Mango Mustache

You’ve hear of a milk mustache but what about a mango mustache? Quite often I see the orphan children at school taking mangoes from the tree and just eating them. I thought I’d give it a try…well I guess I don’t have the skill yet. I will just have to practice this tasty trick until I get it perfect. J Some things are really worth practicing.

Preparing the Classroom

Some days I have the energy to head back to school to organize for the next day.

Rainy Season

 

Rainy season doesn’t come without its perks, citrus fruits in season, less dust, really great looking clouds, and the purchase of a super bright and very East African umbrella.

Learning Through Play

 

Hand eye coordination, very good

Numerical Order, even without directions

Nice sorting

    Little do the children know, they are learning when they play. Fine motor skills, taking turns, sorting by color, hand eye coordination, sharing, special awareness, putting things in sequential order, it’s all play to them. And that makes me happy!!!

Concentration on a goal

A lovely AB pattern, nice work

Conquering the world with Legos and learning how to share!!!

Sorting by color and letter :)

And that is what I call a good days worth of learning!

Parent Teacher Conferences

Off to Parent Teacher Conferences...feeling good

Recipe for Ending a Brithday Well

Start with a good recipe

Get someone else to cut the onions :)

Save some for later

Enjoy with some good friends.

When 2 Worlds Collide

Wednesday I received a novel of an email from a very good friend that I didn’t have time then to read. A saved email makes it even more special. It’s like an unopened letter. With anticipation mounting I opened it this fine birthday morning. It was like my birthday present from her, I thought.

It was great. She writes just as if she is in the room with me chatting. She talked about her church, starting running, and other random life things. I was laughing so hard. I even read parts to my roommate that were extremely funny.

Then I got to the end. Normally I just go from one email to the next. I couldn’t. I had to get up and walk away. As tears filled my eyes I walked down the hall. Partly to get away, but partly because the yuck living in my stomach were telling me to find the toilet.  I had such joy reading that email. I was back in her house just chatting. Then I was struck with reality. She’s not here. I’m sitting on the toilet wishing I wasn’t. Then to make things worse I looked over at the bucket of soaking clothing that I, and no one else, must hunch over and scrub with my bare hands, hoping that the soap doesn’t eat holes in my skin.

I was hit with reality. Don’t get me wrong. I love living here, serving, teaching, and just being. But when my worlds collide and the contrast is so evident it makes me wish for the comfortable days of the past. Days when friends were close, the electricity worked, favorite food items were near by, and most of all family was down the hall.

Happy Birthday to ME

Looking over my blog I noticed that I haven't done much reflection lately. It is mainly photos and captions. I blame this partly on the fact that I was drowning under the load of being a first year teacher and partly on the fact that I have wonderful people around me that I am able to process and discuss things with :)
Normally I don't really care much for my birthday, not that I don't like it just that it isn't a huge thing for me. But for some reason I've been talking about it for weeks. And part of me couldn't sleep last night.
Yesterday in preparation for my birthday I went to the market. Going to the Central Market is quite the experience. When I say that people don't have space bubbles I'm not joking. I politely tap them on the shoulder, and with my best French accent say, "pardon". They look at me as if I asked them to do the impossible. I then have to resort to pushing, literally pushing them out of the way. This of course is not thought of as rude in anyway. Now that I have a full time job I cannot travel to the market until an hour to it closing. This means that the floors have seen an entire day worth of waste, chaff, and questionable liquids. I always seem to forget about this dreadful part. Shoes, proper shoes would be the answer, but with the forgetful nature I have they are left at home. I do my best to gingerly walk along the piles of stems and crushed leafs, hoping not to splatter my legs too badly. With all this said you may be asking, why I still go. It is simple. It brings me joy to travel to the market. Walking amongst the vendors picking up some new Kirundi words as I go. I am the only white person within the expanse of vendors and shoppers which makes me feel somehow small and yet very brave. I also am able to feel like I belong here. Every other woman my age travels to the market to load up on the essentials. But I think the thing that tops it off is the price. It makes me happy when I can buy 6 mangoes, 2 pili pili peppers, a liter of oil, 6 limes, 8 cilantro plants, a big squash and 6 limes all for about 5 US dollars.
With the shopping list you may have guessed what is on the menu for today, SALSA. I decided that some fajitas and salsa would be the answer to the question, what's for dinner?
Today, after washing my clothing; my birthday present to myself, clean clothes, I will travel back into the market for some fun clothing shopping with the ladies from school.
After which Isaac, my fiancee, will be joining me for a cooking session. He's bringing the goat meat to put into our fajitas, and I'm very excited about that!
It sound like it's going to be a great day. Hope I'll remember to take photos to show you in the next post.

Morning Devotions

Combined Year 1 classes for Devotion time proved to be much more relaxing that I had thought. The other class was very well behaved and was a very good influence on my class :)

Reading through the baby Bible I have. One story per day. We are learning all about the famous characters in the Old Testament right now.

Educational Donations

Thanks to Sue McMaster my class is learning all about the letters of the alphabet :)

COOKIES!!!

Rain on the roof, cool breeze in the air, lightning flashing, thunder rolling in the distance, random ant crawling across the floor and cookie in hand.

 Thanks to my good friend Laura Osterman I am truly enjoying this Monday.

"That's one good cookie mix. I'd like that person to be my friend." housemate Liz

Job Vacancy in East Africa

The King's School, Burundi is Recruiting

We are an English speaking, Christian school which offers an international education to children from 1 - 18 yrs. Currently we are the only school offering this type of education in Burundi.

The school is fee paying, which enables us to subsidise children from two local orphanages

.

Currently we need to fill the posts of HEAD OF NURSERY and YEAR 5 TEACHER. Both posts need to be filled by January 2013.

In support of the school's missional objectives, our preference would be to recruit either Burundian citizens or self-financing missionaries; however support options may be available.

Candidates must be:

- practising Christians
- fluent in English
- have relevant teaching experience

ARE YOU INTERESTED?

DO YOU KNOW SOMEONE WHO MIGHT BE INTERESTED?

Potential candidates should either submit their CV or contact principal.tks@hotmail.co.uk

Jeremy Wisdom

Principal

The King's School
BP1560
Bujumbura
Burundi

Tel: (+257) 218197

Creating Books!!!

We are studying reproduction this term and so I'm talking about baby vs adult names...and the difference in shape and size of baby and adult.

I'm super excited about the book I just made for my students. Hope they enjoy it. Here is the first page.