Welcome to My Day

It’s still dark when my alarm goes off.  I quickly hit it to make that obnoxious noise stop.  Then, as I do every day, I lie in bed and think about my day.  What will happen at school today?  Do I have what it takes to teach these kids?  At VOH school we take our roles as educators very seriously.  Young Katongo tells us that he has no one to talk to at home so school is the place where he has an outlet to speak his mind.  Mubila has positive affirmation and two guaranteed meals a day at school, which is not something that is necessarily always true at home.  Little Joseph feeds on every word we say to him, nourishing his mind on each morsel of information he can grab a hold of.  Naomi is learning how to receive adult interaction not only on a regular basis but also without being the center of our attention at all times that she is with us.  Each day at school is vitally important.  And each morning that weighs heavy on my mind, keeping me in bed all the longer.  When I finally roll out of bed and get ready I make the trek up our immense hill to school.  Immediately I am met by children wanting to talk or to get a high five.  I go and talk to my fellow teachers about what is going on in Mongu or about the children or about our weekends, whatever is the most interesting that day.  After we spend some time together, it’s off to work.  We spend the day playing games, singing songs, and teaching the children everything we think they need to learn.  It’s loud and chaotic and fun and wonderful.  At the end of the day, I leave school exhausted, hoping that I find enough energy to complete whatever evening activities lay before me.  I collapse onto my bed, waiting for the noise in my head to stop before moving on to my evening activities.  I look forward to my times in the evenings with the other medium term missionaries and catching up with people over Skype.   Then I prepare myself to start again tomorrow.