Well, we’ve been here a week already. In some ways it feels even longer - in a good way. We are at school, trying to get ready for the new students who will start coming on Tuesday. All of you still on summer vacation, enjoy every minute!
I have received my class list and will be starting with either 13 or 14 children from 9 different countries! How exciting is that! It’s the reason we came. Mary and Bryce also will be in small classes - Bryce at around 17 and Mary at 11 or 13, depending on which teacher she has. The nice thing for them, being teachers’ kids, is that they have already met many of the staff.
We have seen some remarkable things here! There are these interesting flat spiders - harmless. They are about the size of a silver dollar if you take their legs into account and they are flat as a pancake. They look squished, but they move fast when they want! We also saw what we thought at first was a green bird but turned out to be a grasshopper about 4 inches long! Our gardener said not to touch it because it emits a foul smell! There are also many unusual birds here - I’m in search of a bird book to start identifying them.
We are starting to get in the power outage groove. It appears that we can expect power cuts (for the time being) on Mon., Wed. and Fri - pretty much for 12 hours per day. Add that to the outage when we got here which was due to a transformer fire, we have had a total of 4 days (counting today!) with power so far! The things we took for granted!
After working here at school awhile today, we are going to go shopping. We need to get some grocery type supplies - an interesting outing in itself - and also some household supplies, like a broom and a laundry basket. We’ll go to some roadside markets and maybe a store or 2 for this. I’m not complaining - it’s just a different life-style.
We are really enjoying the people here. They are very friendly and helpful, which we need at this point!
We are still trying to get a feel for the money here. They just knocked 10 zeroes off the end of the bills, so we are no longer trillionaires, although the old bills will be honored until the end of the year. The confusing thing is all the exchange rates that are in effect. There’s the cash rate for paying cash, the bank rate for paying with a check or debit card. The bank rate is much better than the cash rate, but not many people want to accept a check - by the time it clears, it has devalued too much. Then there’s the official rate, much lower than any of the others and the RTGW rate, which I don’t understand at all! So, we have to be aware not only of the price, but of the rate! For example, we almost bought a box of oatmeal last weekend for $30! (We thought it was $3.) We put it back.
Well, the kids are yammering at me that they are hungry. I guess I’d better get off the computer. We miss you all and think about you all the time. We are loving our time here and our new friends, but there’s no replacing our dear friends from home!
October 15, 2007
and don’t forget … “ni wapi choo”
http://goafrica.about.com/od/peopleandculture/a/swahili.htm
Dean
October 15, 2007
Jambo muzungu kipara!
Habari yako?
Have you gotten to the “nataka mbili bia baridi sana!” at your local duka yet?
Regardless, it looks like the Cumpston’s Great Family Adventure is off to a heady start. Dad said the first two years in africa were always the hardest…after that you were practically a native!
Two words…Go Native!
October 15, 2007
Wow….
I love hearing what you are all up to. It’s so exiting.
When Chris and I moved to another country, (Texas) we also had a lot to learn about differnet cultural changes, but none as fun and challanging. I hope y’all have a great week at school.
Jolene
October 15, 2007
I fixed Terry’s email - sorry, had a typo in the set up.
Dean
October 15, 2007
I’m so happy to hear that your ‘entry’ has been positive. I have so many fond memories of Zim, and can’t wait to share them with you when you return (1 year, 10 months and 3 days from today, as your blog shows). Please be sure to contact my friends the Hulmes when you get settled. They are the best!
Cheers!
Molly
October 16, 2007
Hey Jeff & Terry, sorry to crash the blog, but I am sending you emails about your mail, and Terry’s keep bouncing. Is her email working? Jeff, hopefully you got the ones about the mail. Please respond when you get a minute - yeah, riiigghhhtttt…..
October 16, 2007
Ahh come on … we all know you didn’t go to Zimbabwe to be with international kids - it was the opportunity to be a trillionairre! Not too many teachers can say that!
Now you’all will have to drop back and do what you do best. Enjoy the start of school. Every time I drive by the high school - which is dark and empty this time of year I think of the echos of Cumpston there.
Enjoy the start of school!
Lots of folks are posting comments … for those of you reading but not posting because you don’t know how, it’s easy. Just click on the “comments” link just below the blog post’s title. The first time you post your comment it needs to be approved by the moderator but after that it will post immediately. Yes, the spammers try to catch us here, too!