I feel
like I start every blog post apologizing for not being able to update
regularly. The reason behind it this time is that I don’t have internet at site
and finding it in town tends to be totally hit or miss (until this weekend). So, I'm sorry. From now on I plan to start writing out blogs ahead of time then post them
when I get net. I wonder if I could even start a queue…
For now, I will just talk about how
things have been changing since exams started. My usual day is a teachers’
meeting at 6:45 (including morning prayers and songs) with classes starting at
7:00 and ending at 1:00. I teach between five and seven classes a day for three
different grade levels (see the last post). Now that its exams everything is
the same but instead of teaching classes, one class is sitting in my room for
to study from 7:00 to 11:30 when exams start. Each class has one exam a day
that they study for during the beginning of the day. As you can imagine,
studying for that long is a bit much for teenagers. So I’ve made a deal with
the kids who sit in my class. If they behave, we study for, say, 20 minutes,
then take a short break where they can get up and stretch or draw or read a
book. Then we study for 30 minutes and take a longer break. And so on. I also
play Two Steps from Hell music, which they LOVE. It’s been great because not
only are they getting studying done, but it’s also given us time to bond more.
A few weeks ago Jaye Shaer sent us
some books, which I will properly display once the term is done and I move them
into the library, but for now they sit on my desk so the kids can read them
during break. A girl named Esmie and I read one of the books together, Akata
Witch buy Nnedi Okorafor, and I really recommend it for middle schoolers
everywhere. It’s about a young Nigerian American girl named Sunny whose family
moved back to Nigeria. She’s albino so she really sticks out and has to deal with
the social stigma of looking different. One day after school, she has a chance
encounter with a classmate who introduces her to another girl in their
neighborhood. Sunny finds out that like her new friends, she is a Leopard
Person, a witch, and with her friends she begins to explore the world of
Nigerian and West African magic. But not everything is as calm as it seems.
There’s a ritual serial killer on the loose and Sunny and her friends are
tasked to stop him. The book was really fun and Esmie and I both loved it.
