The end of an epic year of teaching

Today was officially the last day of school for this year.  It has really been an epic year!  Just ending this year and saying goodbyes has made me realise how hard it will be a year from now when I will be saying farewell to some people for more than just a few months.  Only three other people from our teacher group are returning after the holidays, so there will be some sad goodbyes tomorrow.  The transition between finishing and leaving has not been nearly long enough.  Tomorrow I set off on a rather epic adventure, starting with a 6 hour bus ride to Nairobi followed by a looooong 63 day journey to Cape Town.  

I was directing the drama production again this semester, so was busy with that up until yesterday when the kids had their final day.  They did a great job remembering their lines, and the play itself presented a really positive message.  It was called "Trouble at Sea" and followed the stories of Noah, Jonah and Paul, and how they overcame the "storms" through trusting in God.  I think I am done with directing drama productions though.  It's a lot of extra work so twice is enough methinks!

In amongst drama production, report writing and organising for my travel, we have also been frantically packing to move our school to a new campus.  It's really exciting that the school is growing and as a result has a big new property!   The new school is only partially built, but the rent on the current building is up soon so everything needed to be moved into a few rooms on the new campus.  Thankfully I had some willing helpers in my class who packed everything...including themselves!

As soon as the kids left on Thursday we began moving all the resources and furniture over to the new school.  It was a crazy amount of stuff but with lots of people it went really smoothly.  Today was more moving before finally I could start to think about packing my own stuff to leave tomorrow!

I have to say that one of the highlights of this year as been the absolutely amazing students I've been blessed with.  I'm so excited to have the same class again next year.  Last week was a full week of exams and they all put in so much effort.  After the last exam on Friday we went to Uhuru for samosas and soda, and took a great group pic.

Here are some final photos showing some highlights from this year.  Next stop Nairobi.  God's blessings on your week!

Dissecting a goat heart was a definite highlight....

These wooden blocks were super popular whenever there
was a moment of free time.  My camera is overloaded with
this gal's building creations because one can't wreck it
before having a photo taken!

The kids developed a tradition of making a pretend person
whenever anyone was away so they wouldn't be missed

Mr Francis trying Vegemite...haha!

Mr Francis was responsible for blowing
the whistle for the start of class.
It became a thing for me to play tricks.....
this was the most epic: frozen whistle!

The view from just outside the current campus.  I will never get tired of this mountain!

A Place to call Home

I've been meaning for ages to write about our new house!  We've been living here more than a month now and it's soooo nice.  Not that the other place was horrible, but living here really feels like home.  I get to hang out with some pretty cool housemates too which is always a bonus.  My room is about half the size, and the construction (adding on a living room) was pretty rushed and messy, but I don't care at all.  It feels like a home and that's all that matters!  There are two houses on the property, the big main house with 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms (!!!) and our back house, which formally would have been for servants.  It is so quiet and peaceful, except for Mogli the cat who sings the song of his people on the windowsill every day!

Another happy event has been the weather.  It seemed to go from ridiculously hot to cool and rainy overnight.  I am cherishing every moment snuggled in my blanket because it won't last forever!  "Cool" here is 20 degrees....sooooo blissful!  Many of the roads are just dirt, which become mud really quickly when it rains, but this is the only downside I can think of.  I've even been able to wear jeans and covered shoes!!!!  It is rather hilarious when my students complain about being freezing and ask why we can't have heaters..haha.

Here are some more pics of our pretty new place.

The super impressive gate into our compound...complete with doorbell!

The big house looking from our back house

Mogli the guard cat comes to investigate my photo taking....

Yes Mogli I love you :)

Super amazing and fun to be with housemates Rebecca and Taylor

My homely sanctuary :)

Over the holidays a window will be knocked in this wall.
It will be great for when it gets hot again!

The living room

Our bathroom area. The toilet and shower are separate rooms
which is great for a shared house!

The hallway: Rebecca's room, Taylor's room and
 my room at the end

Flatmates photobombing my kitchen photo!

Visitors to our house!  Vicky, Francis, Grace and Laura come for lunch

Moving into a house before it was completely finished has taught me something funny about life in Tanzania: Before getting something "fixed" one must assess the likelihood that the fixed version will be actually better than the non-fixed version.  Presenting:

Door fails!

Problem #1 A huge gap under our front door.  Success!  Gap was fixed with wood and a piece of rubber.

Problem #2 My door handle was wobbly.  Failure!  New door handle doesn't have one of those sticky out bits that make it stay closed.

Problem #3 Security door is installed backwards so lock bolts are on the inside.  Failure!  Fundi (workman) changes the door so the hinge is on the other side and then removes and welds the lock bars to the inside so once again, they can't be used to lock the door from the outside.

Problem # 4  In order to have the door open at any time we need a flyscreen.  Failure!  Fundi attaches a screen to the existing security door, which has a big gap at the bottom.

Problem # 5 We still have no way to lock the security door when leaving the house.  Failure!  Fundi comes up with the idea of putting metal loops on the door and door frame so we can padlock from the outside, but alas, there's a wall in the way so no way to get the padlock through said loops.  Oh well, all part of the fun!

In other news, I've taken out my hair braids now.  Three weeks without washing my hair seemed sufficient!  I also wanted to see if it had pulled out my hair as I've been told can happen.  It only took an hour to take them out and there was no lasting damage, other than really frizzy hair!  I love the frizz almost as much as the braids...haha.  I'm already planning my next braid style. Fun times!

Rocking it...I couldn't resist wearing my hair like this to church!

One bin full of rasta.....

Church family camp

This last weekend was the St Margaret's Church family camp.  I truly love being part of this church.  In many ways it's like my base, and one of the places where I feel I really belong.  No matter what I'm doing during the week at an American-run school, on Sunday I get to hang out with a random group of people where no one culture is dominant, and we simply find unity in our desire to worship God.  There are two St Margaret's congregations - one English speaking and one Swahili speaking (which is about 10x the size of the English service!)  In a few weeks we are having a combined service which will be great :) I love it that quite a few Tanzanian people come to the English service...it's such a blessing.  

So, this last weekend the English congregation spent two nights at Maua, a beautiful spot about 1.5 hours away from Moshi.  It's the same place we went as a teacher group in our first week in Tanzania.  Going back to the same place was a good opportunity to reflect on the last 9 months (has it really been that long???).   It was most definitely a family camp, with 80+ people including 35ish children!  I spent a lot of my time rocking babies, eating with kids on my lap, and playing games to amuse little ones.  I did have my own room though, so got some nap time in there as well.  Anyway, here are some pics of the weekend:

Maua means FLOWERS!

So beautiful and green

Yummy guava!

Scottish dancing on Saturday night

Children's talk with Pastor Tony on Sunday morning

Hanging with Yael and Gregory

Little Chameleon 

Big snail

Selfie with cows 

Joshua loves cows...

.....a lot!

with Marenka and her family at the river :)

God's blessings on your week!