San Diego is over 10,000 miles away, but I feel right at home here. Everyone is very kind- the Americans, national staff, and the orphans.

Every school day begins with all the students and teacher at the “pad” for welcome and announcements by Madame Debbie Needham, the head of school; prayer; and singing the Malawi National Anthem. (Note about titles: from what I can gather senior female staff are “madam;” junior female staff are “auntie.” and all non-[regular] male teaching staff are “uncle”)

I’ve been substituting for a variety of classes this week. I’m now doing Standard Sixth Bible and computer class for the RICE program (Rafiki Institute of Christian Education- Rafiki’s post high school program) every day, as well as Sixth Language Arts and Seventh Language Arts the last couple of day. The school goes from Pre-K to Eighth, then skips to the post-high school program, the aforementioned RICE. The curriculum here is of a classical Christian bent. For instance, the Seventh Graders are reading selections of the Epic of Gilgamesh. It was fun going over a section of the story with them. It’s quite complex in story and language so we explored many of the ideas in this ancient Sumerian tale (circa 2,000 B.C.). Tomorrow is a half day for students so the other two “minis” and I are taking the kids for the PM while the staff has an in-service. We plan to show a movie (Joseph: King of Dreams [cartoon version]) and have three activity games after: relays, four square, and limbo (maybe too much detail for this blog?)

I’ve been super busy these past few days. I am very happy for that. One of my concerns is that I would arrive here and they would have nothing substantial for me to do. Quite the contrary. Busy, busy, busy.

As I’ve previously mentioned, this campus is huge – 70 acres. My house is at one end of the campus and one of my classes meets at the other end. It literally takes ten minutes to walk there. This photo doesn’t do justice to the distance, but you get an idea.

Above: This is half-way from my one class to my house- you can’t even see my house in the distance. The dining hall is pictured on the far right. Below: And this is taking with me turning and facing the other direction: