The World According To...

My students have been penpaling with a group of students in the U.S. Before the break they wrote their second penpal letters and I got some good laughs from them. It’s important to edit these works just in case you run in to blatant misinformation like the student who wrote in response to the question “Does it snow in Niger?” :

“It does snow in Niger.”

When asked about the source of her information, she claimed to have consulted the only Nigerien in the class. Bonus points for choosing the one most familiar with Niger…only problem is said source has never seen snow and yet claims it as her favorite type of weather. “Hmmm, why don’t we change that to: It never snows in Africa.”

Then there was the student who got excited about listing the animals that live in Niger:

“I can see many animals in Africa like camels, donkeys, sheep goats, chickens, ducks, hippos, birds, fish, sharks, stingrays, lions, elephants and giraffes.”

Uhhh, landlocked mean anything to you? “Let’s just remove the sharks and stingrays from the list okay, honey.”

So now that we have saved our penpals from misinformation, what in the world do we tell them?

You definitely want to mention how many loose teeth you have, you might also want to talk about what kind of meats are available here in Niger and of course, you could always try listing the names of your cousins. But if you have seventeen of them, well, your teacher might steer you in another direction.

Then there are the comments that are just so true of Niger. Such as:

“Do you bring a water bottle to school?” or “I went on a trip to Defa. It took 36 hours. We got to see dinosaur’s bones. But I did not see any animals except the cows.”

Or the comments that show what children think happened:
“Our librarian is gone to work in a restaurant so another Librarian took her place.”

Wonder how LaRae is doing in that restaurant of hers?

Or the just plain funny and yet insightful comments:
“Have you ever gone to Turkey? I did. If you are wondering if there is turkey in Turkey the answer is not so much.”

And there you have it - the world according to the little people.

Look What I Made Mom!

Just before leaving the U.S. I bought some material that I thought would be cute for kitchen curtains. I've been waiting on furniture to be made and so I haven't really done anything until this break with my apartment. But since my furniture is now made, I made some choices on material for my couches and chairs and for my bedroom curtains. Having all this material around got me inspired so I started thinking about what kind of curtain to make for my kitchen. My first thoughts were a roman shade like this one. So I started folding the material and holding it up wondering if I would even have enough. For some reason, as I held in up I turned the pleats sideways and BOOM! An idea was born. How about three pleats on one side of a curtain? So I folded it and played around with it to see if I liked it. Laurence, my neighbor, suggested that a ribbon might accentuate the pleats. I just happened to have some in my scrapbook stash that was just the right color. So I went for it! And this is the final result...which I love! It kind of reminds me of a school girl's uniform. Anyway...just thought I would share a little of my craftiness with you.

Culinary Masterpiece

Uhhh, yeah. So I designed it to look that way!

Come on Down! You're the next contestant on....

Divine What Was in my Dust! Yes, that's right...it's this country's newest game show designed for anyone who's been breathing it in, washing it off or wiping it away. I'll just get the game going here with a few dastardly dust spots found dilly dallying around my domicile. Your job is to discern the type of object that used to inhabit the dwelling place.

#1
#2
#3And what dividend will you receive for daring to participate in such a duel of drollery...
you're very own dust dispenser (otherwise known as a bottle of dust). It will be dispatched to your domicile tout de suite so that you too, can participate in Divine What Was in my Dust!

(me + break time + thesaurus = dabbling in dorky diversions)

Tights and White Out Conditions

If you are looking for a riveting topic of conversation here, you definitely shouldn't choose the weather. There really isn't a great difference from day to day. That's why when you begin to see weird phenomenon you take note.

Last Sunday driving through the petite marche I noticed a man wearing snowpants. "Does he know something I don't know?" I wondered. Well I chalked that one up to the fact that he might not have been all there....I mean, after all, the snowpants were about 10 sizes too small. They were more like snow capris.

Then yesterday one of my little friends came in dressed in a nifty pair of striped tights under her skirt. Cute but really, what am I missing? It's 7:30 am, 86 degrees inside and the sun hasn't even risen fully! Perhaps inspired by yesterday's cute tights or maybe it was Easter as she claimed, another student arrived in tights today. Clearly, I need to be turning on the weather station!

It hit me this afternoon. They must have been preparing for Niamey's "white out" conditions (aka. harmattan)!

Hypnotizing, Baptizing and Accrediting

It's been a big week here at Sahel Academy. If you were in the first and second grade it included a little bit of hypnotizing and baptizing but for the rest of the school it was really more about the accrediting.

The two person Accreditation Team arrived and hit the ground running. They were busy all week visiting classrooms, conversing with students and parents and reading documents. I was observed for a few minutes and later, had the opportunity to answer questions about some general procedures on our campus and about our curriculum. On Thursday we had a brief report from the team in which they gave us several commendations and several recommendations. It was a very positive meeting and ending with the fact that they are recommending us for full accreditation. Praise the Lord!

As for the hypnotizing and baptizing...that was the "funny" for the week. We were standing in line for the bathroom and one of my little girls, K said to the person in front of her, "I'm going to hypnotize you!" She proceeded to stare deeply into her friend's eyes (picture the snake in the movie the Jungle Book here). E, the girl standing behind K wanted to get in on the fun but she didn't really hear correctly. So she proceeded to dip K back and exclaimed, "I'm going to baptize you!" ....well rounded education, I tell you. I cover it all from hypnotizing to baptizing!

Things that make me laugh

I love a good chuckle...(a sixth grader came into my room and used that word today and that in itself made me want to chuckle...chuckle's a really weird word if you think about it. But I digress!) So here are a couple of things that have made me laugh recently.

this smile

this outfit - My kids got to dress up as 100 year olds for the 100th Day of School.

this quote - We have been studying the moon for the last month or so and of course, we've learned about how cold it is there. This morning it was a little on the chilly side before school and one of my students asked me if she could stay inside until the bell rang. I have no mercy - it's not like it's snowing out there - probably only 75 degrees, if that, and so I said no. She proceeded to pull up the collar of her jacket and tuck her hands into the sleeves of her jacket. As she stepped out the classroom door, she said something like "Alright, let me go out on the moon!"

Oh my!