Time is flying by.....

Malaria test #1

The days continue to fly by...I have finally booked my ticket home for Christmas and will be back in NKY on December 16th. I am so ready to see my family and friends....Over the past couple of weeks I have really begun to miss home. I think part of this has to do with the fact that I was quite ill for over a week. In my last post I mentioned that I was not feeling well. It turned out that my ear infection got quite bad and I had to go back to the doctor 4 times and got 3 different sets of medicines before I began to improve. It was a long week and unfortunately I missed a whole week of school. I attempted to go back on Thursday but only lasted about 2 hours before I couldn't do it anymore. I am thankful that I finally got the right medicine and my fever finally stayed down for more than a few hours on Saturday which was a week after the first time I went to the doctor. They originally thought I had malaria but thankfully I did not!

Upon returning back to school I was so far behind. I had planned on getting a lot done the week that I was out but unfortunately I was not able to do anything except throw sub plans together during the week. It is amazing how much it takes to prepare when you are out. I did my best but still fell far behind. This meant that this past week was extra long. I stayed late most nights to get caught up and with the help of some others I managed to get a majority of it caught up and my big project of sending home portfolios was accomplished as well! It feels good to be caught up but as always there is work to be done. I am currently on mid term break which means I have a 4 day weekend!! I had originally planned on going to Zanzibar but with me being sick and behind I didn't think it would be good to be gone for 4 days. Instead my roomie and I have decided to spend tomorrow on Bongoyo Island which is an isolated island. So I am very much looking forward to a day of relaxation under the sun :)

As far as school goes I had a Halloween Party on Halloween in my classroom. It was fun to see the students in their costumes. They got creative and had a good time. We invited their parents to join us at the end of the day and it was good to see all of the parent involvement. Then on Friday we took our first class fieldtrip with the other grade 1. Our original plan was to go to a juice making company here in Dar to learn how they take fruit and make it into juice to tie in with our Science yet. After an hour long bus ride we arrive at the factory but received some bad news. The factory had no power and the generator was not working. Thankfully they offered for us to go to the ice cream making factory. So we got to see how the local company making different ice cream and ice lollies. It was really interesting and we got free ice cream at the end so a win win situation. Following the ice cream factory tour we got to see the juice factory. They explained how the juice is made but we just didn't get to see how the juice was made. And at the end we got free mango juice. So all in all it was a successful trip even though it was not what was previously planned. I must admit that the bus ride coming back was much quieter than going as most of the students were fast asleep!

Other than that the power rations continue. They are not as frequent as they were when I first arrived but are still occurring. Last Saturday and Sunday it went out at around 9am and came back on around 19.00 so that makes it kinda frustrating when there is no power for 10 hours but we learn to pass time but playing games, reading or going out for the day. I think I have adjusted well and now when the power goes out I just deal with it no use getting upset since we have no control. We have also been having some minor water shortage issues which I find to be a bit more frustrating than power outages but we have a stockpile of water and again just deal with it when it occurs :) It is also becoming progressively hotter here in Dar. It is weird to hear that back home it is cold and we are already getting frost when it is about 85-90 degrees here. So coming home for Christmas is going to be a huge shock for me....

I am still loving my washing machine and enjoy being able to once again out my laundry by loads instead of buckets full! And I love being able to just put laundry in push the start button and come back an hour or so later and it is clean! It is amazing the things that I took for granted back home. We finally have warm showers here and there because the water in the tank gets heated by the sun so its kinda like a natural water heater! 

I think that is all I have to update for now! I am making a goal to myself to update my blog at least weekly so look for another post in about a week :)

Hope everyone will have a great Sunday!