and it feels once again that things are starting to settle

So my achievement of this weekend was posting pictures on facebook... I tried to post them on here, but it was taking too long, so if you want to see pictures of my life here, and you have a facebook account, check them out...

That said, life here is a combination of so full and so ordinary, that I hardly know what to write. With school, I settled into my new timetable and am learning how to handle having some free time. It probably isn't even very much free time in the day when I do not have classes and may or may not have grading to do, but when given the choice, I do not do free time, for better or worse, so it is a new concept to me. Left to schedule my own life, I would try and be going from morning devotions at 6:30 until after dinner at 8:30. As the other volunteer wisely pointed out after only a few weeks of living with me, learning how to live with free time might be good for me. And free time here is slower, more reflective and cannot be filled with the constant distractions of back home. For example, when I had free time last year and did not know what to do, I could fill it with going and doing something. Here I have to be more creative... It will be a good challenge for me though.

Meanwhile, I love my new classes if only because I know that the kids can for the most part understand me. It is slightly challenging coming in mid-term and trying to figure out what the kids know and need to work on and even what they should have been taught this year. Also, managing time in a 35 minute class can be hard, and if I make it where the kids do not have time to finish an assignment, they are obviously upset with me. Thankfully, for all the subjects, we have Kenya issued curriculum which is not bad at all. I am skeptical of some of the subtle social messages I see in the texts, but other messages like an awareness of AIDS, environmental concerns and other social issues is good. The English chapters break down into a reading passage with reading questions for comprehension, a vocabulary exercise, and then some grammar points and a prompt for writing. I do not always use the prompts, but have had all of my classes write me compositions which are fun to read. One today was simply amazing with the poetic metaphors and descriptions, even if they were written to such an abundance that he forgot to include a subject or verb in his sentence...

And I like my schedule also because it means when the kids get done with class, I have energy to engage them. When I was teaching standard one, as often as not I would be exhausted and hide away. Last week however I was intentional about once I saw the kids out playing, to go join them. I have even taken up basketball, the choice activity here, and if one knows of my little league days and how completely hopeless I was, that is my labor of love. I have played hours and hours in this past week, and am still pretty terrible, but for me, it is about the relationships formed, and that has been invaluable.

Otherwise, last week was marked by the visit of Madam's Canadian partner, which was mostly good in that it helped finish our chicken house and included ice cream and gumboots and lots of love and messages of grace for all the children. However, it also included the drama surrounding the misplacing of some rather important papers which never turned up although everything was pretty much gone through and consequences were threatened if they should be found in anybody's possession. So yeah, that was no fun...

Otherwise, I have begun again to try and learn the rest of the kids names. I still need to get my sewing/mending project started, but have been waiting for things to slow down a bit on the visitor end. That will be today as Friday people left, and today the basketball grandfather leaves, which will leave me and Lynne, the other longer term, young volunteer. We also have in our visitors quarters as of last night, Madam's sister, her husband and their baby who are here because they think(we all think) Madam needs to take a break.  However, they are a different sort of neighbor that other North Americans.

And this week has started out well, with all my classes showing up today... And I realized today that it was exactly two months ago today that I left Seattle... I have been here at Hope for five weeks, here in Kenya for seven... and it feels once again, that things are starting to settle...