First (& second) day of School

Tuesday was the first day of school! We had been preparing for this day for the past week. We tried thinking of every possible situation so that we would know how to handle everything. But you can plan and plan and plan and it will never go as you plan! The first two days have been that way! 

School begins at 7:55 but breakfast starts at 7:20. However there are students at school at 7am! Thankfully there is someone on duty for this reason so it's not mandatory for us to be there at 7, but on the 1st day we wanted to be there to greet students and their parents.  

Every student was present. So we had a total of 62 students! This is exciting because we are only 10 students away from being at the maximum number of students. We had an assembly at 8am and then we began the day. 

First was 2nd grade English, we (the three English teacher) taught the rules and procedures for our class. It went really well. Next was 1st grade English split into two classes. Again this went really well. I guess we planned better than we thought.  

After the morning I pretty much had the rest of the afternoon off to plan and get ready for the next day! The first day went so well, I had high hopes for the rest of the week. 

Then there was Wednesday... This day started off basically the same; home room, English, lunch, and then the disastrous afternoon. I was supposed to have the afternoon free until our English IT teacher needed a TA and I went down to help, not knowing that it would be for all afternoon. And then after his two classes I had my own English Library class. It was just insane! And tiring. And chaotic. And it was only day two!!! God give me patience and grace for the students and coworkers.  

*this is the first place I have been where the student flat out disrespect their teachers. The local teachers are respected and the students obey them, but the foreign teachers have no such luck. :(  I have a lot of students tell me "No" and not follow any directions I give. 

A Week of Firsts

This week has been full of firsts for me! These firsts may seem small but internationally they are monumental!

1. Coconut Ice cream eaten out of a coconut! My friend, Alexa, came to our apartment and we went out. We decided to get coconut ice cream because who could say no to coconut ice cream? The taxi driver took us to this small little shop about 15 minutes from our apartment. The lady was so sweet and brought us this coconut with coconut ice cream with shredded coconut and toasted coconut on top! 

Coconut ice cream in a real coconut! Ummm..... can you say DELICIOUS!!!!

2. Got lost! I know this may not seem like something to celebrate but we found our way. We were walking to JoMa to get dinner after our ice cream and we were walking to it, but then turned around because we thought we had passed it. But when we couldn't find it we turned back around and found it about 100 meters past where we were the first time.

On our way to JoMa. Had to take a picture of the traffic, this isn't even that bad!!!

3. Had TexMex! The sisters who own our school treated all the international staff to lunch. They took us to a local TexMex place. I was kind of looking forward to some TexMex food. However, none of it was TexMex! LOL. We had shrimp, a burrito (as close to Mex as it got), steak (as close to Tex as it got), pasta carbonara, seafood pizza, and then ice cream for dessert! However the best part was guacamole with doritos! Definitely an experience I will never forget!

4. Street Market! Our co-worker's wife took us around our neighborhood Thursday night and she showed us the local street market that is just a block from our apartment. All the produce is sitting on the street and you pick want you want and they weigh it and you pay. Simple right? It would be if you knew how to say prices in the language! But no fear, that day will come. For right now we just have them type the price into our phone's calculator. 

5. We found a seamstress in the market who could fix our zippers on two of our couch cushions. One zipper was 1.5m and the other about .5m. We dropped off the covers to this very nice lady who spoke NO ENGLISH and she told us to come back tomorrow. So the next day we went to her house and she had sewn a new zipper on the long cover and fixed the zipper on the other one plus the mouse hole! It was amazing!! And she only charged us $2.75! What a bargain! We paid her double that! We were so thankful and wanted to bless her! 

6. Spent over 2,000,000 at the grocery store! Jen went to Big C for the first time and we had to buy food and things for our apartment. When it was time to checkout we had a full cart and every person was staring at us. People always stare because we are the "white girls" but this was different. People were standing beside us, like they were checking out with us, and staring at us and the total of our bill. I don't think a lot of people spend that much money at the grocery. So they were amazed, but it feels like you are always on display.

Our full cart of groceries! We definitely stood out even more than we already do.

What's So Funny?

So this week is teacher orientation for our school. Since we have teachers that speak the local language and foreign English teachers, we have to have everything translated. This means that our meetings take twice as long.  

So our principal began the day with an ice breaker. We had to partner up (English were not allowed to partner with English) and answer 3 questions about our ourselves to our partner. We had to learn each other's name, our position at the school, and two facts we didn't know about the each other. Then we had to introduce each other to everyone else. Let's just say this was interesting. With a teacher that only speaks the local language and one that only speaks English, there was lots of interpreting.  So the foreign English teachers are sitting there while the local teachers are introducing each other in their language, and then they all start laughing and we are left there just staring and wondering what's so funny. Then the interpretation is given and it's just not as funny when you are laughing the second time, because everyone else has already laughed. 

During a break during orientation, I felt like we had a breakthrough. We had a chance to hang out with some of the local teachers. We were talking about things we liked to do and where we live. It was very relaxed and laid back and very simple. I have been trying to simplify my sentences so that they can be easily understood. (Not as easy as I would have thought). But notheless we did just fine! By the end of the break we were all joking with each other and ended up taking a picture on my computer. 

These are all the teachers (local and foreign) at our school!!! Teacher Bonding

Later, we had to meet with our co-homeroom teacher to decide how to decorate our classrooms. There is one local teacher and one foreign teacher in each homeroom.  So we have to collaborate on how to decorate our classrooms. Most of our local teachers speak very little English and I speak none of the local language. So this was difficult. Very difficult! Neither of us could explain what we wanted to do. The locals are trying to speak English, but they aren't getting across what they want. And then there is me, I speak none of the language and so I feel helpless. Towards the end our other English teacher, David, came to our rescue. He actually learned some of the language and is proficient in our eyes (if you ask him he would say he is a novice) in our books. He began to translate what they wanted and we were finally getting somewhere. But then it turned into a conversation that Jen and I were not apart of. They laughed, they asked questions, and Jen and I just sat there with no clue as to what was going on. 

This has been one of the most frustrating things about this job. Being totally lost in conversations. I just wish I knew the language so that I could understand and communicate. Having someone else translate for you is helpful when trying to get things done, but makes you feel left out during conversations. 

So after our meeting about homeroom decorations the foreign teachers had a meeting about curriculum. However by this point in the day I was done with meetings. I felt like my head couldn't handle anything else, but yet we needed to get curriculum stuff done. So we are asking questions to each other and I am pretty sure we could have been nicer about it, but instead it came out snippy. But I think we all understand that it is a stressful situation and we can have grace with one another. 

In all of this I can totally see God's hands on this school. The moment during our break where we all got in a picture together (there are people missing but these were the people in the room) that I could feel God had great plans for this school. Working together we all bring different things to the school that are important and I am praying God uses us foreign teachers as a light and conduit for his love. As we are all working together (locals and foreigners) I can see God using his people to bring about His transformation for this city! This is going to be an amazing first year!