Tanzania Adventure in Missions: Madam! Squeeze!!

Sooo, Kjirstin and I have a problem with our little language learners. It's not a big problem, just a little one syllable, seven letter word: "squeeze". Now, what, might you ask, is the matter with the word squeeze? I mean, so far as I'm aware there's no bad connotations to speak of (yet at least). The problem, dear friends, is how the kids use it. If I'm standing in front of the board, and I'm blocking their view of the board, kids will call out "Madam! Squeeze!" It makes me laugh to think of myself attempting to make my body smaller so that I can appease the children and return their view of the board to them.

Honestly, I’m not sure where this idea of using “squeeze” instead of “move” originated, but it seems to be quite common. So, Kjirstin and I have decided to do something about it. If a student says “Madam! Squeeze!!” instead of “Madam! Please move!”, we will squeeze the kids. And by this, I mean, we give them a big bear hug. It’s led to some pretty comical situations in class. The kids all take it in good fun and no ones seems to be abusing the privilege of getting hugs from the madams!

The other day, I was in Class V, and I was attempting to teach the students about how to write using complete sentences. I've decided that this is a most important feat to accomplish at the beginning of the year and hopefully my efforts will carry on throughout the year. We had already talked about not starting sentences with because (this is a BIG issue here) and how each sentence has to have a verb and a subject. We were beginning our lesson on to the importance of putting punctuation marks (such as full stops, question marks, or exclamation points) at the end of our sentences. We discussed when to use each kind of punctuation and then I wrote some sentences on the board that were missing ending punctuation. I called out the different types of punctuation and had the students raise their hands for the one they thought was correct. It turned into quite the game and the students stood up and cheered if they got the answer correct. Normally, I wouldn't allow so much noise in the class, but I was excited that the students were so excited (and about punctuation of all things!!). So, I went ahead and let them cheer and clap, but then as soon as I held up my hand to quiet them down, they would get quiet. It was really funny how quickly it all started and then stopped so suddenly. The best was when one of my students who struggles the most was the only one to guess the correct answer (exclamation point) and then stood up and started dancing right there in the middle of class.

But, the fun didn't end there. I was writing some independent work onto the board for the kids when all of a sudden I heard those infamous words "Madam! Squeeze!" Immediately, I turned around and found the perpetrator. I went over to her desk and asked her to stand and much to the joy of my other students, I squeezed her. Not five minutes later another students blurted "Madam! Squeeze!" I knew who it was when I turned around and saw the look of horror on her face. So, I waltzed over to her seat and squeezed her. It was a GREAT day!! :D

In other news of the week, one of Pastor Umba's younger sisters passed away this week. So, if you could please join me in prayer for him and his family, that would be awesome! Also, we received news that Nathan got a bad case of malaria down at his secondary school and missed 3 days of classes. Pastor left yesterday to visit Nathan and Kjirstin and I made a card to send with him. The only way to describe this card is showing you the pictures of it. Seriously, I think we had a little bit too much fun making it. I sure hope it cheers him up a little bit! :D

When Nathan was here, we used to make him do arm curls with the bag of freshly filled water bottles
while we were walking back home after dinner at Pastor's house.