Thursday 6-5-14

Thursday 6-6-14

                Today was a very good day. It was a nice and mellow day. We got up and did our usual thing; coffee, breakfast, talking on the computer since the internet was on. The kids decided for breakfast they wanted animal crackers Nutella and cheese. The cheese is even a slightly stinky white cheddar. Jove also had apple. I told them that it would be gross together and they would not like it. Ayla had the sense to keep things separate, but not Jove. Then what does he do, but complain about how his animal crackers taste like cheese. Well duh kid. So he didn’t end up eating much for breakfast. I, as always, was very busy in the morning talking on the computer, preparing for classes, trying to get the kids ready, and finally trying to get myself ready, so I had a small handful of mixed nuts and a few dried apricots on my way out the door. It was plenty filling and gave me enough in my stomach to take the anti malarial that I cannot wait to be done with taking.

                On the walk to school I saw Teacher Pascalina and I confirmed that she may leave early so she could make the two hour trip to Morogoro so she could pick up a package since they are not open on the weekends. I am going to have Teacher Logan go to help Teacher Gladness for the little bit of time that Pascalina is gone. So all is working out, but it would have been nice to have Logan in the class with me on Friday to help with the craziness that is our testing. It gets so busy that a second person is very helpful. I did it however once and I can do it again J

                In std 1 class all went well. Robert still didn’t do his work and his Mama came with him so we could explain what was going on and why he kept getting sent home. It turns out he wasn’t telling his Bibi or is Mama that he wasn’t doing his homework. I had Teacher Beatrice sit and talk to her since I could not, and show him the notebook and how much he needed to write. She said she would make sure he sat and did all 900 sentences and would be there for school on Friday. I sure hope so because he is so far behind already I feel bad keeping him out of classes, but he will follow the rules and do the homework when he is given homework.

                Std3 we worked on some math. I am just trying to review everything I can from the exams with these kids so I can see the few areas that I need to go over an extra time or two. I have all next week and the following week until the exams, so time is running out. But they all did very good.

                I went home for lunch and I was just not hungry, so I had a few nuts and a cup of coffee and relaxed in the peace and quiet that comes when the kids are at school and I am at home. I got some bread made up to rise while I was at the second part of school; a nice rosemary garlic olive oil bread to go with dinner. Time went by quickly and it was back to school I went.

                Std 2 is usually nice. I had a decent headache so I did my best to have the kids try to be a little quieter. At one point when the kids had to line up to have something corrected they all started to shove their papers at me and they spilled my coffee on the sample midterms and all over my desk. They were very quick to apologize (because if it were their parents or almost any other adult here they may have been beaten) I told them it was okay, but if any of them shoved their papers at me again today I was going to make them all write sentences for the rest of the day. They mellowed after that and made a nice and orderly line.

                I came home and pretty quick started in on some eggplant marinara. Ayla wanted tuna for dinner, but it just didn’t sound good to me and marinara did, and I needed to use many of the veggies up before going bad anyways. So I put music on for the kids to dance to outside, kids bop and crazy frog, those kinds of songs. They had a blast. It was a little birthday party for Grace from std2. Ayla was glued to her side all afternoon trying her best to make it a special time for Grace. At one point, Farida, one of our students, borrowed Grace’s sandals and went off somewhere. She was gone for nearly two hours before the shoes were finally returned. Ayla figured Farida stole them and so she got Grace a pair of shoes to wear in the meantime and went to look for Farida to scold her. Such a funny kid she can be. When the kids tired of listening to music I changed it to mine and listened to both Adele and Airborne Toxic Event. We had dinner and the kids at an insane amount of bread. I love it when my cooking is appreciated. The marinara was not. Jove didn’t like it and ended up sharing the tuna with Ayla. I had one bowl of the marinara and a piece of bread. I just couldn’t get myself to eat almost anything today. No matter what I did, I just wasn’t very hungry.

                I ended the night by tucking the kids into bed (late 9pm) then working a little more on the std3 English midterm, and finally reading my book in bed. Once I climbed into bed, I didn’t last long before my eyes began getting heavy.