It has been a very busy couple days. After leaving London Monday night (and having to repack my bag at Heathrow because one broke in the midst of checking in) I made it to Ethiopia. That was.... quite the airport. I'm thankful I was only there a few hours before continuing on to Dar es Salaam. Thankfully, I made it through immigration fine, both my bags came, and I found the other missionary Christine and Pastor right away which was a moment of victory. I was so excited to no long be alone! Traveling by yourself is very tiresome by yourself. From there, we got ready to take a bus from Dar to Morogoro. I'm not a big fan of Dar, but from what I understand, not too many people are. It was crowded and hectic and REALLY humid because it's right on the Indian ocean. It was about four and half hours to get to Morogoro; the sun was actually setting when we got there at about 7 o'clock at night. The weather here is so much better. At night it's pretty comfortable. I don't know if that's because I've had breezes both nights and if that's actually normal or not, but I like it! :D I am still excited to get my fan though this weekend.
The house is very simple but nice. I have my own room and a HUGE bed, seriously, at least three people could sleep comfortably in this thing. I don't yet have shelves so I can't really unpack but I did at least put some of my photos from home so it looks like my room. After getting sort of settled in, we had dinner with the pastor's family which we will every evening. They have a very cool tradition where every night one family member reads a chapter of the bible, reports on it to everyone else, and then gives a summation of it's importance. They usually sing a few songs as well and pray together. Once we got back to the house, I basically passed out. I think I only slept about eight hours in the two days before and after all the traveling, I was exhausted. However, I still got up this morning to go to my first day of school.
Other than being put on the spot to introduce myself to the kids, it went fine. I got to go around with Christine and help her and suddenly, things had a sense of normalcy. School was school, albeit the resources were incredibly different and the finer points were very different, I kept having flashbacks to my middle school English classes. There just wasn't a whole lot different about it. The kids were fairly shy. They mostly stared at me a lot. I have been renamed as well; as Christine and Kjirstin are so similar, especially with such accented English, we have gone with KJ. Because of how the students address teachers, this means I am called "Madam KJ." I'm not sure I'll ever get used to that.
I had to crash as soon as I got home from school. The jet lag caught up with me actually at school, and at one point Christine ordered me to lay my head down at our desk. Thankfully, we were done with classes, just grading work at keeping and eye on class four which is right beside our desk. I had told many people before I left that I would be teaching classes here; that has changed, which I also told a lot of people it probably would :) I am going to be more in an assistant role, helping with the larger classes, particularly with math and English. The students are struggling more with those subjects. I might be teaching in the next school year which begins in January, but for now this is what I'll be doing.
Overall, my brain has simply no idea what to do with this. It keeps trying to compare to anything I've seen or done before, but that's the problem: this is simply unlike anything I've ever been exposed to before. I know how obvious this is, but this is so overwhelming. I feel like I've created an entirely new mindset just to deal with this. It's funny; as I'm typing this, the cows next door started mooing. I guess not everything is unlike home :) Things are off to a good start. There will be challenges, there are already many challenges, but I have been blessed in so many ways. Right now, I'm just going one day at a time, one task at a time, and walking with God every step.
Miss you all, love you lots, and God bless!
Kjirstin
The house is very simple but nice. I have my own room and a HUGE bed, seriously, at least three people could sleep comfortably in this thing. I don't yet have shelves so I can't really unpack but I did at least put some of my photos from home so it looks like my room. After getting sort of settled in, we had dinner with the pastor's family which we will every evening. They have a very cool tradition where every night one family member reads a chapter of the bible, reports on it to everyone else, and then gives a summation of it's importance. They usually sing a few songs as well and pray together. Once we got back to the house, I basically passed out. I think I only slept about eight hours in the two days before and after all the traveling, I was exhausted. However, I still got up this morning to go to my first day of school.
Other than being put on the spot to introduce myself to the kids, it went fine. I got to go around with Christine and help her and suddenly, things had a sense of normalcy. School was school, albeit the resources were incredibly different and the finer points were very different, I kept having flashbacks to my middle school English classes. There just wasn't a whole lot different about it. The kids were fairly shy. They mostly stared at me a lot. I have been renamed as well; as Christine and Kjirstin are so similar, especially with such accented English, we have gone with KJ. Because of how the students address teachers, this means I am called "Madam KJ." I'm not sure I'll ever get used to that.
I had to crash as soon as I got home from school. The jet lag caught up with me actually at school, and at one point Christine ordered me to lay my head down at our desk. Thankfully, we were done with classes, just grading work at keeping and eye on class four which is right beside our desk. I had told many people before I left that I would be teaching classes here; that has changed, which I also told a lot of people it probably would :) I am going to be more in an assistant role, helping with the larger classes, particularly with math and English. The students are struggling more with those subjects. I might be teaching in the next school year which begins in January, but for now this is what I'll be doing.
Overall, my brain has simply no idea what to do with this. It keeps trying to compare to anything I've seen or done before, but that's the problem: this is simply unlike anything I've ever been exposed to before. I know how obvious this is, but this is so overwhelming. I feel like I've created an entirely new mindset just to deal with this. It's funny; as I'm typing this, the cows next door started mooing. I guess not everything is unlike home :) Things are off to a good start. There will be challenges, there are already many challenges, but I have been blessed in so many ways. Right now, I'm just going one day at a time, one task at a time, and walking with God every step.
Miss you all, love you lots, and God bless!
Kjirstin
It's so nice to read this and picture you there with the kids! I'm anxious to hear the Ethiopia airport story - I have a feeling it's a good one! I love you - Mom
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