the last few days

One night. Just one measly night I forget to coat myself in mozzie repellent and what happens? I wake up itching like hell, 40 bites heavier!!
So yes the mozzies are bad, the heat is bad and the humidity is bad-so far it ends there though!

The last few days have been a great step for me in discovering my place in my new gigantic family. As mentioned before I’ve been assisting with the younger years at the school, teaching them songs and rhymes which are mostly received with blank stares and lost expressions (but then heard being bellowed loudly after school). I’ve been trying to lead some lessons with the year 10s which are good fun. Extremely challenging sometimes, especially when the topic is something I hardly know anything about. Like yesterday I had to explain nuclear power. So that involved explaining where/what uranium is (it’s written in the book thank goodness, but I just have to make it sound more simpler) and then what radioactive means. No, it hasn’t really got anything to do with a radio, but good try ….

The afternoons have been full of reading for me. Katie (who is a full time American here who does the teaching coordination) has set up a reading program for the afternoons which involve me sitting down with kids and listening to them read! At times it requires a higher level of patience than I even knew existed, but I’m starting to learn that that is the way with everything involving children! Haha Supervising the computer time (there are about 6 old school computers set up, we could only got 3 working though) is also my newfound occupation which is good except when the power keeps on cutting out and the kids have to start their beautiful paint creations all over again later in the day!

I’ve had some really wonderful afternoons. One was with the older girls (my age) sitting around watching bollywood film clips on a visitors phone, then talking about all the males we were spying on from across the field (which at the moment looks more like a river due to the rain!). Another afternoon I spent about 40 minutes playing ‘I spy wiz mine little eyez’ with all age groups. One of the little girls had us all stumped on a word beginning with the letter “D” for about 5 minutes before she eventually looked at us like we were stupid and revealed the word to be window! My other favorite time was when Amy and I took the nursery kids (Under 7s) all for a walk around bits of the farm. They kept saying they wanted to go to see the lepers which I was rather shocked about, like the lepers were their favorite exhibit at the museum to see, and was later told that they were talking about the area where the lepers used to live which was supposed to be pretty fun. It had rained the day before and it was pretty muddy around and of course I forgot to check that all the kids had shoes on, so I had to bare the consequences of my actions and carry Kevin (the most adorable 4 year old you will come across) for a solid 30 minutes. That day we sang everything from Humpty Dumpty to ‘Doe re me fa..’ from the sound of music!
It has just been independence day here (15th of august) so we were all treated to the creed, the national anthem, songs and speeches from the school kids (who had to come to school even though it was a Sunday!). When the flag was hoisted the flowers that had been wrapped in the flag fell to the ground-what a beautiful idea!

My suits came back a few days ago so I have been enjoying wearing those. I have a beautiful blue one, a pink and green one and a purple one. I’ll try and get some photos and post them up for you to see. One of the girls gave me henna (mehindi) in my palm and she did an amazing job!! The design is so intricate. It is made from grounded mehendi leaves (which they also use to put in their hair) and it comes out like a paste. It dries in around an hour then you use oil and lemon to darken it before scraping it off. Unfortunately instead of the beautiful brown colour that it comes out like on their skin, it looks more like bright orange texta on my pale hands! It’s supposed to disappear within 10 days Dad.

We had meat for the first time a few days back which was delicious! Chicken curry yummmm. It was for a special occasion though, doesn’t happen too often here! The food is very simple but nice enough. The lack of fresh fruits and veggies makes me feel like im on an all-carb diet so I treat myself and walk to the markets to buy apples (and even a choccie bar once :P).

Well that’s all for now. I am trying desperately to upload these stupid photos, ive had multiple attempts, so hopefully this time I will sort it out and the internet will stay on long enough to finish the process!

Much love to you all!!