1st visitor/School update

This morning I said goodbye to my mentor and friend from my home church and put her back on the bus for the 10 hour ride back to Nairobi so she can catch her flight tomorrow morning. It’s been so fun having a friend around to get to experience my life for a week, see village life, observe how school works and meet all of my friends here.

Unfortunately, this whole last week she had to experience, “hakuna maji” –there is no water. Normally water comes out of the tap.And it’s completely normal for it to be off, especially during the day or for a few days but we’re going on over a week now and it still hasn’t come back. We never received a notice on our door that it would be turned off or for how long, so we pray and wait. Until it comes back, we send our yellow buckets to the well across the street to be filled and then carried back on a pikipiki (motorcycle). Unfortunately we have to pay for this water. But we are thankful for the women of the church who help take care of us.

She also got to experience Kenyan food, some of it cooked by yours truly 

We went and visited one of the family’s of the church one afternoon and of course we were treated like kings and queens. They cut coconuts down from the tree behind their house and allowed us to enjoy. Yum!

We went and visited Salena in her tailoring school so she took a picture of her and I together.

Saturday we traveled by matatu and tuktuk up to Malindi so she could see the town and see the beautiful Indian ocean.

We shared the day with Scott, my fellow missionary at the coast and this was us at a chinese restaurant for lunch.

Of course she got to experience school! The first few days she was here I was still co-teaching with Salena. Here are some pictures she took of me teaching the music lesson.

She also got some great pictures of the kids in my class. Yesterday I started the day having them read books in pairs while I wrote in all their books the activity for the day. They actually listened, enjoyed it and I had to beg for the books back so we could move on!

Here I was explaining to Humphrey (orange shirt) how to tell the story using pictures…

And he listened and did a great job retelling the story to Denis(left) and Sefu (right). (my two youngest)

The kids did a great job today! I even had to leave my room a few times to sharpen pencils and everyone stayed inside, woohoo!!

After our language lesson this morning we went outside and practiced writing our letters in the dirt.

When we came back in I gave them their books to color the letters I had drawn for them… Once again a quiet, peaceful classroom.

Cheryl helped by passing out the crayons. This is also a time for the kids to learn their colors and the older ones have to say the color they want before they get.

I know its time to transition to a new lesson when this begins to happens…

And I was a pleasantly surprised that the older kids came in during their break and wanted to read books instead of playing outside.

Last night we invited the teachers and cook from the school and the elders in the church to join us for a final meal together before she left. I got to spend the afternoon preparing the food with the ladies. We sang my favorite Swahili hymn together, Usinipite (pass me not), shared some encouraging words and prayed together. I have to say having all my favorite people in our home to share a meal together made me a little emotional for a few reasons. One, Cheryl gets to greet you all with hugs very soon and two, I’m going to be a mess when my kwaheri comes and I have to say goodbye to them.

Afterwards we took a picture of those who were still around and of course Cheryl and I got a picture together!

Thank you Cheryl for coming, for putting up with the dirt, bucket showers, squatty potty, and culture shock! I am pleased at how well you did! Friends & family back home, you are more than welcome anytime, Karibu!

P.s- Here’s a link to my facebook where you can see a few videos she took of me teaching and explaining stuff in Swahili J My Swahili has really improved since the last videos!

Video 1  Video 2

School update

I’m pleased to inform you that school has much improved in the last week. I am loving getting to put together my own lesson plans and gaining a bit more control of my kiddos.

Here are some of my kids showing off their coloring of the shapes. I told them if they color well I will take their picture… I’ve never seen them work so hard! All their hard work is paying off though, they are currently taken their mid-term exams (yes even this age) and are doing very well!