Back to School

This last week was our first “practical week,” meaning that, instead of having classes, we were out doing ministry all day. In this case though, we ended up in classes anyhow – just not our own!

Every morning we caught a school bus at 6:45 and rode out to school with the kids.

One of our friends is the school’s director, and our site supervisor works in the same compound as the school, so they decided that we should get to know the students and teachers better than we already did (Some of the girls go out every Sunday to join the boarding kids for Christian Union – kind of like Sunday School).

From 8:00am to 5:00pm, we sat in classes with the kids, ate lunch with them, and learned playground games.

A few highlights of the week:

~I got to teach class three social studies – nothing like teaching social studies in a culture you’re still learning…

~One of the class six boys came up to Laura and told her, “Chuck Norris is my grandfather.” (cue an endless stream of Chuck Norris jokes running through all of our heads :P )

~One of the teachers introduced himself to Melissa as, “My name is Mr. Hassan. I’m single.” Really…good to know. Not interested. Thanks.

~We got to eat lunch with our fingers the first couple of days – apparently, you’re supposed to bring your own spoon. Oops.

~We each learned at least six different Kenyan playground games

~At least four of those have songs involved that get VERY stuck in your head – whether you understand what all of the words are or not

~Me and Melissa taught the class fives how to make puppy dog faces with their fingers and, in the process of drawing eyes on some of boys’ fingers were told, “Teacher, it’s no good. They are black already.” …That led to an interesting conversation about how the palms of our hands were close to the same color as theirs…

~I was asked by several different classes for the names of Obama’s family members. (Anyone know his father’s name? Cause, I certainly didn’t J)

~In the process of trying to convince Laura that he was an American, one of the class seven boys told her that his last name was “Smith.” (Not bad for a kid who’s lived in Kenya all his life…)

~We all realized just how Kenyan our English is becoming