"Lovely Day, Lovely Day, Lovely Day... LOVELY DAY!"

This week was such a good week!  The fun started on Sunday when 7 of my students showed up to church to escort me!  We sat in a straight line and it was really funny.  I felt kind of weird because usually it seems to be the other way around, but I felt so cool to be sitting with 7 of my students and that they actually showed up.  I always invite the to church but not many of them show and until NOW!  I am looking forward to this Sunday in the hopes that the same seven are going to show up and maybe even more.

Sunday then takes me to Monday!  I get to school ready and prepared to teach Math and English and my teacher doesn’t show again.  I was not quite sure what to do so in the afternoon I took my class on a nature walk/scavenger hunt throughout the village.  I made them complete a set of tasks like: catch a lizard, 5 kids had to climb a tree, everyone had two greet 3 people, they had to find different shapes with trash or with rocks, and we had to find a baby boy who was 1, 2, or 3-years-old.  They loved it and I found it really fun to walk through the village and meet some of their families and neighbors.  The Tuesday comes and Sylvia doesn’t who again… I felt pretty confident by this point and we simply did work allllllll day!  They were a little upset because we didn’t play any games or go outside but hey, there are some days that you need to just get down to business right?  :o)  Now we move onto Wednesday and Sylvia is there but told me she was leaving for a funeral and would not be back the rest of the week and so from Monday-Friday (today) I taught by myself.  I translated by myself and I even taught Bemba yesterday.  I reviewed with another teacher and then I taught a lesson about verbs and nouns.  I DID IT!  It was hard and the kids laughed at me a lot but Teacher Judy sat in on my lesson and she said I did a great job!  Today turns out to be a proud day.  I am closing a week where I taught alone everyday and I taught all subjects.  My students were so gracious with me and I have learned so much.  I think it is kind of funny because a few weeks back was the first time my teacher didn’t show up and I started crying because I felt overwhelmed and lacking confidence; but looking back, I was being trained and tested for this week and I am feeling great!  I would be ok if Sylvia didn’t show up the rest of the term… ha.  I hope she does but it is good to know that I can do it, with the help of the Lord of course.

So I have a crazy story from the week and just to preface it, the picture is very graphic and kind of gross but one of my students Gregori came to school with a cloth tied around his leg.  

I kind of yelled at him and told him he had to take it off because he was looking ghetto and they are not supposed to wear extra attire.  Well… little did I know what I was going to see when he removed the cloth.  He tried to warn me but his English is not good so it was all in Bemba.  He removed the cloth and I saw what you see below.  I gasped and made some crazy distorted faces I am sure.  I rushed him to another teacher and then to the head teacher as if he was going to die and they were so calm.  They asked him what had happened and he said that he got burned while making Nshima for dinner with his family.  Some people told me I needed to pray for him because he must be contained by demons and others were like, “Oh, well you should probably go to the clinic because that doesn’t look very good.”  So, today I made him take the cloth off again and it got stuck on the wound and so I sent him early from school to the clinic.  I am hoping that he actually went and that the clinic can take care of it because I am not sure how good it is for that kind of wound to be open when it is soooooo hot here.  In closing on this, we shall see what happens from here but Gregori was so great about it and he said he didn’t even cry! Ha.  Great Kids!

LOVE SLE