for my entire life, my spelling and grammar have been just atrocious.

We went back to school, I said hello to the kids the way I try to always do. Our std2 time was much of the same, but while Mamaliz dealt with English, I went into the library and organized all the books. Only Mamaliz and I keep that library decently organized. The kids and the teachers alike just don’t seem to care.

On our way home we met Anne and David. They are next door now with Chris and Hannah. These are the two that known by many (behind their backs) as ‘mom and dad’. They both seem nice enough, but at least Anne at one time told Mamaliz it would be better if she were gone. I don’t think that is any way okay seeing all that she has done for this village. But I will be cordial because they do seem pleasant. Within a minute or meeting her, she was asking if she could use the fridge and freezer. We tried explaining it had been breaking down, but butter and a few ice packs came over anyways in hopes of it continuing to work.

As soon as we were at the house I got the laundry in, and it was just in time. The rain didn’t come down hard, but it did rain for about an hour.

I got inside and got the bread split into two, one bigger and one smaller. On the smaller one, I put hotdog slices for the kids dinner. The larger one was going to be for simple French bread. They rose a decent enough amount and I got them in to bake. I was even able to figure out the temperature settings on the oven. I was quite proud of myself.

We ended up having to let Anne know the fridge died again, and gave her butter back. Hamna shida for us, we know how to deal with it. She wanted to know exactly how long it should take to get it working again. Hmm, I don’t know, when it starts working again, I would suppose. Luckily they were able to get their gas fridge working so everyone was happy.

Kids went outside and played for a little while, but before long Jove started screaming and crying. It turns out Donny got pushed and fell on top of Jove and had Jove get pushed right into a tree. His face was pretty beat up and his hair and ears were full of dirt. At that him and Ayla decided to come inside. I got Jove set up in the tub with power rangers on the computer so he would stay in there long enough as to soak the dirt out of his wounds. Ayla ended up sitting on a stool in the tub next to Jove’s tote so she could watch with him.

Both loaves of bread turned out great. I gave the kids the hot dog bread, a spare hot dog, and ketchup. I noticed Jove making bread balls the same way I used to make bread cubes as a kid. I showed the kids how to make the cube and they loved it. Both wanted more bread to be able to make cubes. It made me happy.

As I sat writing my journal in a notebook since I couldn’t type them (the kids were using my computer to watch Rio 2 during dinner), Ayla actually asked “Mommy, should I get up or should you get up to get me a drink?” This is actually verbatim of what came out of my little girls mouth. I could not believe it, especially since I had gotten seconds and thirds of the hot dog bread and given a small amount of soda with their dinner. That girl if anything is brave.

After dinner, Jove started to do his journal to earn his 100 tsh while Ayla took her bath. All he has to do is say what he wants and I am happy to help him spell, although he likes to do this himself much of the time. He had written one sentence and started scribbling it out. I told him to stop that because it wasted pencil. He started to whine. I finally got him to say what he wanted to write and explained that it wouldn’t work because “do” was not a word. He wouldn’t accept it was and was screaming at this point. I told him he lost his 500 tsh for the no whining all day and he just fully had a melt down. I tucked Ayla in and told Jove goodnight. I minute later I had to go back in and try to distract Jove by asking him questions because he was working himself up so much as to get near vomiting. Ayla was a good big sister and was even telling him that if he would just stop crying she would buy him a half cake soon, but she didn’t want to be cranky tomorrow and so she needed to sleep. Too freaking cute. After that, he did fall asleep, and no noise so far from the room and it is an hour later. Thank goodness.

I ate my dinner for more left over soup which I have loved eating and I even cooked up a very thin slice of the bread with butter. I even forgot about it, and so it turned into more of a crustini. It was perfect with the soup.

As I was finishing up this journal Mamaliz called from the kitchen for me to come in so she didn’t end up with smoothie all over the kitchen again. I went in to make sure the base of the blender was on tight and had it all blended up nice and smooth. She then offered me some smoothie, I had to refuse because I know Mamaliz and she always has mango in there and I am allergic. Right as I am saying “No thank your” she realized what she did and we both laughed. Good times J

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Tuesday 5-20-14

Today was the start of the kids chore list and trying to get through the morning without me guiding them the whole way through. They were both very excited about it, but it didn’t take long for Jove to lose the “no whining all day long for 500 tsh” He had one little problem about finding his uniform in the morning, but after that he was great. He was looking forward to getting home from school so he could clean up the yard. They keep talking about all of the half cake and candy they can buy with the money they will earn. I will have to make a small portable list to keep with me, that way I can mark down if they whine in school or back talk or have an issue resulting in complaining about lunch. I am very excited about this and very hopeful that it will mean me yelling less. As I told the kids the other day “I miss my happy voice. My happy voice is so much nicer than my angry voice”.

Mamaliz and I got to school and the kids were both great. Jove didn’t even need a tissue when I went in his room to say hi. He usually breaks down into tears at this point, but he didn’t. So I made a deal with him, so long as he was great all the rest of the day, this one day, we could pretend that moment of whining this morning didn’t happen. He was so happy. During Std.1 I took a few of the kids that were having a harder time with borrowing and carrying, and I worked with them at the back of the classroom whilst Teacher Liz worked with the rest of the class on basically solving for x. 28+ __ = 57 and other problems such as these. The kids I worked with slowly but surely were doing better as time went by and even at the start they were doing better than they had the day before. I think they just need lots and lots of practice and soon they will get it and be just fine. We finished with the math and went on to English. We had finished the book a week prior, so we found a small book that had a few copies and had them read in that. All went well, although by the 20^th time having to explain that the word ‘piggy’ is not ‘pig’ you have to pronounce the ending ‘y’ as an ‘ee’ sound. They have this issue with pretty much all words that end in y. Which is funny because in Swahili everything pretty much ends in a vowel and even if it doesn’t they pronounce a vowel sound at the end. Frank becomes Frankie, Liz becomes Lizzy, etc. Std1 had done such a good job and accomplished so much that I read them a story. It was very cute, about a hippo that had a tooth ache and all the other animals kept spreading rumors about what was going on when all hippo was actually doing was moaning from the pain and bumped into a tree. By the end the rumors had hippo destroying the whole jungle and damming up the river with all the broken trees, etc. The kids had a lot of fun with it because I like to read with a lot of enthusiasm in my voice.

We went into Std.3 and worked on math today. We did our flash cards and then finished our book. Most of the kids were even getting the concept of paragraph, sentence, word when I would ask the questions such as “What is the last word in the second sentence in the first paragraph.” Mamaliz was checking some of the kids old homework for other classes, which she does occasionally because you never know what you will find. She found this spot that were questions about a small story in their science book. The teacher had them write the sentences then answer. She then corrected the. The problem with this is that St. Mary’s is an English medium school, and these sentences were all wrong. Wrong grammar, misspelled words, and worst of all, in the book there were questions that made no sense at all. At the end of the day, Mamaliz had to talk to the teachers and basically tell them that if their English was so bad that they could not properly correct the English portion of the science homework then they need to learn more or we might need to find new teachers.

I walked into Std.1 to get some flashcards to work with std3 and one of the teachers asked me about Ayla’s tooth. She was very concerned that I had not pulled it out, because the new tooth was coming in and the two teeth would get stuck together. She was actually serious, I could not believe it. I had to spend a few minutes and explain to her that when the adult tooth comes in it will force the baby tooth out. I had to do this a few times because she did not seem to want to believe me. Ah, Africa. We ended std3 time by my teaching them more on long division and showing them there is really no difference in difficulty in dividing 3 into 57 than 2 into 4827495. I gave them a four question quiz with a few multiplication and a few division and one of the division was something like 3 into a number in the thousands. All they could say was they could not do it because it was too hard. I was pleased to see that after I showed them, they all seemed to understand at least a little. Another thing to continue to work on.

Home for lunch, and the kids did great saying goodbye and that they would see me after lunchtime. Again, I was proud. I know they are doing it only to earn money, but at this point I don’t care, they are being good. Our fridge is again not working, so I knew we needed to use up our veggies otherwise they would go bad soon. So I had a nice salad of raw beets, cucumber, and carrots. I even made a salad dressing with lots of vinegar (balsamic and apple cider), mustard, garlic powder, olive oil and sesame oil, and peanut butter. It was a very good salad. I have been on a massive veggie kick. The rest of lunch break I read my book and just relaxed. That is pretty much my only time for me to relax until it is bedtime.

We went back to school and on into Std2. I took two kids that are having a hard time reading and we read the “bob books” Bob books are books for very early readers, for those of you that remember, they are like “dick and jane”. The kids had a good time reading one on one like that and were excited to hear we would be doing it again the next day.

We all headed home, and Jove had gone on ahead of me with his buddy Leonard. The two of them walked all the way home on their own. Jove is really getting this independent thing. Ayla on the other hand was right there on my heels while I waited for Mamaliz in case she needed the keys to lock up the school. Once we got home, I started up making peanut butter cookies. The oven is tricky because there is no temp gauge or thermometer inside, but I managed to get it to work, and we ended up with three dozen very tasty cookies. I brought four over to Dr. Chris and Hannah. They had a rough day today. Hannah was telling us as we walked back to school from lunch break that he was at the hospital trying his best to resuscitate two babies at the same time by himself with only one oxygen bag and no way to make sure they are okay after coming back. There is no ICU here. I figured after a day like that they could use some cookies. Later in the day they brought back the plate and even had a small dinosaur coloring book for Ayla and Jove as a way of saying thank you. The kids were very pleased and colored them quite a few pictures that they are saving to give them tomorrow.

As a way to use up more veggies, I made a veggie soup and it turned out pretty good. The kids only had one bowl, but I believe that was because they knew they would get a cookie for desert. Bedtime went smoothly because they wanted to earn their 500 tsh for no whining all day. Man do I love this new chore list. All in all, each kid earned 900 tsh for a great day of behavior and cleaning. I got to use my happy voice today and I am so happy because of that.

It turns out my dad even got a Facebook page so that we can talk easier while I am here. For one reason or another, the internet will not work almost ever, but even with the internet isn’t working, I can still get Facebook messenger to work. So now I can talk to my dad on a more regular basis. I can easily say that I have had a great day and was able to get a ton of stuff accomplished which just made it that much better. Now all that is left to do is relax a little before bed. I think I can do that.

Monday 5-19-14

I woke up on my own luckily, because the alarm on my watch has ceased to work. Jove had a really hard time this morning. First it started with the light hurt his eyes really bad. I figured he was just whining for the sake of whining. I finally got him to get dressed and get in the living room to eat his breakfast and take his medicine. When Joan got here to pick the kids up, I had them make sure to go to the bathroom, get their water, etc. While going to the bathroom Jove lets me know his head hurt. I asked him where, and he told me everywhere, but a lot behind his eyes. Poor little guy might have inherited my aptitude for bad headaches. Worst part was, was that he didn’t even know that is what was going on. All he could say was his eyes hurt. It has been a complaint a lot as of late, and I think I just discovered the cause. So some Tylenol then off to school. Here’s to hoping that helps.

We went off to school and had to yell at the children many times. Std. 1 just did not want to pay attention today. Everyone appeared very tired. At the point of switching classes, Ayla broke down into tears. I asked her what was wrong. The poor little thing was freaking out because her baby tooth hasn’t come out yet, but the grown up tooth is already coming in. She was scared that the two teeth would fuse together. I let her know it wouldn’t happen and gave her some meds to help with the ache. She seemed to do fine the rest of the morning. Std. 3 desperately needed help with contractions, so we spent the majority of our time with that.

When Mamaliz and I got home, she heard there were some kids at the swing in the back yard. She does NOT want kids playing here while she is not here. So we took photos of the kids and had Ruth come over to help with translating. We now have their names, their parent’s names, and let them know that if they continued to come back Mamaliz would let their parents know (and parents here will beat their children for such issues). We now have four kids on our “naughty village kids” list.

We went back to school and into Std.2. I had just a few minutes in there then I pulled a few of the students from std1 that needed extra help in math with addition and subtraction when there is carrying or borrowing. I decided since Ayla was just being introduced to this I would bring her as well. So I had six kids all at the board doing problems like 589 + 345 = or 306 – 189 =. Many of the kids had a very hard time with this. We were in there for two hours, just doing problem after problem. Ayla grasped the concept very quickly. A few of the others even began getting the concept as the problems went on. Two however, Robert and Michael, just could not get it. 11-2 is not 7 or 14 or anything else other than 9. I just could not get them to understand. I began to get very frustrated, but I made it through.

Samweli came to the market to help us shop since Mamaliz was so tired she fell asleep during std2. We went up and got all the things we needed. Samweli helped us a lot. He went on his way to go home and change his clothes so he could come back to the house to play. On our way home we saw the bananas. I got ripped off, but I didn’t care. Jove so much loves the bananas, so I paid willingly. Thirteen bananas for 2500 tsh. Still works out to only like 12 cents per banana, and this is nothing for me.

We got back to the house and Mamaliz was still not back. She had to go near the hospital to pay some school fees for some students. It took about a half an hour before she came back, so starting dinner was late. I worked in the kitchen and eventually had a marinara of tomatoes, eggplant, greens, and carrot. I was quite pleased, especially when the kids asked for more veggies because they picked all the veggies out because of how good they were. I was one happy momma.

After dinner, Ayla asked if I could push her tooth out. So when the time came that she finished her dinner I asked her,” are you ready?” That is when the tears came. She would not trust me to push it out. Instead she tried to push it out herself. All she accomplished was hurting herself. I told her I will not give her that option again, nor will I allow her to push it out on her own. She must now let it get loose all on its own. What a little drama queen.

After all that, I got her set up in her tote bath. Jove finished his dinner whilst his Bibi read the story “Tikki Tikki Tembo” to him. He has wanted to hear this story for the longest time because his Uncle Cisco told him long ago about how it was a favorite book of his. Mamaliz enjoyed reading to someone that actually understood the English.

I was going to make an attempt at making peanut butter cookies, but when I finally got up the motivation to do so, I realized that there was no butter that was soft. The only butter we had was in the freezer. So tomorrow we shall have peanut butter cookies, and hopefully it will work since Mamaliz’s oven has no temp setting. We shall see.

Mamaliz and I came up with a chore list. If the kids are able to go ALL day long without whinning of any kind, they can earn 500 tsh. There is yard clean up, making beds, doing their journal, etc. Hopefully this helps to give me less stress. And lets face it, It is all to give the mama less stress. So now the kids are in bed looking forward to starting their chores tomorrow, and so far it has been quiet.

The fridge is again not working, so I have to finish all the left over spaghetti, otherwise it will go bad if I put it in the fridge. So, for now, goodnight. I am going to stuff my face while I have fresh wonderful food to stuff my face with.

Sunday 5-18-14

I slept in, YAY. The kids did try to wake me up a few times, but I told them they could read a book, play their tablet, or color a picture. They could eat a banana, get some animal crackers, or wait until I wanted to get up, and they actually listened to me. I stayed in bed until almost 8:30. I can’t remember the last time that happened.

So when the time for me to finally crawl out of bed came, I made my coffee (because there is no way I can do anything until I have some coffee) and made the kids some toast and bananas, which seems to be their new favorite breakfast. We had a few issues during breakfast, but nothing big. The kids wanted to practice some addition flash cards, so while they ate, I sat and had my coffee and held up cards for them. I love that they asked to do math on a Sunday.

Breakfast finished and the kids went outside to play with their friends. They are all playing store again and I was happy to hear Ayla stick up for herself and tell them she will not sell cigarettes at her store. Way to go baby girl! They even made a fence and a cash register and everything. It is very cute. They are using leaves for the bills and rocks for the coins.

While playing she came in and let me know that some of the village kids (that really aren’t even supposed to be allowed to play here, but I am a softy) are swinging two at a time. I had her let Farida know she is the monitor and needs to tell them only one when they try to do that and if they do not listen to her, she can send them home. Then Ayla came up to the house and let me know that there was a boy that was using bad language in Swahili and was not listening to Farida when she told him to go home. I went out there with Mamaliz’s camera and got a nice close-up photo of the boy and got to start my “naughty village kid” document on my computer. I have put the picture, the date, and the issue. Hopefully this helps keep out the bad ones, so that the sweet village kids can come back again. There are many sweet ones and I don’t want to have to keep them away.

The day continued in this manner for the majority of the rest of the day. The kids gave me issues on eating their lunch, so I gave them a time limit then took it away. Told them they could have nothing else until dinner time. I feel so mean, but they will learn and missing part of one meal will not kill them. Mamaliz got back near 3pm. The kids and I decided to walk down to the river and if we got there early, we would play in the water, if not, then we would just help Mamaliz carry the bags back up to the house. We got halfway to the school (which is still a distance from the river) and we saw a truck coming. Turns out it was Mamaliz with Abdallah, so we climbed into the back of the truck and rode back to the house. We will do the river on a day when the kids are being better.

Mamaliz and I enjoyed a cup of coffee together and just talked for a little while. Then the kids inform us that Jove threw Leonard’s shoes into the bushes and they couldn’t find them. We have some spare shoes still that I could have given him a pair, but decided they needed to look first. I finally went out and helped, and we did end up finding it. Turns out Jove threw both Leonard’s shoes and Mbuli’s shoes. What a little punk. So he is inside for the night and is writing “I will not throw shoes” ten times. Last time he got in trouble it was five times. I figure it gets practice for his handwriting and letters, and it isn’t like he is writing something fun, so it is still punishment. I just wish the two of them would behave a little better on a regular basis instead of in little bursts.

I gave the kids a grilled cheese sandwich and greens. The sandwich was Mamaliz’s suggestion. I wouldn’t have given them something they would enjoy so much because of the fuss at lunchtime, but whatever. The greens were going to go bad soon, and we can buy more tomorrow, so I made them.

I went outside to fix our clothes line. Mamaliz bought me some metal line coated in plastic so I went and put it up where the one old rope broke. She insisted earlier that Frankie would have to put it up, but it was easy. A wrench would have been nice to tighten the nuts, but I had a towel and my fingers. Not as tight as I would like it, but it will do for some wet laundry. I am quite pleased. As I was out front working, I saw Dr. Chris trying to explain “duck, duck, goose”. He finlly got them to understand and I really enjoyed watching them play. Sometimes these kids can just be so very sweet. I love it.

Mamaliz fell asleep on the couch. I am just trying to keep the kids quiet and to finish eating. After that I believe it will be an early night.

UDATE: It started to rain pretty hard last night. I was okay with this because we had no laundry and we haven’t had rain for a few days, so it is nice to replenish the rain water tank. Well, it was loud and so the kids just whined and complained about not being able to sleep because the rain was too loud. With my two little ones, if it isn’t one thing it is another thing. They can sure be annoying, but man do I love them, whines and all.

Between the whining, Ayla did manage to say a few times how excited she was for the next day because of the ugali, beans, and greens. My sweet little girl does love her some food J