Wednesday 6-18-14

Wednesday 6-18-14

                Today was yet another hard day. The kids were good this morning and so that was nice. We stayed in bed a little late because the lights had turned off. I thought that the power was out and I figured there was no point in waking up an hour and a half before school if there was no power. When we did get up, I realized the there was power, it was just that none of the lights were coming on. That had happened before and I thought it was the same thing going on so I sent a message to Isaac. He had Frank come over right away. I felt so stupid when it turned out to be simply a popped circuit. But it was fixed and for that I was very grateful.

                For breakfast the kids had five pieces each of the peanut butter banana and jelly bread. They were thrilled. I have had a lot of food go bad on me recently because of the refrigerator working so badly that I figured just let them eat it so it doesn’t spoil. While they ate, they watched Tinga (of course). I drank my coffee and joined in on the show today. They thought it was great that I watched the show with them. Sometimes I forget how important it is to just stop and enjoy the moment with them. Much of the rest of everything can wait.

                We made it to school and I got to spend the first half hour of class time checking all the homework I gave out. Many of them ended up with homework of “I will do my homework correctly”. Even though I repeated myself over and over again to do them one sentence at a time, many and more did not listen. But they accepted their additional homework without complaint.

                Shortly into class Teacher Pasiana came in and told me she needed to talk to me in private. We went outside and she told me that they just got word that my student Siri’s mother had died this morning. I couldn’t let her know anything had happened, so I had to continue with everything as if nothing had happened. When I found out I was still in the middle of checking homework and I had to give her the 100 sentences. I really hope she doesn’t end up doing them. Arrangements were made and Pasiana took a pikipiki (motorcycle) with her to get to Magubike which is the town where she lives. She boards here in Berega during the school week. I felt just so horrible for her.

                Even with the interruptions on and off through std1 I still got a decent amount of stuff covered. One of the interruptions was Ima coming into the class from std3 and giving me a sticker. The kids loving having stickers on their forehead so this is exactly where he put it. I went to do some ‘at the store’ with the kids and when I had gotten it all up on the board, they all had this look of sheer confusion on their faces. Turns out that they had never done that before, so we did it together and they got a little introduction to this math lesson. When we did our rounding I was very pleased to see that many of them did much better. There were still two that just had no clue, but those ones did not surprise me. I made it as simple as I could and showed them that if you round up, the ones becomes a zero and the tens position gets one added. If you are rounding down then the ones turns to a zero and the tens position simply gets brought down and stays the same. I think seeing it as much as I did it that way really helped them. I will start the day tomorrow with rounding again and hope that it still stuck with them.

                When I got into std3 I started out with the homework checking. Evander decided to not come to school today because he did not finish his homework. This is just what they do here. Aidani didn’t come to school yesterday because he didn’t finish his homework. As it turns out, Teacher Beatrice had given him 1,000 sentences of I will not speak Swahili. I asked him if he had gone straight home and started. He said he did and did them until it was dark and still couldn’t finish. I felt bad enough giving the few 700 sentences, but 1,000 is just going too far. Samweli had left his at home but told me he did finish it. I let him know to bring it to me at my house after school was over. Everyone else had done their homework, so we moved on to our flash cards.

                As we did our flashcards every time Cathius came to the front of the line, the sticker on his face would move to a new spot. It was so funny. I think he was doing it just to make me laugh. Today was our English day so we did our book reading and filled the rest of the class with having them look at a page in the book and tell me what is the ___ word in the ___ sentence in the ___ paragraph. They have had a very hard time with this concept, but are now getting it pretty well. Then it was off to lunch.

                As I was leaving the school the teachers had called me over. They each had midterm exams they wanted me to look over and correct. So Grace gave me 3 and Beatrice gave me 1. I was informed they would have about another 8 for me between the two of them tomorrow. When I got home, I started to look over them. I decided that I would wait until after school and I could have Logan help me with them. Not only is the English rough to understand but the questions themselves just do not make a whole lot of sense. I didn’t have much time left, but I made up some pasta quickly and ate then went back to school.

                When I got to school Ayla had showed me that she found two of the African ladybugs. She put them in a water bottle to keep them safe. The ladybugs here are so cool looking. Instead of red with black spots, they are black with red heart shapes. Teacher Beatrice asked me if I was able to correct the midterms. I couldn’t believe she thought I was going to do them fully over my lunch. I wanted to slap her. I told her “no” that I would go over them with Logan this evening and bring them back tomorrow for them.

                Pasiana let me know that Rahabu in my std2 class is related to Siri and so we would have to inform her of what happened and something would have to be arranged for her to get home for the funeral tomorrow afternoon. When chekechea let out at 2:00 Logan came into the classroom to help me out. I was supposed to have a meeting with Grace, Daudi, and Robert’s caregivers regarding their being able to stay at St. Mary’s. None showed up then. Robert’s mother did show up at the end of school and continued to inform us that we could beat her son, but please not to kick him out. I just had to keep having Beatrice tell the woman that we will not beat any children here. That so long as he doesn’t miss any more school, that he does his homework when it is given, and that he pays attention in class that he can stay, but if he stops doing any of those then he is done.

                After school I took Rahabu outside and I spoke with her. I had basically no details about what actually happened to let her know, simply that she died. At first she had this blank stare, and then the tears came. I held her and just let her cry for a little while. I told her if she wanted to she could come over to our house at any point. It was her aunt, but with the way they do extended relationships here, it was her small mother, or something like that.

                After school Logan helped with midterms. I don’t know how I would have done it without the help. So much of it just didn’t make sense. The kids came running up at one point to inform us that there were some village kids threatening them again. I had to tell them to go home that they couldn’t swing here again today and so that is why the issues began again. I have a feeling I am going to come home and the swing is just going to be gone. After spending so much time with those midterms I decided I didn’t want to cook ANYTHING. So Bismillah it was. Logan came with us because I usually feed him. Before we could leave I had to have both of the kids change their clothes. They decided to take all my bottled water and have a water bottle fight with some of the other kids. So much time and effort in filling up those bottles with the filtered water, all gone. But they had so much fun that I decided to no let it get me upset. They need to have moments like that to keep it fun. When we got up to Bismillah we went to order and were told that there were only two plates of food left. When we tried to tell her that we would take the two plates then, she looked at us like she didn’t understand. It was very uncomfortable. We got the two plates of rice and beans though and the four of us shared. Jove had just beans and Ayla had almost just rice with a weird kind of greens that were actually more of an orangeish color. That place so often just doesn’t have food in the evening. I am constantly amazed that it can survive as a restaurant.

                After eating we stopped at Stan’s so Logan could pick up his shirts. We left and saw a few new tiny puppies out in the road and some cute baby goats. We talked about them on the walk back home and once almost home Ayla realizes she left her sweater up at Bismillah or Stans, so I had Logan take the kids to the house while I went to find the sweater. Luckily it was at Stans and he hadn’t locked up yet. I thanked him and went back home. After that it was getting the kids ready for bed because they take forever in getting ready for bed. I am just looking forward more and more to the time where I will get back home. This adventure has just been too long and so many of the issues have waited to pop up until I was here on my own.