Start of School

I wrote this update yesterday (Tuesday), but couldn’t connect to the internet to post it. Just keep in mind that when it says yesterday, it means Monday :) Another post about today's trip will be posted shortly!

I tried to go to bed early on Sunday night so I would be ready for my first day of school (like all good students should), but I had a hard time falling asleep!  I had a very painful stomachache and I couldn’t sleep the majority of the night. After throwing up multiple times, my stomach felt much better, but I was dehydrated and weak because I had nothing left in my system.  (Side note on being dehydrated- I’m having a hard time finding a balance here because I know I need to drink a lot of water, but I don’t want to have to go to the bathroom all the time.  The toilets out in public are holes in the ground and I still haven’t mastered the squat- give me a couple more weeks of my Insanity workouts and I should have the leg muscles to pull it off! Haha)

Before getting out of bed on Monday, I spent time in prayer asking God to strengthen me to be able to make it through my first day of classes. And that He did!  I didn’t feel great, but I didn’t throw up anymore and I was able to sit through 6 hours of class yesterday! (2 hours was a repeat- actually a very good review- because they switched which class I was in).  At first I was with 7 students from Boston University.  They are only here for one month studying Kiswahili and they only come for 2 hours of lessons every morning.  I am now in a class with a young couple from Arkansas who will be teaching English for a different company here on the big island, and they are very awesome.  We are all on the same level and our class has been very fun so far.  Our teacher’s name is Omar and he does a good job of keeping us entertained.  He loves to sing songs to help us remember the material and I have taught him a couple of songs myself.  One being Hakuna Matata from the Lion King! He loved it and made us sing it over and over.  And over. I feel like I have learned so much in only two days.  He moves very quickly and gives us a lot to review for homework.  Hopefully I will be able to keep up!  My brain is working very hard and I’m only on day 2! 

Here is a pic of my classmates: Chad, Jamie, and Cynthia (Cynthia joined us today but will only come to class once a week)

Here’s a pic of my mwalimu (teacher), Omar:

At the end of class today, I found out some GREAT news!  We get to go on a fieldtrip every Wednesday!!!  I LOVE fieldtrips!  So tomorrow we will go to a spice farm and learn about all the different spices found on the islands.  I’m bringing a video camera to record what they tell us because I will not be able to remember the names of all the different ones. I know there are a lot!