Frriiiidaaay!

It's Friday so we have gone through a full week of teaching at Inburi school! I didn't give too much details about my classes so here it goes..



I am teaching grade 7, 8, and 12 and Felix is teaching grades 9, 10, 11. Since my kids are younger (youngest at school besides my grade 12) I have a lot of kids in my classes. We just calculated and all together I have 1,069 kids haha. Felix has smaller classes whihc is nice for him and their english is also a higher level. He has about 659 all together. Most of my classes have around 50 but here and there I get some classes of 30 some kids. Everyone has been great so far! This whole first week has been easy because we are just playing getting to know you games and fun things for them before we start our real lessons. My kids are a pretty low level of english but they can read and write good. All the classes are different though no matter what level. I have some that are very quiet and other classes that are loud and rowdy and I have to yell just to talk over them. We also have textbooks for each class which is REALLY lucky. It pretty much has a whole lesson plan for us and the kids each have one as well that they can write in so we won't be slaving away making copies every week. I unfortunately got kind of crappy classrooms to teach in too. I can't play a lot of the games I would like to with them because their desks are wall to wall (I can't even get to the back rows without having to exit and go into the back door) and almost all of them are chalk board. I had the idea of taking them outside to play games but with 50 plus kids that might be a bit difficult. Felix has nicer classrooms and whiteboards usually but since his classes are older he is right now having the problem of them seeing him and automatically sneaking out of the class because they know he can't do much about it. My kids are really sweet so I am happy with the ones I have despite the sucky classrooms I am getting used to it. They stand up before and after class and say "Goodmorning/ Thank you TEEEECHAA!". Interesting fact..kids here unlike American kids aren't very outgoing. About 90% of all kids are shy to start out with at least and even if they know the english they won't always say it to you because they are so scared of saying it wrong (which goes along with the whole "saving face" concept). This will be somewhat of a challenge to get over but luckily after standing up there for a long time waiting for a volunteer usually there is atleast one student who will go first (and the rest of the class always cheers when they do !) Oh yeah this shy factor goes for everyone except the LADYBOYS. Felix and I both have a few in our classes. They are actually really good to have in a class because they are super enthusiastic and get the rest of the class excited. We have found out they like to scream.. a lot. They are great though I have trouble not laughing the whole time when they are in my classes because they are so funny and happy about everything they do.

ANNNYways, I just wanted to wrap up the details of our first week in Inburi! Felix's friend Rich from England that he trained with is taking a bus here tonight to hang out for the weekend! Tonight is Friday market day so there is tons of vendors with food up and down the streets so that should be fun. Happens every Friday! Oh yes and of course we had two more boxes of cakes today, chocolate and coffee and a bag of the sweet sticky dessert rice on our desks when we got here. They are adamant that we won't leave Inburi skinny.

Love,
Brienne