Copies, copies, copies

Today was a normal Monday. Tutoring started at 8 and I had my four boys. This time I was prepared for their goofiness. Last night I prepared little packets of things for them to do now that I know more what they’re capable of. Justice needed help with basic letter formation, and I thought Junior did too so they worked on that, and Ndamiwe and Elias did more small word writing, letter searches, drawing, shapes etc. They worked so hard today and worked without too much competition or goofing around. So I might keep it this way for a while. Otherwise my other option was to split them up and have 2 come first and 2 come at the end.

They arrived early again today, which was actually good because then I didn’t feel bad for letting them leave early too. I had to go make some copies of the worksheets I had printed last night for English. Got those taken care of without any problems and then we headed over for English.

Usually we wait a few minutes for Pastor Phiri to finish Bible study and he always apologizes for taking up some of our time. We always tell him God’s Word is more important than English. J We taught our ladies the common table prayer today. Our first week here they heard us say it and said they wanted to learn it. So that’ll be our prayer for the rest of the week. Then we got into groups right away and my group finished an adverb worksheet I had made last week and never got to, and then did a review WS on nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. This all took quite a bit of time because we really have to go through things slowly. I still think this material is slightly too hard for the level they are at, but they still do impress me with how they catch on. I think now that we have the hard stuff out of the way, we’ll be able to use what we know about nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs and apply it in other themes we do. We took a little easier break after these worksheets and focused on some nouns and verbs that involve house work. Some words were review like dishes, wash, clean from our kitchen theme and some were new like laundry, shuck, shell, and fold. I told them to write the Chichewa word for each new vocab word next to it, so when they study it tonight they’re not just memorizing letters for spelling, but they’ll remember what the word means as well. Then tomorrow that will be our spelling test. We finished up with some practicing for that spelling test by using the Bananagram tiles.

When we got home after English Anne had left a bowl of fruit on our table. On campus there are avocado, guava and orange trees but the fruit they produce are not very good for eating. Yesterday we went hunting for some fruit but Anne said we shouldn’t eat the stuff that grows on campus. So she must have gone to the trees in the area where she knows good fruit grows and picked us some. There were quite a few guavas and an avocado. This is the first time I remember eating an actual guava. The sweetest part is the pit inside, although it has lots of obnoxious seeds, which I just swallowed instead of trying to chew them. Then the fleshy part that surrounds the pit reminds me of the texture of a pear. This part wasn’t as sweet. It was still decently good though. For lunch then, we spread some avocado seasoned with garlic salt and pepper on toast. It was quite delicious and something different than PB&J. The last time I had an avocado sandwich was this past summer when I was in Wales. J

We also used our lunch break to go over to the press and make a ton of copies. So hopefully I have enough worksheets and things to do with my tutoring kids to last me a while. It’s so nice now to be able to print things here and then just do the copying over at the press. I always try to print and copy things double sided to save on paper. Before we knew it lunch was over and our afternoon tutoring kids were here. There was a pastor’s meeting here on campus again today, so they were eating over in the kitchen and Anne thought maybe they’d go outside to eat on the tables. So we moved the mat out by the driveway under a shade tree and did tutoring out there. It was so nice out there! The weather was absolutely perfect today—very sunny but not too hot at all. Just a perfect day! I had Sovereign and Shadreck this afternoon. Sovereign is just impressing me more and more each time and I absolutely love her. She is such a pretty girl and very smart and sweet—such a joy to tutor. Shadreck had some catching up to do on his flashcards but he zipped through them. He is also a smart cookie. His attention span is shorter, but that is to be expected with a little boy. I cannot help but love him.

After tutoring we went over to preschool for a bit because we wanted to get some activity books to make copies for tomorrow. The little kids were outside playing already so I had so much fun jumping right in to play with them. They love kicking or throwing the ball to me. Then we played a game where I was sitting on the floor and every time they brought the ball to me I would throw it away as far as I could, while grunting and pretending I was slightly angry. They loved this game. They would trot over to pick up the ball and bring it right back, laughing the whole time. Little Corn (I love that nickname by the way; I love shouting “Corn!”, it’s just funny to me. Corn is short for Cornelius) wasn’t even playing, he just sat there in the grass watching this little game happen and every time I threw the ball and grunted he would erupt in the most contagious giggling ever. I love his laugh!! This game lasted for a while then I just resorted to tickling them while they rolled around on the floor laughing. I just love these kids so much. This is when I am the most happy—seeing these kids’ smiling, adorable Zambian and Malawian faces.

We did our usual walk this afternoon. We had 5 in our group today since Sophie is back. We must’ve looked quite the sight—5 white women walking in one group. It was fun though. And the weather today was just perfect for a late afternoon walk. We got back and supper was ready. Anne of course cooked us something delicious. When we were doing dishes we had a lovely chat with Anne too—finding out more about her husband and family. She is such a sweet lady and we are so blessed to have her as our “mom” while here.

The evening consisted of putzing around on my computer and I even got to Skype with Mom and Dave! I was sure it wouldn’t work. We heard the signal is really bad and the best you can do most of the time is just do the audio chat. Well, my audio and visual were working and it was a really clear and fast signal! It was such an unexpected treat to chat to them! Can’t wait to do it when Dad and Ruth and even Joe are home! I should have done more in the way of planning ahead for my lessons for next week since we’ll be at Vic Falls this weekend but I just couldn’t find the motivation. It’s so nice that I’m so far ahead in my planning for this week. Usually I’d be planning every night for the next day, but since this weekend was so productive and we made a bunch of copies today, we’re set for a while. So I figured I could enjoy one free night and then I’ll do more tomorrow. J