Hello everyone! I hope that you have been having a wonderful week! I cant believe that today is already Friday!!!!!!!!!! This week has gone by so quickly and I have a feeling that once I get into my routine that it will feel like it is jut flying by for this whole semester!!
LUGGAGE!!!!!!!!!
This week I have been just trying to relax a little bit, get used to the surroundings and to get my classroom in order. On of my bags finally arrived last night, but not the one I was hoping for. My large bag arrived which was full of clothes, but I was really hoping that my smaller bag would of arrived already since that is the one with my contacts and personal items. It is still crazy to think that I will be living out of 2 suitcases for a little while until the boat arrives, which so far is still scheduled for the 20th! :) To be truthful the one item that I desire the most right now is my razor! :P It is in my other bag, so I have not been able to shave my legs at all which is kinda driving me insane! :p lol
HOUSE!!!!!!!!!
This week there has been several moments that our electricity has gone out, but that is something that I just have to get used to. It is usually only off for a few minutes so I am not going to complain! :) I was trying to watch the movie 27 dresses the other night and the electricity went off like 3 times during the movie and I would have to restart it.
FOOD!!!!!!!!!!
We have been blessed with our food all week! Roger and Norma has been providing us all of our meals so far. It has been amazing breakfast buffet that includes bacon, french toast, eggs and fruit. YUM! :) Then we have also had lunch which so far we have had speghetti one day, rice with a chicken sauce one day and of course the fruit and amazing homemade bread they make... YUM! I can def. get used to the food around here. Most of the people living here say that they gain weight when the go to the states and think that I am going to be opposit and gain wait living here. lol Their food is amazing and I can def get used to the beans and rice and chicken!!!! Their sauce that they make is amazing as well. Last night for dinner and so far for lunch we ordered some food. Last night we ordered rice, beans, (chicken for me), vegetables and plantains for dinner which comes with a red sauce. For lunch we have ordered rice and bean sauce with (chicken for me). I am going to have to learn about how to eat smaller meals and just portion my food out instead of eating it all at one meal.
Okay our maid just came home from grocery shopping for us and I had her get some celery. OK celery here is not the same thing as celery in the states. :P It is like the leaves of it and not the stalk of it. So I guess no celery and peanut butter for me lol. I will eventually get it all figured out what things are! LOL
WORKOUT!!!!!!!!
We are also going to start working out and doing the insanity workout so lets see how I am going to go about that one! There is a large group of us teachers who plan to do it so I am thankful that I am not the only one and will have accountability to keep doing it! :)
SCHOOL!!!!!!!!
Yesterday I walked into my classroom for the first time! I was kinda overwhelmed when I walked into my room. In the states all the school desks and everything is already in place and most of the things are already on the wall. Well, not here! At the end of the year they have to pack everything up in boxes and totes and take everything off of the walls and place the desks stacked at one side of the room. So the room when you walk in is a complete blank canvas. I get to look through posters and decide where I want to put things, but first off I have to figure out what these kids are learning the first quarter so I can put up the right posters. There was one for multiplication, but I found out that the kids wont be using that until the 4th semester so I will be waiting on that one. I then also am slowly starting to go through all of the paperwork in the room. I have discovered the biders that break down everyday of the school year for me, which a previous teacher did for 2nd grade. I am sooo thankful to have those binders and I know that it will help me out soo much! Miss Alexa is also typing up her routine of how she went about things which will help a lot too! :) I know that it will take a little bit of time to get used to it all, but I know with God that it will all work out!!! Yesterday, while going through my posters, Riley and Cameron (4th grade) were wanting something to do so I asked them to help me pick out posters and then decide where to put them up in my room. So on the purple cork board in the back of the room we have math and then the purple cork board on the side of the room we have God Is Love with a sun underneath it and at the bottom of the board a verse across it that I will probably switch out every once in a while. There are still several poster to put up, such as, the birthday poster, and the rewards poster, and the everyday note poster, and the reading and spelling posters. Goodness it seems like a lot of posters when you think about it! :P Riley was helping me with things yesterday and it made me smile because she told me that I was going to be a fun teacher! :) :) It actually melted my heart to hear that!!!!!!!!! Then she got into the subject of asking me questions about my life... did I grow up knowing God, am I happy to know God now, What I did in the states, Do I want children :p the list went on, but it was extremely cute! :) I am excited to be here and to start this school year and I know that when I am starting to stress out there is sevearl adults here to help me and children as well and of course God is always with me!
I also got a little overwhelmed yesterday because I found out my roster of my children. Carmen printed it out and gave it to me and even she said that is a lot of children. I have 32 kids in my class which when you think about it, its like woah that is 32 2nd grade kids... that is A LOT! :P But I know that it will be okay. I was organizig my desks yesterday and I only have 25 so we have to discover 7 more desks for my room. Trying to fit them in there might be the hard part! :P
MONEY!!!!!!!!!
Okay so I am starting to figure out this money system! :P I take whatever number is on the bill (which are gourdes or pronounced goods) and divide that by 5 to get the haitian dollar amount. So a bill that says 50 on it is $10 haitian... which if you would like to know is $1.25 american. So lunch today cost me $1.25 americn for a giant bowl of food. Goodness I didn't even think about how much that was until I just broke that down on here, THAT IS CHEAP! :p
so the system is:
# on bill (divide by 10) = haitian dollar
haitian dollar (divide by 8) = american dollar
so another idea on that is the other day I had them break a $100 american bill for me which ended up becoming 800 haitian dollars and 8000 gourdes. WOW that seams like a lot of money!!!!!!!!!!
LANGUAGE!!!!!!!!
Okay so earlier this week I was started to get overwhelmed with the language barrier here, but I know that God will provide me the ability to understand with time. The second night we were here some of the neighbor boys were over saying hi. These kids are out front of the house all of the time because they live across the street. Sometimes they are out playing soccer or other things, but you tend to see them a lot though. They were over though saying Hi and they were having such a hard time saying Miss Alisha. They say A li sha in 3 syllabols. Yesterdy though they say me walking home from working on my classroom and they said my name with no problem so I am excited that they are able to get my name down so quickly! :)
I have thought about it and I am thinking about getting a tutor, but I am wondering if I should try to do it on my own first to atleast get some of the words down and then get a tutor to actually get sentances put together right and the correct pronounciation. Thankfully Megan and Tara had note cards of various words and are able to give those to me to help me get started which will help alot! :)
With that said..... Alo, koman ou ye jodi a? which in english means: Hello, how are you today? :)
Well everyone I am going to hope off of here or the moment... It is noon and I am going to go over to my classroom and start going through some more items in there and then at 4pm I guess we are going to start our insanity workout. Pray that I actually am able to do this! :P I need my food totes to arrive so I can start drinking my protein shakes! (yes Adam I am stealing this from you!) :) heh.... Well everyone I will talk with you later! :) Have a wonderful day!!!!!!!
~Miss Alisha :)
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