Monday 6-23-14

Monday 6-23-14

                Yay, one day of testing is done and only one more to go. We woke up and there was still no power. I let Jove sleep in for a while since there was nothing else to really do without power. I wanted to be out the door and get to school early, but no matter how hard I tried, the kids took forever at that last minute.

                On the way to school we stopped and picked up Charlene for her first day at the school. I introduced her to the teachers, and when I came across Vienna, I said Pasiana. I always get those two confused. I felt really bad, but Vienna took it with a smile and just laughed.

                Standard One was ready and waiting with their tables nice and clean. I brought new sharpened pencils for them and passed out the English tests. We worked on it one section at a time; all except Grace, whom as far as I am concerned is out of the school. We tried to arrange a meeting with her grandparents last week about her being absent too often, and here it was the day of the midterm and she wasn’t there. They don’t care, and neither does she, so she needs to just be done.

                I started getting kids asking to use the toilet after just 30 minutes. I really didn’t want anyone to wet themselves in class today, so I let everyone that asked, go.  Even with a bathroom break in the middle of the two hour class, it was still a constant request by many. The oral reading took a long time because I had to take one child at a time out of the classroom to read the excerpt, but with Charlene in the class it made it easy. I had her read to the kids while we did that, they are still only in first grade and need to have testing still seem like a fun thing. We finished about five minutes early and so I released them to use the toilet yet again then went on into std3.

                I got my standard three kids ready to start as fast as I could since I knew they were already starting with the least amount of time. We moved in a very similar way, section by section. Instead of doing oral reading one by one and having Charlene read books to the kids, I took them one by one while they were working on the other sections and that seemed to work very well for them. A few of the kids didn’t finish in time, but I felt bad so I let them finish up the extra credit section and the last section at the end of the day. It only took them at most five minutes.

                Then it was on to lunch that I knew from the start that I would not be able to eat anything. I had to make many copies to finish up getting the tests to the other teachers. They said they have too many exams to give and cannot do it in just the three days that Mamaliz said it should take. When I got to the house, Ruth had the generator on, so I was happy, but at the same time it meant we had to power still. I checked out the printer and it seemed to work. I was very happy. When Burton was setting it up to check it out, I noticed he shook the ink cartridge. So when I had printed up about 50 pages and it began to go blank on half the page, I decided to give that a shot. What do you know it worked! I have no idea why it does that, but I knew how to fix it temporarily and so that was enough for me.

                In between copying I would run into the house to work on making some coffee. If I couldn’t have lunch, I was at least going to bring a thermos of coffee with me to class. The lady I met on the road last week with stones showed up at the house also.  It was the worst timing possible, but I stopped to check them out and had Frank help me out. He let me know that it looked like she was one that had colored glass and not minerals. I had gathered as much and thanked him for helping me out. Then back to making more copies. Lunchtime had come to an end and I still had another five or six exams to copy off. Ruth said they would only have the generator on for another hour, so I went to school, got the kids in std2 started on their exams, then had Charlene take over so I could run (literally) back up the office and finish making the copies before I lost my chance. Toward the end, I was getting nervous because we were on our last pack of paper. I let them know how much I would need, but that didn’t get but two packs. When I finished the printing, there were five sheets left in the intake tray. I came so close to not being able to finish. I would have cried, but luckily I didn’t have to. I borrowed the stapler and went back to the school.

                Charlene was doing great; more lenient then myself or Mamaliz. Dictation was repeated more than twice, and many more questions were asked, but that is what happens with a new teacher. The kids were loving it. Even though I have only been here for two months, I have gotten into the rhythm of things and know what to expect from the kids, and when they don’t perform to those expectations I know they are just being lazy. I sat in the chekechea and stapled papers with Jove’s help and then moved on to letting the std3 kids that didn’t finish have the few minutes needed to complete their test.

                We finished about a half hour early and so I decided to release std2 early. The other teachers took this as a sign to release the whole school early. They did not use it as a study or review time in any way shape or form. During the morning they had the kids write letters to Charlene and myself, and during the afternoon when I went in, they were reading books. That was a great time that they could have been utilizing to prep the kids for their own exams. I told them as much that morning and on Friday when school let out. When we went to lock up, they had lost their keys again.  It is always a kids fault, every time. This time it was Rahabu, because she didn’t put the keys back where they should have gone, or give them to one of those teachers. I don’t understand why they have to be without them anyways. The keys need to go with whoever is the teacher on duty, that way they are not being given to the children during the lunchtime craziness. But again, one can state these kinds of things only so many times before it gets old and repetitive. I finally found the keys for them because they were just standing outside asking the kids where they were instead of just looking for themselves. They were sitting on the shelf in std1.

                We went home then to the Monday market. I was sad when I saw that these scarves I got last week were not there this week. I really wanted to get more. I do have one more Monday market so I am hoping she will be there next week. We walked around as a decently large group; Charlene, myself, Ayla, Jove, Ima Mkulati, Joan, Farida, and Samweli (at times, he kept disappearing). I got a bunch of sugar cane and passed them out to the kids that were with us. They were very grateful. Ayla and Jove each spent a decent amount of their money. They both wanted a pink scarf, yes both of them.  They got their scarves and had them wrapped around their neck and head very proudly. They found a nice little purse as well. They left very happy. It began to rain pretty hard, so we hurried home.

                I was expecting many kids to come by for math help. Many even asked if it would be okay, but none came. I sat and graded papers while Ayla and Jove ate sugar cane outside with Samweli. They then came inside and ate dinner. Ayla had hotdogs and chipati, Jove had hotdogs and banana. One of them is always doing something gross when it comes to food, but they ate and that is really all that I care about. After they finished, and a little before, they worked on a book. They are writing a book about nonsense. They would say “kumi na napkin, kumi na butt, kumi na mommy”, etc. Kumi means ten, na means and, the rest of it is just whatever they could think of. They thought it was just the funniest thing around. I was glad to see them having such a good time with it. I had a great day today knowing I got so much accomplished, I wanted them to have a great day as well.

                I filled bathtubs with a flashlight for my light, still no power. The kids got all nice and cleaned up and I read them a story while they bathed. Afterward, I noticed that the neighbors house had lights on that didn’t look the solar light color. It made me wonder. I decided to check the fuse box just to see. Sure enough the main breaker was flipped and there came on our power. So I have no idea if we could have had power back on last night when some of the other houses got it back, or if it was after that. I will never know, but it made me laugh and want to cry at the same time. The only thing I can’t figure out is why the internet still isn’t working. It claims it is working, but it still has no service. I will have Scott check it out tomorrow, either way, I have power and that brings me one step closer to internet tomorrow. Not only that, but tomorrow is my last day of testing. I am going to so miss teaching those kids, but I am ready for a bit of a break. I think the kids are also.