Yesterday was officially the halfway point of my commitment here at hope school. I’m expecting this next month and change to fly by; whenever I reach a halfway mark, I’ve found that time speeds up—unless it’s something I’m not enjoying and want desperately to end. Over the night it had rained nonstop, with a light drizzle persisting into day break. The roads were quite muddy, leading to difficult driving conditions. Abby and I got picked up from home which was nice—normally we walk to school and meet the bus there, but the rain had killed our motivation. The bus route had to be altered a tad. Some roads provided a challenge and others were decidedly impassable. With the difficult terrain we added 15 minutes to our route time and ended up being pretty late. Unfortunately, most of the busses had similar issues and the start of the school day was quietly postponed.
I was pretty busy at school yesterday. In the morning I spent a little over an hour organizing the computer room for the afternoon session of Riveting Results. Last week’s lessons were scrapped because the A/C and electrician people had left a terrible mess—it wasn’t until yesterday that the cleaners had finally cleared it out. It the commotion of installation and cleaning, the computers were moved all around and the chargers got tied into knots resembling one of my skillful fishing birds nests, so I had to rearrange all of this.
After computer setup was break; after break was English; after English was more computer setup. I went to break early and hurriedly ate my bread and drank my tea, burning my tongue in the process. I had planned a long lesson of exercises and wanted to get a head start on writing the things on the blank board. I spent the rest of the day jumping between these tasks. After lunch I was teaching English which I had to leave early to jump into riveting results. I went on the bus route home after school which went smoothly. The roads had dried out a little bit during the day and were less problematic.
I went home after this bus route (normally I stay for remedial and the evening route) because I was exhausted. However, upon arriving home, I was told that we—Abby, Edith and I—were going to the new school site to plant crops there. The crop field is about an acre of land, maybe a bit more, and I was nervous for what this activity was to entail. When we got there plans had changed because the tractor that was supposed to come failed to show up. I was sent to join cement carries who were filling the foundation for the wall being built around the property. I enjoyed it; I have been missed physical labor.
The site is moving along swimmingly and I’m anxious to see the progress over the next few months. My body was so sore after only 30 minutes of hauling buckets of cement; I would fill up two buckets halfway with 40ish pounds of cement each, walk 100ish feet to the wall line, dump it in, walk back and repeat. We were at the site for 2ish hours. When we got home at 7:30 I was covered in dried cement, dust, and mud, so decided a shower was needed. I took dinner early and retreated to my room around 8:30 to get a little extra sleep. This morning I woke up a bit sore, but I’m sure I’ll be alright once I get moving. Today is music day!