Oh boy! Yesterday was busy busy. It was the first day of the school year and the scramble was full blown. 200+ new students with no new teachers hired, so I am hoping to relieve some of that pressure and stress these teachers are sure to be to be feeling. In the morning I “welcomed” new students and parents. I could only do so much with the English they know and Swahili I know, so “good morning, karibu” was about as far as I got. School was to begin at 8:00, but new students continued arriving in spurts until 10ish when it was breakfast time (tea and bread). They sing a national anthem every morning—which I had forgot about having done early in elementary school and makes me wonder why we stopped in later grades—that I am trying to learn right now. I bounced around a lot after breakfast, jumping into classroom after classroom to introduce myself. The first class I went to was extremely shy and quiet, anxious to respond to my questions or ask their own. This made me a bit nervous that it was going to be hard to connect with the kids, but the next few classes I went to were very talkative and interested. I met some teachers that I think I will be working side by side with.
Ezekia is the music teacher at the school. He is currently working on a bachelor’s degree in music and knows 16 instruments that he helps the kids learn. If I had to guess, I think I will end up being closest with him out of all the teachers, but I haven’t spent too much time with others, so we will see. There’s another, Teacher Samuel, and I think I’ll be in his class a bit too.
After the long day of class and introductions, I was very excited to be going home. At home I played soccer for a couple hours with Jovin, John and kaka. Jovin is the youngest son of Lucas and the baby of the family at 9 years old. John, Jovin’s older brother, is 18, works with Lucas at the safari business and seems to be very motivated and intelligent. Kaka (a sort of nick name, meaning brother) is the grounds manager of the home/property and is always working—I wake up he is washing the cars, I go to sleep he is tilling the garden, never not moving. After soccer we had dinner. It was a delicious potato and banana stew with some beef and a dry, leathery type of fried chicken. I woke up this morning pretty early and couldn’t get back to bed, but at least I had some time to prepare for today with a bit of schedule planning for which classes I’m going to help in.