a flip-flop, a bbq steak pizza and a potato man

Hey Folks,
Well, it’s been a week since I’ve returned from my safari. Another week of teaching has gone by. I’ve finally got some more long-term lesson plans ready and set for my classes, so that makes me feel good. In my grade four class we are learning about paragraph writing. They’ve never written paragraphs before, but we started off by speaking key phrases (“My name is…”, “My favourite color is…”) and this last week we worked on writing the sentences with our answers. Now we have to work on the proper places to put capital letters, and when to use “is” and “are” (my favourite colors are…). English is a complicated language!
My grade 2’s love to sing and I’m continuing to teach them songs. I think that’s their favourite part of the class, and it breaks up the harder work. We’re going to be doing lots of letters in that class- working on letters and sounds. During my Thursday class, one of my kids with epilepsy had a seizure. It was really different than the seizures I've seen before, but I'm so glad I have a first aid background, because it didn't really phase me.
I also quite enjoy the drama/culture/choir class that happens on Wednesday. Some of my grade two boys are awesome dancers! It’s really fun to watch. Sandra (another teacher) and I have been doing the class together. Last time I taught the kids a medley of “swing low”, “oh when the saints” and “I’m gonna sing, sing, sing”.
On Friday, some World Vision people came to the school to check it out and some of the kids did a presentation for them. During the presentation they sang the medley and I was so proud of them (I only taught it to them for the first time on Wednesday). All the kids did a great job of representing the school. I also got to work for a bit with the preschool and kindergarten class (called the "reception class"). They speak almost no English, but it's interesting how much you can communicate with body language—especially to little kids. I did some singing with them and they caught on really well.
One evening this week the Brennemans, Chris and I all went out to the Protea (?) Lodge (where I sat on the elephant last time). It’s a really nice place, but it’s starting to get colder at night now, and we were glad there were heat lamps in the restaurant.
Another evening, the Brennemans were invited out to dinner, so Chris and I ate Indian food and explored the mall. There’s a bowling alley, a movie theatre and a movie rental place there. This weekend the family is gone again, but Chris and I have been holding down the fort at home pretty well. Last night Joseph, one of the other teachers at the school, came over for dinner and today we all took the bus to town.
Buses here are crazy! Seats are irrelevant, because however many people you can fit on the bus will fit on the bus. In fact, there are fold-out seats that go into the aisles so that more people can fit on the bus. So, if you are sitting at the back of the bus and want to get out, all the aisle people have to stand up, fold up their seats, get off the bus, let you off, then go back, fold out the seats and sit down again. And if you are sitting in an aisle seat (which I was), you do a lot of standing up and seat folding. So funny.
Town was a little intimidating and I was glad Joseph came with Chris and I. I attract a lot of attention from people for being white. Street vendors would sort of run at me or shout at me to get my attention. It was a place to hold my purse tightly. Even inside the supermarket I was greeted by the cashier (in a very friendly way) "hello white woman". Other people would talk with Joseph and I could always tell they were talking about me in among their nianja: "blah, blah, blah masungo blah, blah". There are various interpretations of the word masungo. In Kenya, we were told it meant traveller. Here it refers to someone who is perceived as wealthy, or someone who is white- and all white people are perceived as being wealthy. I think a white woman walking with two black men in the inner-city is pretty rare.
I was also saved by Joseph from a man with a cart of potatoes. As I'm walking, I hear this sort of hissing sound- like a KSS. As I'm wondering where it's coming from Joseph pulls me in front of him, and I realise it was the driver of the potato cart telling me to move out of the way. I got to be very good at listening for that sound which is used by all the vendors as a "coming through" warning.
I actually was also saved by my flip-flop today which is semi-interesting. I stepped on a pointed rock as I was walking and I felt this prick on my foot. This rock had gone right through my flip flop and the end had poked by foot, but been stopped by the foam of the shoe from actually going into my foot. This event reminded me of going into Entebbe market one evening in Uganda and having a bone go through my flip-flop (except in that case it actually went into my foot).
While in town we ate pizza. I had bbq steak pizza. It was actually quite good. The things you find in Africa!
Well, that's the summary of this week folks.
Take care all,
Dayna