Last Weeks...

It's only been 11 days but it feels like a lifetime ago since I last wrote on my blog. I was hoping to be almost finished before my plane touches down at IAD, but it seems like this will be an ongoing process. Saying goodbye here is a never-ending process and finding any time for rest, let alone writing on my blog, has been almost impossible. Luckily I've been jotting down blog titles over the last week and a half so I won't forget too many funny stories and recent impressions.

A rough sketch of what's been going on:

Since returning from holiday on April 12th I planned an entire trip to Zanzibar using my Lonely Planet guide to Tanzania. I then spent 4 days there, skipping school on Monday, and have returned for just three more days of school before driving down to Dar es Salaam to catch a plane back home (volcano permitting, of course).

Things from last week:

- Last Tuesday students from the 4th grade classes of Key and Chumbageni Skyped. The theme was music, so the kid here shared their national anthem, a patriotic song, ad their school song. The kids at Key played the recorder (how Orff of them!)and asked some really great questions. I have been really improving with my Swahili and was so psyched that I could translate a large part of the conversation.

- My keyboard went haywire and now chooses to skip letters every now and then. This has made for interesting gchats, emails, and now blog posts. Apologies for the many typos.

- I spent all day on Wednesday opening email accounts for every teacher at the school. I made a contact list for every teacher as well as a power point presentation that includes a picture and a brief background on every teacher. Exhausting, but totally worth it.

- Thursday the 1st graders Skyped with Mrs. Waymouth's Kindergarten class. They got to talk about what they do after school and other things about their life. We learned that only one student in the Key School K class has chickens, and almost everyone owns a dog. Here, everyone owns a chicken, but only one person owns a dog.

- Friday is always a half day. I took off for Zanzibar at 3:30 and came back Monday at 2:30. I have copied my itinerary in its original form into a separate post. Pictures have already been posted, but look for more in the future about how the trip actually went. Overall it is a beautiful place and I had a great time....

- Tuesday (Yesterday) after school we Skyped with the 3rd graders. This was very cool since these kids have already exchanged one round of letters with each other with the second round currently in transit. The kids really enjoyed getting to meet their pen friends and learning about the similarities and differences in between our two countries (sports, classes, chores, etc.) The most interesting thing was that the kids here are mostly Muslim, with a few Christians mixed in. At Key it's a mixture of Christians and Jews. The teachers and students don't know anything about the Jewish religion (unless we were having trouble translating, but they seemed to genuinely unaware of what it was). There was also an athiest in the class at Key, but I've had enough of an interesting experience trying to explain that about myself when I am asked so I decided to just stick with Christian for the sake of the short conversation. After that, we moved to my house where the kids got to see my room and my bathroom for a fun compare/contrast exercise. They were in the middle of picking their next room when we got a call from the US Library and skipped up the road to talk to them. It was really cool getting to meet the big kids, but for me the best surprise was getting to see my sister and introduce her to my students at Chumbageni.

- Yesterday also included a trip to a local hostel to take pics and gather information for any group who would potentially like to come visit Chumbageni. We then went to the post office to get a new key (the old one was lost), followed by the internet store. All lines of communication should now be functioning and people should be able to stay in touch even after I leave.


That's the quick version of everthing that's been happening lately. Four more days until I'll be home.....