My mom has been harassing me that I need to update my blog. I am almost finished with my 5^th week of teaching.  I am amazed at how fast the time is going by and how full the days are! Last week, Tanzi helped me re-do some of the bulletin boards in the classroom and they a lot better!  I am amazed at what you can do with some construction paper, a pair of scissors, and a little creativity! The only things on this board that I can take credit for are the birds, the cloud with the verse, the grass, and the trees.  Tanzi gets credit for all the other critters.

The weeks are really busy and go by very quickly!  Classes start at 8:15, but we let kids in at 8:05.  School gets out for the day at 3:00.  I spend most of my afternoons grading and lesson planning.  I think that lesson planning is getting a lot easier!  Monday evenings are joint worship. Tuesday afternoons the SMs go into town.  Wednesday I afternoon I have supervision at the high school.  Thursday evening we have Bible study.  Friday evenings we have vespers and sometimes we have faculty family. 

Let me explain what faculty family is.  Maxwell is a boarding school for the high school and so the students are split up into “family” groups.  Once or twice a month each group of kids goes to a different staff member’s house to eat food and just hang out.  The SMs collectively have their own faculty family.  Our group is mostly seniors and so far we have had a lot of fun making popcorn and cookies together and singing songs.

My kids at the elementary are great and I am really enjoying teaching. I want to tell you about one of my boys.  His name is Daniel and he is a 2^nd grader.  I know that teachers are not supposed to have favorites….. but it’s hard not too.  He is so funny!  He does not like to do his work and always tells me so.  I just tell him that sometimes we all have to do things that we do not like to do.  So now, every time he complains – he comes up to me and says, “I do not want to do this.  But I know that I have to because we all have to do things that we do not want to do” and he goes to his seat to do it.  It really cracks me up! Then he is always asking what day it is or what time it is and every time you tell him he goes “really!?  Where does the time go! It goes so fast

Here in Kenya they call erasers rubber and Daniel is always losing his!  So about 8 or 9 times a day I hear with a little Kenyan accent “Where is my rubber?  Where is my rubber?”  He rolls his R s too. Just today I was helping him with a spelling assignment.  I told him that I was not helping him with the next problem.  So he told me that I was a bad teacher.   I responded by telling him that I would be a bad teacher if I told him all the answers.  He then says, “No you wouldn’t!  I would be so proud of you!”  I am telling you these kids make my day!

Then I have Edna.  She is a 3^rd grader and I think of her as my Ramona.  She comes into the classroom every morning literally bouncing!  She comes right up to my desk “I love you Ms. McCauley!  What are we doing today?”  And then she proceeds to ask if we can make some kind of art project or make a play.

I think that art class it the one thing that I dread the most every week.  Katie and I take turns teaching 2^nd -6^th grade art and 7^th and 8^th grade ate.  I am a terrible art teacher!  Coming up with what to do is always a struggle for me.  It is not so bad with the younger ones.  You could hand them coloring sheets and they would be entertained.  We made puppets, made little books in which we wrote short stories, and have done some origami.  Trying to teach art to the older ones though goes right over my head and I really struggle with what to teach them!

Last weekend was team A’s weekend off.  However, the SMs were in charge of vespers that night and so we lead out in that.  Tanzi and I both gave short “sermons” at the vespers and all the other SMs lead out for the music.  I think that overall it went really well!  Then on Sabbath Tanzi and I taught Sabbath school for some of the high schoolers.  I have really been enjoying the discussions that have taken place!  Saturday night we made pizza on the grill with Derick and Yani and it was amazing!

 Here is a funny story.  On my walk home Saturday night, somewhere I walked through some safari ants.  I think that the term ants in your pants came from somewhere in Africa.  When these guys get in your clothes, you know it!  I go into my house and I started feeling a pinching on my leg.  Being that it is not the first time I have gotten bit by safari ants I immediately recognized the feeling.  Then I started feeling them more on my legs and even up to my neck.  It is a good thing that I was already in my house at this point, because I started pulling my clothes off fast trying to get rid of the nasty things!

Sunday morning Tanzi, Yani, and I got up early and ran about 10 k (that is about 6 miles) into Roungi.  It was a great run! Unfortunately, on the way back I tripped on a rock and fell.  I skinned up both my knee and my hand and so had a lot of fun cleaning it out when we got back to the school.  That afternoon we went to a restaurant in Nairobi and then went to an ostrich farm.  It was a great day! 

Emily, Tanzi, and I trying to make cookies.

Sunday evening Emily, Tanzi, and I were really wanting something sweet!  So we tried to make cookies.  The problem was we had a little flour, some sugar, an egg, and peanut butter.  We apparently are not talented enough cooks to make them turn out to be very good cookies.  They were eatable, just not the best.

This morning for reading class we did a short skit to act out what we read in the chapter.  I recorded them doing the skit and then we all watched it.  It was priceless!  They were all a little nervous with being recorded and so the skit is not recorded as well as they did it when they were practicing, but it is really cute.  When we finished I let them watch their skit and they just loved it.