SO much to be told from the last two weeks. Maybe it feels like a lot because it's so surprising to me STILL (even after a year of this) that things happen the way they do in Kenya. Maybe it's really not a lot...even so...here are some highlighted stories from the last couple of weeks since Jonathan and I started school.
August 9-Tuesday...a half day for the first day of school. Sounds great right? It is! Except...with 3 days left to teach in the week, it makes for an interesting schedule. Either way, absolutely love being back in 5th grade and love my students!
August 10- Receive my first complaints of the year from parents...here we go! One parent is not happy that I have a sharing policy in my class because their child might have nicer things than another child...Okkkaay. I won't even get into the others...I'll just say the conferences already began.
August 11-KFC comes to Kenya! So exciting for here! We wonder, though, if locals will be as excited as us Americans to have the first American chain here since the first time it came over 30 years ago and failed....SOOOOO....we decide to wait in line opening night. Turns out...opening time at 6 means 7:30. So Jonathan, our friends, and myself watch the KFC team tear down, clean up, and stock chicken for an hour before we decide...it's just not worth it! We don't even like KFC that much. We head down to our other favorite semi-American restaurant for a late dinner (we've waited 2 hours now for KFC, which we didn't get). We sit down at an open booth and actually get kicked out of our seats for a wealthier Kenyan woman who was supposedly waiting for our booth....that was vacant and waiting might I add....Well....4 hours later...we finally get to go home...Rumor has it, people are waiting in lines for over an hour STILL for KFC, so we have yet to try it...I guess the locals did know about it!
Week two started pretty good. Mexican food came back to the stores here as well as peanut Skippy peanut butter...so that was exciting. I won't mention we are on a sugar shortage here, so there is none to buy...but we have mexican food, so I'm going to take what I can get and be happy!
End of week two...not too many stories. We are glad to have made it through the first full week of school.
Today...August 20...a Saturday...I am sitting in my classroom, here at school for Open House. Why am I blogging you might ask? Because no parents are here! There is about a 5% parent involvement at this school...at least that's what it feels like. No one wants to meet their child's teacher or hear about their rules for the year...they don't care...or they just aren't in town. I have to say...it's not the most encouraging day which is really sad. I won't even get into how the morning started with an argument over a coffee order with the barista before we headed to school (I'm guessing this entry is too long already and I'm borderline complaining too much). I am just still amazed at life here.
This is just to give you an idea of what the last two weeks have been like. Please be praying for encouragement, patience, and endurance to deal with all of the cultural differences that are challenging daily! I'll be writing more soon!
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