School’s out for the summer!

Jon and I have spent the last two weeks proctoring our students during their exams.  It is quite possibly the most boring part of teaching.  However, today, November 18 was our last day of proctoring and the last day of school until mid-January!  We are really excited to have a break and to start the school year fresh and new with lots of ideas! 

Firebird

We see three really cool birds near our home all the time.  A heron, a little yellow bird, and this little red bird.  They are so hard to get a picture of because they flutter so quickly away.  But, today, Jon was lucky and got one!

Blooming Purple

In the city that we do our banking, big shopping, and where our post office box exists, there are beautiful trees blossoming purple at the moment.  I definitely missed the stunning fall colors in the Adirondacks this season, but I can’t complain when I am blessed by such vibrant beauty all around me in purple instead of orange and red!

My favorite view

If you ride a bike about 45 minutes away from our school, you go through a whole bunch of valleys and rolling hills.  There’s one view that’s my absolute favorite.  After riding downhill for about 10 minutes on a bike, you get to the bottom of a valley.  All around you, there are rolling hills, a small stream, cattle being herded by children, and large boulders.  The view is just stunning.  This picture absolutely does not do it justice.  Whenever we get there, we stop for at least 5-10 minutes just taking in the view.

A visitor

I was out doing laundry when a little visitor showed up.  Jon and I have seen it once and we’ve never seen anything like it since!

28 today

Today is my 28th birthday.  It’s true, the older you get, the more it just feels like another day.  I taught at 8:00 and the rest of the day was free.  The only thing that really made it feel like my birthday is that Jon had the grade 10 students sing happy birthday to me.  It was really sweet.  Tanzanians don’t celebrate birthdays in the same way that we do.  So, even though the other teachers found out it was my birthday when they heard the 10th graders sing to me, it’s not a huge deal.  I just relaxed and read Harry Potter, really.  28 sounds old.  Jon and I were reminiscing and it’s crazy to think that we met when I was 21.  Who knew 7 years later that we would be celebrating my birthday in Peace Corps in Tanzania?!  It also doesn’t really feel like my birthday because it’s nice out!  It’s been about 85 and sunny.  My birthday makes me think of snow, cold, and the imminent winter headed our way.  So, even just the warm weather throws me off!  Anyway, I’ll wake up tomorrow, 28, for another year, and the days will keep on going!

Happy Birthday to me!

Even though my birthday is on November 3, we celebrated the weekend before.  Jon had planned a weekend where he cooked delicious food and I relaxed all day long.  We made lots of pizza and Jon finally got our solar shower working which has made me so happy!  The weather is finally hot enough during the days (about 85) that we can leave our solar shower out and it makes it nice and hot by about 3:30.  It’s the first hot shower I’ve had since we left America in June.  My bathing frequency has gone from about 3 times a week to 6.  It’s amazing!

The pizza turned out phenomenal, too.  The cheese which we had to buy in the amount of 2 lbs costs more than a day’s worth of pay for us.  Then, we also bought very expensive olives and mushrooms as well.  The pizza, made completely from scratch and cooked in a dutch oven (see below) was such a nice change from the typical rice, grains, and beans that we normally eat.


Overall, I did have a nice birthday weekend as Jon did most of our household chores (but, I still helped out because it’s a lot of work doing it all on your own!).  The weather was nice, too windy to ride our bikes, but warm!