Well I have survived my second week of teaching.  Lately, I have been feeling like I need to go back and thank every teacher that I have ever had.  The kids have finally gotten my name down and they use it all the time.  It feels like every ten seconds or so someone needs help with something or is fighting with someone else.  I love helping the kids and talking to them… the problem is that often they all want help at once.  There are moments when I really wonder if teaching is what I want to do –but most of the time I love it!  I am learning a lot. 

            The students in the school are from all over the world.  I have students from all different countries in Africa, from the Philippines, from the U.S., from Moldova.  Asking a student where they are from generally leads to an interesting conversation.  Often their nationality is one thing, they were born somewhere else, their family currently lives in another location, and they go to school here in Kenya.  I think that it is pretty neat that the kids have the opportunities that they do to see so many different cultures and ways of life.

I am especially enjoying the second graders right now!  I have four of them.  We have been learning about writing in complete sentences.  This has been quite a struggle for some.  The other day, I was sitting on at my desk working on grading papers while they were writing their sentences and Daniel throws his pencil down saying, “this is too hard”.  Ameline, who sits behind him, tries to reassure him with an, “it’s O.K. Daniel.  You can do it.  You just have to believe.”  Daniel quickly responds with, “Well I believe that I can fly too, but I can’t.”  It was so hard not to burst out laughing.  I have never heard a response like that from someone so little.  These kids crack me up!  It is so hard not to laugh at them sometimes.  Today in church another one of my students could not find her family, so she came and sat with me.  She was almost in tears because she was so upset.  After a while we saw her brother and she quickly jumped up to join her family.  As she ran away though she turned back to me, threw her arms around my neck, kissed me on the cheek, and then left.

            Math class has been a bit of a struggle.  I am teaching 5^th and 6^th grade math at the same time.  I have a forty-minute class period to do this.  I am struggling to learn how to balance my time between the two grades and give each enough instruction for them to be able to do their homework.  I remember 6^th grade math.  I felt like that was the year that I struggled with math the most, and that makes me nervous in trying to teach it.

            I am getting pretty close to the other SMs here.  There are eight of us total.  The joke is that its Keith and his seven wives.  This all started the other day when we were in the market and a man came up to me saying I was very beautiful and that he loved me.  I just smiled politely at him and took a few quick steps to catch up to Keith and latched onto his arm.  He continued to follow us telling Keith that “his girl” was very beautiful.  Then when Emily had a guy trying to pet her arm it just become the joke that Keith was going to have seven wives for the year.

            The markets are a lot of fun!  I have really enjoyed just talking to some of the people from the area.  It is so interesting to hear some of their perspectives on things or just to joke around with them.  I am excited for more opportunities to spend time getting to know people from the area.

            Today, Tanzi and I taught Sabbath School to some of the high school students.  I think that we are on to teach for the next few weeks.  I was a little worried about how it would go.  I have not done too much with the high schoolers here because I spend most of my time in the elementary.  When I teach Bible to the 7^th and 8^th graders they do not talk too much.  You get up front to try and lead a discussion with them and all they do is make faces at each other and laugh.  This makes things interesting in class.  I have started doing less discussion and making them write responses more.  I am hoping that as the year goes on I will be able to get them to talk more.  I was afraid that this would be the case with the high school students for Sabbath School.  I was really excited that they were more willing to put in to conversation!