Wednesday 5-21-14

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