A Typical Tuesday

Every morning I wake up before 6:00 and turn off my alarm (which is set for 7:00), and roll out of my (king sized) bed and get dressed. 

Then I mosey on out the bedroom door (through the streamers, which my roommates taped up at 2am on my birthday, which yes, was over a month ago)…

Down to the kitchen where I eat some breakfast.  Today it was a fried egg and a banana.  (Sorry I ate it before I remembered I was documenting my every move and had to pose a different egg with the bunch of bananas.)

I then walk out of my house…

Into the streets of my neighborhood…

With my roommate Kerry...

To school! (This is my “classroom.”)

And this is my classroom.

I start most days in the office hanging out with my best friend Clementine, our amazing receptionist.  Unfortunately, I’m only her 4^th best friend (after God, her husband, and her son), but I’m getting over it.

On Tuesdays we have staff devotions before school.  This morning was my roommate Kerry’s time to lead devotions.  She made me take this photo before she started so I wouldn’t make her nervous as she was speaking.

Now that I’m finished teaching Comparative Governments, I have a new first period class (or task):  Reorganizing the teacher resource room.  It’s quite the chore, but I kind of like organizing, so it’s a good task for me.

I apologize for not capturing me in action teaching PE.  I’m wary of posting photos of students on the Internet, so I’ll just have to let you imagine me playing soccer with the 10^th graders then Chuck Chicken and Hear No Evil, See No Evil with the 6^th graders.  After those two classes, it’s time for lunch!

Yummy cheeseburger.

After lunch I played soccer with the 9^th graders.  I’m really awful at soccer, as I’ve never played it before in my life, but I must say that my foot-eye coordination has improved drastically over the past two weeks!

After school on Tuesdays, I take Kinyarwanda lessons with a few other teachers.

Joyce, our fearless teacher, is wonderful.  Today we learned verb tenses.  Eek!  Simple present tense, present continuous, near future, far future, near past, and far past.  As of now, the only verb I can tell you in all those tenses is to cook, but I’m learning!

After Kinyarwanda, I head out the gate and say “Murabeho!” to William, the friendly guard.

Then I walk through what I’ve nicknamed “Beverly Hills Rwanda”…

Down the Nyarutarama Tennis Club Road…

Until I get to my turn-off which leads to another, much different road…

Past the golf course…

And the cow?!?...

Where I am stalked by this creepy truck (AKA Mark and Griffin) that gives me a ride up to the next main road…

Which I cross to get to the path…

To the road to my boys’ house.

My favorite part of my week and my favorite thing I do in Rwanda is to teach these boys English.  You can’t help but fall in love with those big smiles!

Most English lessons turn into impromptu Bible studies which is also cool.

It’s dark by the time I leave the boys’ house and they accompany me down their road (with an incredible view of the city)…

On my way home (sorry I don’t have a picture of me on the moto...), I stopped by the Stop and Shop Market just down the hill from my house to buy some yogurt, chocolate, and biscuits.  When I went to check out, they hadn’t any change for me, so I had to purchase another yogurt and a piece of gum, instead.  Such is life here in Africa.  When I got to my house, the moto didn’t have change either, so I had to go inside and search the house over for 500RWF which was nowhere to be found.  So I had to think creatively for the moto driver and give him a 5000 and take a 500 and two 2000s from him.  So really he had change, but he didn’t think about using different combinations of bills to make the change…  Sorry for the diatribe on change-making; only my fellow Westerners in Rwanda will truly understand.

I got home and ate this for dinner:

Then I took off my shoes and got a nice glimpse of my ankles/feet.  While I do have a sweet farmer’s tan, that, my friends, is dirt.  Straight up dirt.

 I decided maybe it was time for a shower.  And I wanted to share with you my favorite part of my shower.  My soap holder from T-2000, the Chinese store.

In case you can’t read it clearly, that says: “Blessedness Squirrel: 

With incredible magic of the pretty squirrel,

you too will be the best friend

like a lot of many people all over the world.”

After the shower, I ate my Stop and Shop snack and wrote this blog post.  Now, tomorrow I will spend literally all day loading the photos so you can see a typical Tuesday in my life.  I hope you enjoy it (AKA you better appreciate it)!