The night before the First day of school...

Well its the night before the first day of school.
My class size has fluctuated at least three times today and I'll find out the final list tomorrow morning before school starts. Its some where around 18 Third graders and 12 Fourth graders.

I have met a few kids new and returning since they have stopped by the classroom. They come from countries including: Sudan, Egypt, Malaysia, Spain, UK, USA, Korea, China, S.Africa, Rwanda, Japan..just to name a few.

KAS is truly an international school representing 47 nations.

Tomorrow we spend the morning with our kids and then around 10:30 we get together with the whole school K-12 to have games. We will be on mixed teams with all grades and do some group bonding activities and then relay races and other games. The last race of the day is a 12th grader carrying an elementary child on his/her back and than the Elementary student pushing the 12th grader on a scooter!

I'm just trying to figure out how we will have water and bathroom breaks for the 50- some elementary children.
Luckily the school day starts early 7:20 am and ends by 2pm and we can hope for cloud coverage since it is still the rainy season.

I also went on my first rickshaw ride a few days ago. I had to go into school to work on my classroom and it was a weekend day. I had the security guard at my apratment help me with the Arabic on my way to school but on my way home I flagged down a rickshaw, bargined in arabic and then got a ride home. And got I home! Pretty good for a city w/o many street signs including my street or addresses...including my address. And in the bargaining process my first taxi was too expensive so I walked away and flagged down another one.
I feel very accomplished because now I know I can get to school and home...so thankful for the little things.

Actually living here I am often thankful for the little things. There are at least two blackouts a day. Usually power is restored in under 20 minutes. Occasionally it is longer. So one night I woke up hot and in a sweat..the power had been out for a few hours and I had no AC or fans. I was very very thankful when it came back on and finally got relief from a 95 degree night.
Also at school we are still waiting for the 'container' with all of the school supply orders for this year.
In the mean time I have made pencil and marker and whatever holders out of the bottoms of used water bottles. You get very creative when you don't have things you are used to.
They also don't have note books here so we make our own with paper and oaktag paper. The kids are used to it...so I'll get used to it too!