Thursday 5-22-14

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.