Snowy day

I do not know if it is the snow or what but feeling very coldy today.  It is white everywhere, but the kids still struggled into school. I took about 40 minutes to walk and was nice and warm by the end. Tonight coming home I went by the school bus. It was interesting to see that lots of the kids were out maybe coming home from school, none of them wearing any more clothing than they wear the rest of the time. There are not many buses so they were pleased when we stopped and gave them a lift. 

About a week ago I suggested to the Manager's son that they put some food in the freezer so that when the hotel closed, which it has in effect from now on till I guess the New Year holiday, then I could grab something to eat. He said not to worry as his family would be here instead.  I suspected that would not be the case after all would they really want to be buried down here all winter, but given the way things are either always turning up or absolutely the reverse I decided  leave it to fate. So today I just ate extra large for lunch and cooked something light when I came back. I also had hot apple juice in the morning which was lovely.  So day three of just me and Grandad  and the cold of winter sort of okay.

I was a bit disappointed at school today. I have been saving bits of sweet paper for weeks, twice my supply has been chucked by the guest house cleaners and twice replenished all so that I could get the kids to stick them on a picture of Humpty Dumpty. This activity worked very well with younger children in Senegal and today some of the kids did a lovely job, but the rest just gave up on it so all rather dispiriting. I also spent 2 hours trying to print something. It was nice just to sit and try and figure it out ,but in the end all I had for two hours work was ink all over my hands.

 We have a new gym teacher as our missing computer guru also teaches that so the head has find a partial solution to ensure that the kids get their exercise classes. Here unlike the UK about half the classes are taught by speicalists like the gym teacher and me. It means the class teachers do get a bit of a break in the day. But they are marking and grading kids from year one on, so it just gives them time for that.   However, if one much planned activity did not really fulfill its promise a spur of the moment idea worked better. I gave the year one children a gap filling activity with the nouns for the animals in the Walking Through the Jungle book, but then thinking the problem is helping them know which animal each name refers to suddenly realised that they could try and draw the pictures next to the words, drawing a wolf is not that easy but about 5 of the kids did a fair version enough to help them remember. Anyway an early night I think. Tomorrow about 6.30 my colleague will be milking her cow before doing a full day's work and coming home and cooking, I will stay in bed till 8 and probably still feel tired. They are a tough lot here.