First Week

I just finished my first week of school. I think I'm starting to get the hang of it. The first three days one of the missionary moms, Kathy, (the one who had been doing my job until I got there), was in the classroom with me showing me how everything worked and where things were at...I was overwhelmed for a while. There are only four students (who are very smart and polite) but they each have 6 or 7 subjects. I'm responsible for doing their planning, grading, and answering questions for each of their subjects. Most of the lessons are on DVDs that the students watch and they are responsible for following my plan (doing which lesson I tell them to do that day), getting their homework to me, and letting me know if I need to give them a test or quiz. It's been funny because the first day I was like "No problem...this is the easiest job ever! I only have 4 students...I'm used to 120...piece of cake!" But the next day, Kathy i think let me take over a little more and I felt like the whole day I was constantly being asked for a test or quiz (that I had no idea which of the fifty books it was in) or was given homework assignments that needed to be graded before they started the next lesson(and wasn't sure where the answer keys were), all while trying to plan our their schedules for the next 2 weeks (without knowing for sure where they were in the books). It was crazy! But now, they have their schedules, I know where things are a lot better, and I have more time to grade things as they get turned in. I'm enjoying it a lot more now than I did the second day. I'm even begining to plan a semester long art lesson/project for them. Jordan got his assignment the other day...he will be working with the building guys for most of the week, helping to finish up the new hospital so that they can get moved in! Right now his job is to go around and find mistakes that were made (which apparently there are a lot of) and fix them. Plus, he is going to be in the high school a little bit helping me grade and possibly doing a history projects with the kids. Later he will a be leading a bible study with the HS boys and helping with some history related things at the MK elementary school.
Other interesting things:
- We began our Pidgin lessons this week
- Cockroaches here are the size of my thumb and like to crawl into the middle of our bedroom...roll over...and play dead.
- We haven't gotten sick yet! (well, i had a cold but that doesn't count)
- We went to our first "bush" church. It was awesome...we were greeted with lais (flower necklaces)...we sat on the ground...the church was a grass hut...we didn't understand a word...children were staring at us the whole service...it was fun!
- Our neighbors have all the seasons of LOST! So we borrowed season I and have been watching them on the laptop.
- The view from our backyard is amazing! I'll send pictures later...don't let me forget!
- I played basketball in a skirt for the first time the other day...and I helped with PE on Tuesday which was tennis! (tennis is very exciting here, there are so many cracks and holes on the court you never know where the ball will go!!)