Back in the swing of things

This morning I tutored Paul. Paul? He’s not one of my tutoring kids! Well, we were hanging around the Moyo’s house waiting for our kids to show up, and my two didn’t. I was supposed to have Dalitso and Gertrude. But Obey and Given were there, and Paul was hanging out with them, so I said “Hey Paul, do you want to come and learn today?” and of course he did. It worked out well. Instead of sitting there for an hour while Erika tutored, I had something to do. And Paul is my little buddy and he’s so smart that it was a joy to teach him. When I saw him later on today he told me he was going to come to “school” all the time now. J So we’ll see what happens; if he’ll just show up on random days and want to be tutored. I honestly wouldn’t mind though, because he’s right on the level of some of the other kids I tutor. Paul is 6 and still goes to the preschool on campus here. I think he’ll be starting school next year, which is why I don’t think he was signed up for tutoring.

After tutoring Paul the ladies arrived for English. We had six of them today and again, worked together as a whole group. We learned church vocabulary words. I know I taught this to my ladies 2 weeks ago, but it’s been a while since we’ve had class and we wanted to find something we could do with all the ladies. Erika’s wanted to do this theme with her ladies as well. So I figured this could be a good review week for my ladies and also give them a chance to feel like the “teachers” and show what they learned or remembered from when I taught this same theme to them. I won’t rehash the details of what we did, since we did the same things I wrote about last time we did this theme.

For lunch we made our specialty sandwiches: toast with avocado, fried onions, a fried egg and cheese. It is just so delicious! There are also ripe oranges on the tree at Dave and Dee’s so we’ve been able to pick some and have fresh oranges as well. We also have a naartjie (or mandarin orange) tree in our own yard so I love just walking outside to get a snack.

Afternoon tutoring started a little late because our kids showed up late. I eventually saw Shad, and then we rounded up Pimbi and headed over to Moyo’s. It was so good to have my kids again in tutoring! I missed them! They were being especially rambunctious today too, which was fine. It was quite entertaining for me. Shad is quite the character but I love him. He is very good at English for such a young guy and he likes to teach me the Nyanja words for things, which I appreciate. He’s also my go-to guy when a kid rattles off in Nyanja to me. I can always ask Shad, “what’s she saying” and he can give me the basic gist of it.

We made a few photocopies after tutoring and then headed home and watched some Friends. Then around 4 we went back to campus for kickball. Erika always plays kickball and I always end up playing with the little kids. I played football with Brian and Steward for a while and then Corn came over and seemed really quiet and tired, which is so unlike him. He’s usually the one who is giggling non-stop for no reason at all. He was also especially cuddly and came right up to me so I could pick him up. He never does that! So we sat on the grass together, he on my lap and we just talked. He talked in Nyanja and I talked in English. We had no clue what each other was saying but it was so cute. It was just a sweet moment with Cornelius. I enjoyed snuggling with him and then after a good half an hour or so he seemed to become more himself and got up to play ball with Brian. He stayed pretty close to me though. I just love that kid!

We got invited over for supper with Dave and Dee and Prof. Cherney. Dee made delicious pork chops with noodles, veggies, and bread with brownies for dessert. We also all made a plan to go out tomorrow night together to see a movie and have dinner, so that’ll be something nice to look forward to as well.

We’ve been living in darkness for the past couple of weeks because so many lights in our house are burned out, the living room and the dining room ones. We ate by candlelight last night just to have some light. Finally we decided to try to change them tonight and we only got the dining room one fixed. The one in the living room semi-exploded and the bulb part detached itself from the part that screws into the light. So Erika tried figuring out how to take out that part, but we were unsuccessful.

The highlight of my evening was getting to Skype with Dave, although the internet was cutting out every now and again. He showed me what a mess our house is since we’re moving in three days. I kind of feel guilty for not being there to help.