It's Been Awhile

So needless to say it has been quite some time almost 3 weeks since I have given an update one here....sorry about that :)

What's new in my life?!? I can officially say that I love teaching and there is no question that this is the career I was meant to have. I have an excellent group of students. All 10 of them have their own personalities and their own way of putting a smile on my face. We are getting to know each other quite well and I think we are all becoming quite the team! I have a wonderful assistant who is there when ever I need her....she is terrific with the students and I would completely lost without her :) I love the school and the staff is very close and friendly.

Teaching still very much consumes my life. I have started staying late several nights at school and still spending lots of time during the evening and at least one day of the weekend preparing lessons and such. The school days fly by as do the weeks. It is hard to believe that we have been in session almost a month so far. I get my first official pay check as a teacher this week so I am excited to finally be getting paid for what I love doing :)

I have started to dedicate one day of my weekend to relaxing or a day where I do no school work. I have been spending lots of time at the beach. Last week I went to an event in Dar called Nyama Choma, which is a big BBQ meat event. It was a lot of fun and I got to try some traditional Tanzanian food. Something else I did was ate my whole meal with my hands which is something new for me. I am so use to using a fork and knife for every thing. I am adjusting. I am looking forward to trying more traditional Tanzanian food in the near future.

I am currently in the process of planning a weekend get away. In 2 weeks we get a 3 day weekend. So I am packing my bag and heading to Zanzibar for the weekend. I am really excited for some much needed relaxation time.

The staff at school have started a football (soccer) team and their first game is this Sunday. I will be there cheering them on. I am looking forward to it.

I am still adjusting to life here. We are entering the hot season so I am nervous as to the heat that will be fastly approaching. I am still amazed by all of the small things that I took for granted back home everyday. I am so thankful that I decided to embark on this journey. I must admit that I am not homesick....There are many things that I miss like just hanging out with my friends, getting in my car and driving some where and of course that one little girl that has such a huge part of my heart. There are many days that I know a Karrlee hug would be great but unfortunately that cannot happen. I get to talk to her at least once a week. She has finally accepted the fact that I am no longer on an airplane and at my new home. She asks to come to my house and then she usually just says "Can you come home now." I received a package from home the other day and there was a piece of artwork from her which made its way right to the bulletin board behind my desk!

 Well I think that is all of the updates for now. I will try to not wait so long before the next update.

What a Week!!

Well I have officially completed my first week of teaching. 2 of the days this past week were orientation days and 3 were with the students. It has been a good week in the classroom. Wednesday morning my alarm went off way too early 5:15 to be exact. Once at school we had a brief school wide assembly and then it was off to my classroom where I met my students and their parents. It was a great way to start the school year. During the first couple of days we have done many "get to know you" activities as well as me doing lots of group and individual assessments. It has been good to get the chance to do the assessments so that I know where my students stand and I can use that information in my planning. The day flies by and usually by the end of the day I cannot find my desk. I hope to get a better organization system into place this week. I have a total of 10 students in my class and they come from all over the world. Even though I have some days where I have several breaks while the students are at single subjects or recess, I still find that the day slips away. So my evenings are filled with planning. I am usually in bed by 7:30ish and asleep by 8 or 8:30 (never thought I would see the day that I was asleep before Karrlee!) Last night I found myself fighting to stay awake until 9:30. Hopefully my body will soon adjust to the early mornings and early nights.

Power has been hard to come by this week. All but 1 night this week the power was out from the time I got home from school (around 4:30) to sometime in the night. I usually wake up at some point in the night and it is back on. I will say that planning by candle light is a bit harder but with limited battery on my computer I am more productive because I limit my use.

Not much else has been happening here. Traffic has been terrible this week which makes the commute to school very long around an hour each way. Hopefully that is something I will get use to as well or maybe learn to use that time wisely.....we shall see. The other day we were stuck in a traffic jam for quite some time when the ice cream man drove by on his bicycle usually we just pass it up but this day we were in need of something so the whole car full of us bought ice cream to help pass the time in the traffic jam :)

First Day=Success

Well we got an extra day off...yesterday due to Eid (the end of Ramadan). I am quite thankful for this as it was nice to sleep in one more day and get things ready for today. We officially had power from 18:00 on Monday to sometime this morning....I was getting spoiled I think! It was hard to believe it was on for that long at one time. Yesterday afternoon I was feeling a bit drowsy from my allergy medicine (my allergies by the way have been going crazy due to all of the dust!) and tried to resist taking a nap but fell asleep reading anyways....this made sleeping last night quite difficult. I was already nervous, anxious, excited for our first day and add not really tired to that= bad combination! I finally fell asleep around 1 or 1:30 and was up every hour and finally got up at 6....thats an early morning after such a long summer holiday!

We had a bit of craziness when it came to getting to school today. There was a bit of confusion as to who all was getting picked up by the driver so a few wrong turns and one very bad traffic jam we arrive at school with a few minutes to spare before orientation started! It was great to finally meet everyone especially the other grade 1 teacher, our assistants, and the primary school coordinator. Everyone at DIA made me feel very welcome and I know this is going to be a great experience. I did feel a bit bad though because my assistant was prepared to help me put my classroom together today but oops! Most of it was already done. I was not prepared to have extra hands this week helping. I guess  it will teach me that I do not always have to have things prepared way in advance :) It did give me some time to get use to the server and look at the curriculum map and such.

The day was also spent filling out lots of paper work. I was so confused and a lot of times  had to ask what specifically they were asking for. Then the NSSF (National Social Security Fund) form was in Swahili luckily there were some people to translate and then they found an example in English! All in all it was a very successful day. I will admit though that at the end of the day today I was sitting my classroom and dazed off.....it is hard to believe that I finally have received my degree and have my own classroom and that it is half way around the world from my home! I was a bit overwhelmed with all the information we were provided with today so still taking it all in. I look forward to returning on Monday and meeting my students on Wednesday!

Tonight has been very uneventful. I have relaxed done some reading and looked through one of the teachers manuals to become more familiar with the curriculum. Tomorrow and Sunday I also plan on relaxing and maybe getting out and exploring some more of Dar.

I think that is all for now :)