Swimming :-)

This week has gone fairly well. There were a couple rough days with the kids a school, but I am beginning to build relationships with them which is a lot of fun. One of them made me a paper snowflake and wrote "Ms. Sussiee" on it. Even though it was spelled wrong it was really sweet. A couple other girls come up to me at lunch and share their cookies and tell me their stories and secrets. It's pretty cool :-) The year 4 teacher is still not here yet, they say another 3 weeks or so. Therefore I will be helping TEACH year 4. Having never taught before in my life, I will need a lot of grace and patience. But I know it will be fine and I will have a lot of help with lesson plans and such. Tuesday afternoon we had a meeting. The group had been sent a care package for all of us to share. My roomies and I scored some mac and cheese and pasta, yummy. Wednesday evening one of my roomies and I had childcare duty at the school for a meeting. It went a lot better than expected. We ended up with 15 kids ranging in ages from 2 to 10. Today, Thursday, we finished up our school week and had another meeting. The highlight of the day was the fact that we got to go swimming at the meeting!!! Granted the girls had to swim fully clothed, but I was just grateful for the opportunity. It was a lot of fun. We played some fun games and got to be ourselves with no reservations (other than the bathing suit options of course ;-) ) After swimming we had a cookout. It was nice to eat the African version of a chili cheese dog, potato salad, cookies, watermelon, etc. Other the absurd amount of flies it felt like an American cookout. I look forward to relaxing the next two days and enjoying our free time. My throat is extremely sore and has been all day long. If you could remember that in your prayers it would be awesome. I think that's all for now. The next post may not be for a while because our internet is picky about when it feels like working :-)

TGIT

So, here TGIF is changed to TGIT because Thursday is the end of our week. We have Friday and Saturday off and start the new week on Sunday. It has been a good first week though. I am getting to know the kids better at school and building relationships with them and their parents which is exciting.



We did laundry last night. It's always an interesting task to do. The washer is up on the roof and not hooked up to water. So we have this tiny little piece of hose to fill it from a sink. My roomies and I carry buckets of water up instead because it is faster. The problem is that it's 2 flights up. And then you have to press another button to get it to go into the next cycle and hang the clothes to dry. The bright side is that the clothes dry very quickly here :-)


Tonight we had another cultural moment. We had a small group meeting at a house about a 10 minute walk from mine. There were 3 of us walking and of course it starts to rain. We thought we could make it so we kept going. Well...it only rained harder and began to storm. Then we heard a very loud noise only to turn around and see sparks coming from the power lines. We seriously thought it was coming down. The one guy that was with the 2 of us girls (he didn't know exactly where we were going) wanted to stop and go into "shelter, run for cover" but us girls said no and kept walking, ha. Then we got to the major road we had to cross and there was a ditch on the other side. I told the guy to see if he could cross (so that I would know if I could or not :-) ) and he ended up slipping with one leg in the ditch up to his knee. I felt bad but still went around. Our umbrella was inside out but we made it to a covering across the street from where they live. But then didn't know which gate to use. Wait....it gets even more funny... So we call the guy who lives there to come to the side gate to let us in and he shows up with a towel on his head and his wife's clothes (to keep from getting wet) but it was HILARIOUS!!! Once we got inside we realized that the front door was too flooded to go in so we climbed through the side window. By this time I can't stop laughing :-) The wife made us all change into their clothing. The two of us girls ended up in her house dresses, which look like mumus for lack of better explanation, and the guy in his cordouroy pants and shirt. We were a sight to see, let me tell ya! To get home we all crammed in his truck. It was definitely a memorable evening!

The Great Flood...

So, I started school yesterday. I am an assistant for year 4 and 5 at the international school here (4th and 5th grade). It's a really neat school because the children are from all over the world. I love to hear the different accents from them :-) For most of them English is their 2nd, 3rd, maybe even 4th or more language. Plus they learn Arabic at our school. Today, just as school was getting out, it started raining. I don't mean just a drizzle, because when it rains here it pours! The whole playground was completely flooded (I will put up pictures of it when I can get them from someone). Of course the kids are going nuts and all choas has broken out. So we got them inside while we are swapping out buckets from the water pouring into the classrooms. It was fun (and I'm not being sarcastic there). Then we went to walk home. Of course the streets are flooded, cars splashing water and gunk (they think it's funny to splash hiwajdas-foreigners- here), and some cars are stuck. People were laughing at us as we slip on the mud and dodge splashes, though some people were helpful. It was nice to get home. But then I remembered that we had done laundry last night, which is a process in itself, so some of the clothes were still hanging up on the roof. Most of them were ok after the storm, but some had been strown across the roof. So I rewashed them by hand and hung them, as it started to rain again, HA :-) We all smile and laugh though and say, "Only in K-town." All in all it was a good, and eventful, day. Until later...

I'm in Africa!!!

Well, it was quite a long trip but I finally arrived here around 5:40pm Wednesday evening here. Had a lot of delays in flights and cancellations but didn't miss any flights, my luggage arrived with me, and it only took minutes to confirm my visa on arrival, woohoo!!! I live in a flat with 3 girls, there are 4 more from our team upstairs and in surrounding areas a lot more. My school is about a 10 min walk but I haven't been there yet. They let me have today off to rest and unpack. The girls were very welcoming and made me dinner, etc last ngiht. Today I played with Jerusalem, our neighbor who's about 5ish. She's adorable! Then got tea on the street, exchanged some money, and went to a team meeting. It was great to get out of the flat today and meet everyone. Oh, and another praise- my brother in law gave me his cell phone from Malaysia to try here. All it needed was a new sim card, well one of the girls had been given a free card from a parent at school and it worked in my phone. So, I didn't have to pay for a phone or a card- AND it came with some time on the card!!!! I was super excited, like jumping up and down. And then the internet was working when I got home- it hadn't been since I got here. Ok- it's late and I need a shower and sleep. Everyone needs to get skype (slype.com) so we can talk. Miss you all!!!!

i'm leaving tomorrow...

So, yesterday was a day full of goodbyes (which of course was hard to handle). My dad came and picked up my car (which is still for sale by the way ;-) ). Today Mom and I ran a ton of errands in town, glad to have that done! I still cannot believe that I am leaving tomorrow. This will be the longest I have ever been away from home, by far. I am so thankful for the internet though. I can't even begin to fathom how people traveled and went away from their families and friends before there was such a thing as the internet. The distance doesn't seem so great with the luxury of being able to email, skype (go to skype. com and download!!!!), blog, etc. Well, I still have some packing to do so I better go. The next post may not be for a while but I will keep in touch. Thank you to everyone that has supported me and this amazing opportunity I have been given :-) Until later... :-)

The beginning...

So, I am beginning this blog so that friends and family can keep up with me while I am out of the country. I will do my best to keep this updated. It is easier for me to have a blog than to post on both myspace and facebook. There will be a link to this blog on both though. That's all for now :-)