My African Birthday

We are now into our 4th week of school here in the Mercy Ships Academy! I can say for the first time ever that I celebrated a birthday while in school :). After years of celebrating a summer birthday with water balloons, pool fun, summer carnivals ...and 'back to school' just days away, my African birthday changed all that!

Now I'm not usually one who would blog about my own birthday...as it seems quite selfish...but my reason for writing is to show how absolutely thoughtful and selfLESS the community here is. Little to my knowledge, Christina had been planning all week to throw a surprise karaoke birthday party for myself and another lady on board!! Somehow, beautifully orchestrated, we walked into the midships lounge full of people singing Happy Birthday with food and some karaoke ready to go! It was such a memorable and super fun night!!!

The festivities continued on Sunday as a group of us got to take a trip to a village on stilts! This village is completely built on water and as far as I could understand, was a result of the slave trade that was prevalent in Benin. In an attempt to run from the slave trade, this village was built and now is the home to nearly 30,000 people.

This was an amazing experience....and definitely far beyond any way I could have ever imagined celebrating my 22nd....

Time Flies

After having a discussion with another crew member last night, I came to realize that on Monday, I will have already been here for 1 month. It is absolutely crazy how fast time goes when your entire life is lived within a 500 ft area! I have found this to be very convenient at times. Who ever thought I would be able to do laundry on the lunch hour between Language Arts and Social Studies? In fact, one of our Social Studies projects this week was mapping our community. Within only two 45 minute periods, we were able to find and map the park (jungle gym on deck 8), the nearest pool, our entire school, the library, the laundry room, the church (international lounge), restaurant (or as some people call it, the dining room), each of our homes, the nearest shopping center (ship shop), the nearest Starbucks (across from the ship shop), movie theatre (mid-ships lounge), the hairdressers, convenience store (snack bar), and the best lookout areas of our community which just happens to be an ocean! We had a very fun map-making adventure!!

I really can't believe that two weeks of school have already come and gone. Most of my friends from Gateway training in Texas (the Gates family:D) have finally arrived as of Thursday! It has been such a great week getting to hear all about their mission to Dominican Republic before coming here.

School has been going very well! I had quite a few "I just LOVE being a teacher" moments this week :). Unfortunately there is a bug literally ripping through the entire school....well entire ship...which has left our classrooms a few students less throughout the week. Please pray for the health of the students and teachers! This bug really is not a fun one!!

Thanks for following my blog :)! I'd love to hear from you!

First Day of School

Early this morning, I was WIDE awake at 6 am thinking....wow....first day of school....I am a real teacher. These are words that I have always looked forward to saying someday. I have officially survived the first day as a real teacher and loved each and every minute of it. After today, I had to laugh at some of the words I never thought I would say/hear a student say on my first day of school.....
ie.
1. When discussing classroom rules...."Be safe....means that we keep both feet on deck so we
don't fall into the water".
2. When spinning the globe in social studies....."Raise your hand when you see the continent you were born in pass by" and seeing hands go up at very distinct intervals.
3. When introducing myself and what I like to do, being corrected that I do not enjoy soccer...but rather football!
4. When filling in the weather chart, needing to look outside for the weather as our 'walk' to school was down the hall, up the stairs and to the right!
5. Hearing the response to my question "Why is it important to be kind to those in need" - "Because God tells us to love them...because He loves them. That's why we're here isn't it Ms. Danae?" (wow...thank you for being in Grade 2 and understanding something so much bigger than yourself)

and of course.....
6. Saying "See you at dinner" to my students as they were leaving the classroom.

Greatly looking forward to Day #2!!!