This last weekend was super busy. Friday, I decided to take a half day at school because it was my last day. I was pretty bummed about it being my last day, but I realized that I'm still going to get to see most everyone again since they are living in Morogoro. I decided to celebrate my completion by going to Ricky's and getting a vanilla milkshake. I'm not going to lie, they're pretty AWESOME!! On my way there, I ran into a local girl that I had met in town before. She ended up walking with me all the way there. I figured that she would probably head on her way at that point, but when I went to sit down, she simply grabbed a chair at the same table. I had brought a book and had been planning to just sit by myself and read, but I guess God had other plans for me. It was a little bit awkward because I hardly knew this girl, but we got to talk a bit at the restaurant and she seems like a nice person. She's studying at a college here in Morogoro to be a business person. From the little I know about her and her personality, it seems like a really good fit for her. I hope that it works out for her. Friday evening was choir rehearsal and taking care of business at home.
Saturday, I woke up around 7am and did my longer yoga routine. As I was finishing, I was surprised to hear that my piano student had showed up! He hadn't come in a couple weeks, so I just assumed I wasn't going to see him until school started. I remembered that he had mentioned that he would be going out of town, but when he mentioned it, he didn't know exactly when it would happen. So, I guess that's why he missed. Well, I just went ahead and set everything up and taught him while I got started on my laundry. I would assign different sections of the piece, get him started and give him time to work out the bugs on his own. In addition to the piano lesson and getting most of my laundry done, I managed to also eat breakfast before leaving at 9:30am for town. I'm not going to lie, I felt pretty awesome getting so much done in such a short period of time!! After arriving in town, I walked 40 minutes to SUA where the other missionaries and I play frisbee and we played for over 2 hours. I was SUPER exhausted and pretty much felt useless that evening, but there was so much still to do! When I got home, I realized that one of my sheets had flown off of the drying rack and ended up in the mud... It took me somewhere around 20 very frustrating minutes to get them cleaned up again and I still had to finish the rest of the laundry. Then I had English choir practice before I finally got a chance to kick back in my room and have some real down time.
Sunday, I ran in the morning before church. It amazes me that I've had this habit for months now and the family still gets surprised that I'm leaving on a Sunday morning. This seems to happen with a lot of things. I mean, I've been able to greet people in Swahili since no later than early February and some of the teachers still freak out when I greet them in Swahili. When one of the teachers found out I had been taking language classes over the break, all he wanted to know was whether or not I could greet people correctly. I was so confused because I've been doing that for so long no. I'm wondering if this says something about the culture and what's important to them. I mean, I know that greeting people is a really important thing here. I'm wondering if it's something about the more community way of life here. It's still really funny to me that they would get so excited about something that I've been doing for so long already.
Sunday church was good, but it was a bit longer than usual, going for 2 1/2 hours instead of just 2. And then I went to the hour long youth service afterwards, as is my usual habit. By the time it was all over, I was completely exhausted from being in the heat and trying to rack my brain to translate as much Swahili on my own as I could. I ended up taking a nice nap in the afternoon before prayer service with the other missionaries.
Today was the first day back at school. Not only has the school schedule changed once again (now we're going from 7:30am-2:30pm with only one short break and NO LUNCH!!! O_o), I'm wondering if my students have forgotten everything I taught them over the past 4 week break. It was a bit of a rough day, but I'm sure that by Wednesday, we'll be back into our old routines. I'm really working to use a lot of the new resources that were donated to us. Already, I'm using all the chapter books in class. It's a great way to keep students quiet when they finish their work early!! Also, I had some curriculum stuff donated to me, so I'm trying to use exercises from that to supplement the materials that we have at the school already. I'm really hopeful that this is going to help the students a lot!! I've been trying so hard to expose these kids to as much material and teaching methods as I can before they leave me. I just wish some of the other teachers were as motivated...
Well, I guess I'm going to leave things off here because my computer battery is starting to die and we have not had electricity since sometime before I woke up this morning at 6am (it's almost 8pm now). I really hope that it comes back on before I go to bed so my computer can charge while I'm sleeping. Oh well, just part of life here in a 3rd world country. At least the water is back on!! :D
Hope you're having a great week so far! I'll leave you with some pictures of language school. I've decided that I want to start something new for my blog. If they would agree, I would like to start interviewing teachers at school and maybe even some members of our church and post about them here on my blog. It would give you all a chance to get to know some of the people I spend so much time with!! :D
May the Lord Bless You and Keep You,
~Christine
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| Shantelle with Rachel (my last Swahili teacher at language school). Rachel recently got accepted into law school and is going to be leaving sometime at the end of this month. I'm so happy for her!! :D |
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| The group of Germans with Dorothea, my first Swahili teacher at language school. |
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| I <3 this group!! I'm gonna' be pretty sad when they leave Morogoro in the spring. |
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| Agnes (the shorter one in white a black) was my Swahili teacher my third week at language school! And of course Stephanie and Shantelle are in the picture as well!! :D |
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