First Week of School: COMPLETE!

It's Sunday afternoon and we've had a restful weekend. Tomorrow was declared a public holiday, so we have an unexpected day off from school! We have an especially short week coming up as we have next Friday off as well. I have mixed emotions about a 3 day week this week. This first week was spent trying to engrain procedures, schedule and routine in the Pre-K, so having a long weekend, a 3 day week and then another long weekend isn't helping the momentum and continuity much. On the other hand, this week has been BUSY! In fact, the last 5 months for us have been busy, so having an extra day tomorrow is welcome!

So how was our first week at KICS? Let me tell you!

Monday was a half day and went pretty well for our family. Isaac had a few rough patches as he's adjusting and entering into an American curriculum after being in a British curriculum school. He and Hope had to do some entrance testing, and a few of the questions threw him off - asking things about inches and feet when he's used to centimeters and meters - things like that. He did get a locker and figured out how to use the lock, which he was really excited about. Hope had a great first day - she's excited about everything school right now - especially that she doesn't have a uniform. I do NOT love that like she does. We try and remember to set out clothes the night before, but we are so used to uniforms now that it's an adjustment for all of us. Geneva was our only student in Pre-K who cried on the first day! She was with me the whole day, but of course, had to share me with 18 other children. She was not impressed. Marc is teaching two AP classes, which is going to be a lot of work- for his students, but for him too. It's been really beneficial that he taught the same Bible curriculum at HOPAC as what is being taught here. He's sat down with the new Bible teacher here at KICS to help navigate the curriculum, which can be a bit overwhelming.

First day of School!

KICS has incredible leadership between our principals and director. We've been impressed and inspired by each of them, and feel like we are being professionally equipped and challenged but also nurtured and cared for. We are thankful to be working under their strong leadership.

Our Pre-K class has 21 students on the roster, though one has been traveling and will join us this week sometime and another has yet to come. Our teaching team is made up of Carrie, the full time core teacher and myself (part-time), as well as two full time para's, Patience and Sumayiah. Our team is incredible. I'm learning so much from each one of them and we seem to really balance each other well. We all bring different gifts and strengths to the table. We are working at identifying what those are and how we can best utilize them to enrich our Pre-K program. Carrie and I have sorted out that she will be teaching Math & Science and I will be teaching Bible and Language Arts. We have had to make some alterations to our schedule this past week and are still working on ironing out all the kinks. Even though Monday is a holiday, we're planning a full day of work to get ourselves set up for the week.

My co-teacher, Carrie during story time 

Our students are bright, fun, beautiful, full of life and energy and just overall fantastic. At KICS we have 25 different countries represented. Our Pre-K students come from Rwanda, USA, Kenya, Ethiopia, UK, Ghana, Uganda, Korea and perhaps I can say Tanzania as well for Geneva. We have 2 little ones who do not speak English, and one who has very limited English. During story time, I'll be pulling the two with no English aside and working with them on GPA, which is the language learning method I used to learn KiSwahili. It's very active and engaging and so far the girls have really had fun with it!

Leading worship during Bible time

Our Pre-K is located in a house about a two minute walk from the main KICS campus. The school has been growing tremendously, and therefore had to find a difference space for us! The last few weeks have been filled with trying to turn a home into a Pre-K. It's been a lot of work, and truly Carrie did so much of it before we got here, so I can't complain, but we still have a lot more to do.  I'm very thankful for the resources we have here though. 

Thanks for reading about our first week. Feel free to post questions! 

House Tour

Thought I'd give a quick "tour" of our house here in Kigali. We feel very blessed by having a safe house so close to school. It's been amazing that our school arranged the furnished housing for us, and while not everything is what we would call our "style", we're so thankful for it all! While there is no Ikea or Target anywhere to pick up a few extra things for the house, we are having a few shelves made by someone here and hope to get our Tanzanian paintings on the wall soon.

This is our living room and stairs up to the dining room. To the right at the bottom of the stairs is a little hallway with a bathroom & our 3rd bedroom, which is currently a guest room/toy room for the kids.

Main floor/guest bathroom

Guest room/toy room 

Dining room that overlooks the living room.
Marc & Isaac were sorting Isaac's school supplies.

Between the dining room and the kitchen we have this little room.
We're not quite sure what to use it for right now. It used to be the kitchen,
but they built a new kitchen, so now it's just an oddly placed
little room. It currently
has our fridge and our water cooler in it...that's it.
Ideas?

Out kitchen is huge! We don't have anyplace for our food to go right now,
so we're having some shelves built. Please excuse the mess. We aren't fully
"moved in" to the kitchen yet 

This is out the kitchen door to our back where
our wash machine is. We are so grateful to have
a wash machine!

Other view of the kitchen. The big box in front of the stove
is how we got our groceries home today. They do not allow
plastic bags in Rwanda, so you get boxes or paper bags. 

On the top floor, there are two bedrooms
& our family bathroom.

Our room.
Please excuse the mess. This room is also a work in progress! 

Kids room - Girls are on the bunk bed. 

Kids closet

Isaac's bed

So, as you can see, we have plenty of room for visitors, an amazing view of the city (look out Isaac's window) and are by no means "roughing it" as some might imagine. We love living in this house, this city and this country!

We've made it! Update on our journey & first few days!

As we are beginning another new adventure in East Africa, I'm going to do my best to keep this blog updated for those who care to follow along!

To get started, here is a recap of the last few days. 

On Wednesday, we said many goodbyes to family and friends and finished up packing the 12 tubs/suitcases we brought here with us. Let me tell you, saying goodbye does NOT get easier. It was interesting to watch our kids though, as this is now the third time we've said these goodbyes. They seem a bit desensitized to it, acting a bit more casual than I sometimes want them to or think they should. For four years, however, they've had to say these goodbyes not only to family and friends in the US, but also to multiple friends, multiple times per year in Africa. In fact, each year Isaac would become close to a few boys in his class, and inevitably those were the friends who left at the end of the year. So, I suppose I get why they aren't as tearful as their mama when we give those tight last hugs that I feel like has to last years - this is a regular part of their normal lives in a way it never was for me as a child. In a way, though they might not be able to articulate it, they're protecting their hearts. I suppose they also have now understood that while those relationships may change over time and distance, they are still there. The wonders of technology have certainly helped us keep in touch, so there is an awareness that we WILL see each other again...just maybe through a computer screen.

Ready to head to Chicago!

Thursday we loaded our van and the van of some friends and drove to Chicago. We had a bit of time to catch up with our friends David & Jenny (and kids), buy guitar strings that I had forgotten to buy earlier, and made it to the airport around 7pm. Checking in and getting through security went smoothly and we made it to our gate with plenty of time. 

on the way to the airport in Chicago 

checking in

Carry on luggage

Our friends David & Jenny who brought us to the airport in this sweet van!

Our long flight to Istanbul went quickly, as we travelled overnight and we all slept quite a bit. We had a few hours in the Istanbul airport (enough time for a quick last Starbucks!) and then boarded for Kigali. The process in Rwanda to obtain a visa and go through passport control was so quick and easy and the people were extremely friendly and pleasant. It helped that the kids and I were here only 2 months ago, so it was very familiar to all of us. We are entering on a tourist/visitor visa and will make work over the next few days to get our paperwork in for our resident visas. We are grateful for the help the school gives us in this! Please pray we have all the correct documents needed. 

We were picked up around 2:00am by David, a KICS employee who has coordinated our housing for us. He brought us and all our things home. The kids and I had a chance to see the house in June, but Marc had not, so the kids were very excited to show him around. We feel so blessed by this house and the way it's been furnished! We walked and already waiting for us was cereal, coffee, bread, bananas, PB & J, tea, milk, yogurt and juice - it was so nice to not have to worry about what we'd do for food the next morning! We stayed up for a few hours unpacking and finally laid down to sleep about 4am.

Made it to Kigali! 

The kids outside our new home! This was in June when we were able to visit.
Our yard is not so green and lush looking now! :) 

Girls bunk

Marc woke up around 9am and headed out with the Spiritual Life Coordinator at KICS to get our SIM cards for our phones set up. I got up around 10am and the kids slept a few more hours. We spend the day unpacking and trying to settle as much as possible. The director and his family stopped by to welcome us and all our kids immediately ran off to play as we chatted. At 4:45pm we walked the 3 minutes to school and met up with a lot of other new teaching staff and headed to the directors house for dinner. It was great meeting many new families, couples and singles! It was our 12th wedding anniversary, which our director knew, so they presented us with a cake after dinner. It was really sweet and thoughtful! We got home, got the kids in bed and kept unpacking. 

This morning we were up just after 8am and got ready for church. We went to one of the few English services in Kigali with the director and his family. There are several other options to check out, and we'll likely try them all before deciding where a good fit is for us. There is a church right across the street from school that we can walk to in about 4 minutes, and that will likely be where we land until we have the funds for a car. 

The kids lead most of the service this morning at Christian Life Assembly.

Kids room

After church we went to Java house for lunch, then I met with a woman and a few potential houseworker while Marc went to the store to buy fans and a few outlet adaptors. We finally made it home around 4pm and did a bit more unpacking. 

The school provided a shower curtain, but from my visit in June I knew it was plain and pink.
Found this one at a bargain store  in Atlanta and brought it along to try
and personalize the bits of our home that we can. 

Isaac is in the single bed, Hope is on the top bunk &
Geneva on the bottom bunk 

This week will be full as Monday and Tuesday will be at school 8am - 4pm and Wednesday - Friday we will be away at a staff retreat. We love our house, but making it a 'home' is going to take some time as we don't have much time these two weeks before school begins. I'll try to post some pictures of the house this week! 

Feel free to ask questions that we can answer in future blogs!

Kids & Grandma

Kids & Grandpa 

  

Our family with Opa & Oma and Aunt Dorie before saying goodbye. 

Buist/Driesenga tradition - SPOONLICKERS!