Anddddd We're Back!

As of April 18, we have officially started term 2! After a long two weeks of vacationing, getting my dog, and commemoration activities, things are starting to get back to normal while we settle into the new term. The students are back and ready to learn, and the teachers have been slowly trickling in throughout the week. Some classes have started, while others will (fingers crossed) begin in the second week. And lucky us, we are making yet another time table :) (I sincerely hope you can recognize the sarcasm here). Any time in the next few weeks we will be receiving visitors from the Ministry of Education and the Japanese Embassy to “bless” our six new classrooms; shiny and ready to be dirtied up by some nursery and primary students! All week the late students have been asked to work on gardens outside of the new structure to make it pretty for our super important visitors. But hey, who can’t be excited about meeting the Minister of Education and some other high up officials?! Great opportunity. 

Overall, this term will look a bit different for me. I will have about half of the in-class hours that I had before and will instead be focusing my energies on teacher trainings throughout my sector. Each week, I will continue to work in English clubs with my secondary students, as well as the secondary students at Rwamashongoshyo (there may or may not be a “y” after that first “sh”, I’ve seen it written on signs both ways..), and conduct teacher trainings every Friday. For the teacher trainings, I’ll be working at two schools biweekly: my school and Runyinya Primary. These skills-based trainings will hopefully help with the transition to the new, competence-based curriculum. I’ll also be organizing several sector-wide trainings (5 before December 2016, and 7-8 during the 2017 academic year) for English Teachers and School-based Mentors (SBMs). Gotta love grant writing…

Animal Updates. I still have 3 chickens, one of which is convinced that my couch is her nest and lays an egg on it every day… She also picks on my poor Simba, chasing her around the house. Aside from developing a phobia of chickens, Simba is awesome. I forgot what it was like to have a dog at home and can genuinely say my house is my home at this point. It feels complete. So far, I’ve brought her to my school once to start working with the children on appropriate behavior with animals. It was a huge success and she’ll be accompanying me more often for my shorter days at school. The kids are also learning to knock on my gate if they want to come in, and I let them play with Simba. Sometimes she tries to chase them, but for the most part she is on her best behavior as long as I’m in sight. As far as my unwanted pets that live in my house, the rats are definitely back. Haven’t seen them, but boy can I hear them. And the tiny multicolored finches have decided that flying into my house and getting stuck is quite the game. Most of my free time is spent catching and releasing tiny red birds. Or mopping my house when it floods. Or fighting a losing battle with these GIANT spiders that live on my walls/in my clothes…

But it’s all good :) Every day is an adventure and so far April has been a pretty great month. Maybe in May I’ll even get a water tank for my rain water!