Money Money Money

Greetings to you all on this lovely Friday morning. The second week of school has gone well, for the most part. Our science & math units have begun and our literacy block is starting to take shape (somewhat). The kids have a writing assessment to finish today, I am excited to see what they will come up with! On to the Congo: I have finally taken a picture outside the walls of the compound!

Hahahaha. Aren't you impressed with my photography-from-a-moving-bus skills? I have no idea what I was even intending to photograph, but it wasn't this. I promise I will get better at it!

I thought I would share a bit about the Congolese money situation. American bills are very common, in larger denominations than I am used to carrying... we got our 'settling in allowance' in hundreds and I am still working through that money. The american bills have to be in pristine condition, or people at the store can refuse to take them. It can be quite frustrating! For change, though, there are no coins, and people use the Congolese franc. (Which has no such regulations about it's condition. Many are very dirty and old.)

It is very common to pay with american bills and receive your change in francs because one dollar bills seem to be much less common than other denominations. 1,000 Congolese francs is about one dollar, 500 francs is about 50 cents, etc. Prices for most things in most stores are in francs, and at the cash register most stores have very nice checkout computers that show what you owe in both francs and dollars.

There are also 1,000 and 10,000 franc bills, but they seem, at least to me, less common than the ones you see here. As you can well imagine, trying to buy all your necessities with bills that are worth fifty cents each would be kind of challenging (while there are ATMs and credit card readers, it doesn't seem as common to pay with your card. Cash is very very very common.) I have definitely seen men at the grocery store with GIANT neatly folded stacks of 500 franc bills. They literally have to count out 40 bills to pay for something that costs about 20 dollars. You can imagine that it takes a while for the man, and then the cashier to count them all! 

(I am trying to show you the pictures on both sides of the bills, hence the abundance of pictures.) As you might wonder, this leads to some very interesting cash register drawers at the store. Most places I have seen don't seem very strict about having the "till" drawer pop open when the sale is made... the drawer is just open all the time, providing an interesting look in for someone as nosy as myself. 

(I promise, the last boring picture of money...) The cashiers that I have seen have large drawers where they can keep stacks of all the Congolese francs and the american money that they get, but there aren't the little clips that hold the money down usually, the ones I remember are just large drawers with no coins, only lots and lots of bills. As you can see above, they have had a recent reprint of the 200 franc bill, so there are new ones of that denomination, and you can see an old one behind it. Both are acceptable, no one will make any comment about either one.

So that is the money situation. I thought I would sit down and write this in 2.2 seconds, but it turned out there was more to say. I should have known it would be longer considering I was writing it. I am off for my stressful Friday of three afternoon prep periods and no recess duty. I LOVE Friday! I hope you all have a restful and enjoyable weekend.

I wanted to make one last comment.. a PS if you will... The title of my blog does in no way imply that I think I am clever or that my blog is clever. "Something clever" refers to that moment (ie you move to a foreign country) and everyone expects you to say something clever and insightful about all your new and wonderful experiences. But instead of saying something that's actually clever... because I am not so much clever as just long winded... I just made the title of my blog the words "something clever." Because I don't claim to know everything (or even very much) about my new country of residence or have any insights... I am just learning as I go, and sharing as I go. And that is all (even though it doesn't make a lot of sense.)

Moving casualty

Just a quick one: My One Direction martini glass from Miss Amanda Mullen made it through the move just fine, now holding all my earrings:

But my spork did not! I am so sad! First thing on the list to buy when I get home in December!

Classroom

Good morning to all! I am going to post today because I have a busy weekend lined up and no workout this morning. I am so happy because leaves are falling, even though it's the beginning of spring here, not fall... so it really feels like back to school. Not all the trees seem to be losing leaves, but enough!

I thought I would show off my classroom because you haven't seen pictures of that yet. This is the view from the entrance of one of the doors. We have two doors, one is for specials it seems and one is for our main daily use, lunch, playground, arrival/departure. 

My desk and the assistant teacher's desk are in the background. These are the tables for the kids to sit at... the main difference I have found is the linoleum when I am used to carpeted floors. I find them kind of cold and hard, but other than that the classroom is very nice and big! But it needs to be - by November I will theoretically have 22 kids in 1st grade. 

This is the storage/book area and the door with access to bathrooms, 3rd grade room, library, and ESL room. My kids won't have ESL services because they don't start until 2nd grade, but they like having the classroom next door because the teacher doing ESL now was their kindergarten teacher last year. This the main use door to the left.

Now I have my back to my desk and looking at the specials door and reading group table.

And toward the circle area and nice big easel, as well as our word wall and number corner. As I said, the room is huge, but it is going to need to be huge for the class we are getting. The beginning of school is quite early, we've almost already made it through an entire week, so many families don't get back for the first day. I had 14 students Monday, 15 Tuesday, and 16 for the past two days. The anticipation of wondering if you are going to get a new student is entertaining every morning. Hopefully they all come soon before we start our serious assessments. It is quite annoying to have to administer them over and over to the few stragglers who weren't present for the original assessment. 

This is part of our playground - view out the main door - the kids get nice lengthy recesses and enjoy playing outside. They are a very mixed bag. I have 4 kids who prefer French and seem to be at least partially Congolese. They are willing to speak English in the school setting but use French at recess etc. I'm sure as they get used to English they will use it more and more but for now I am happy to listen to them chat in French. Then I have British, American, Korean and Dutch boys, and Lebanese, Norwegian and Romanian girls. It is a very mixed bag and they have quite varied levels of English proficiency, but I am trying to be very understanding because it is the first week of school and many of them haven't heard a lot of English all summer. It has to be a hard adjustment to come back to school! They are all kind to each other, and many know each other from last year, which is helpful.

This is the door to the school store that I am going to be helping with as part of student council.

This is the view out the specials door, toward the computer lab and gym, then turning right will give access to the music room and art room. The kids have library once a week, and all other specials twice a week for 40 minutes, with French taking place in the classroom. 

With this view of the specials door (nice to look at, impossible to open) I wish you all a great weekend and great school year! 

News plus Flora and Fauna

Hello everyone! I am not sure that Saturday will always be my usual blogging day, but for now it would appear that that is the case. We have spent a long week in many, many, many in-service meetings getting to know the returning teachers and all that is expected of us over the course of the school year. Last night I slept for 11 hours, from 8 to 7, without interruption (except to apply anti-itch lotion to my bug bites, which I have gotten very good at doing while half asleep) , so it would appear that in-service has tired me out. Heaven knows what the real school year will do to me. We have two full weeks of school lined up and then we have a three day weekend for Labor Day (not a holiday here, just a holiday for us because we are an American school) I have just spent the morning cooking (what I was supposed to be doing last night) and now I am finally returning to my blog. I am feeling a bit like I'm shouting into the void... so PLEASE shoot me an email if there is something you want me to talk about. I am happy to concentrate more on something that you want to hear about.

For today, I thought I would focus on plants and animals. I wish I knew the names of more of them, and had better pictures, but you will have to forgive me. I will update you! First of all, it's our favorite, the black fly. 

http://zztopblackfly.weebly.com/uploads/3/0/0/3/30034891/7539919_orig.jpg

The above photo is someone else's and it may not show the exact flies we have here, but you get the idea. They are very annoying because their bites are painless, but then about 24-36 hours later you are itching like CRAZY and wonder... What happened to me? Well now we know. They seem to really like me (legs especially) and not be very affected by bug repellent. They are also attracted to water/moisture, so exercising is super fun. The good things (1) They don't land on you if you're moving (2) This is the peak season for them and once the weather changes, they will have less vengeance. (3) I now have a system for combating the itch: Jump out of bed, run to shower, cool legs in water, dry off, run back to bed, and apply anti-itch cream. If needed, lay on floor for a bit to let the cool tiles cool off one's legs. Soon I will be an expert, and already have this system down to about 5 minutes of wakefulness. Photo of my legs at the moment:

Yes I do itch too much. Trying to work on that!

Also, we have our friends the mille-pates, or centipedes. I really enjoy them, they are cool to watch and then when I get sick of it I throw them outdoors to try to keep the house clean. 

On to more enjoyable topics, it is just gorgeous here. The plants and birds are so pretty and we have lots of constant bird song. There are some cute little blue birds (picture not my own, apparently called Blue Waxbills) as well as some Grey parrots that we hear, but I haven't seen yet.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_waxbill#mediaviewer/File:Uraeginthus_angolensis_(portrait).jpg

This is another bird I see a lot - they were hanging out at my classroom yesterday playing on the roof, apparently called Pied Crows. 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/Pied_crow.jpg

Here is a photo I took near my house of a pretty green bird, can you spot it?  

As well as a butterfly photo:

Not sure these are native to Africa, something called Heliconia, but very pretty:

And more lovely red flowers:

As winter is the dry season here, leaves have been falling like crazy, 

and are therefore raked into piles for fertilizer as you can see. (View of the elementary school soccer field)  

To the right is one of the huge bamboo groupings that make such a cool creaking sound in the wind. 

As promised, one of the elementary school lizards. I hope they don't try to get inside, but outdoors they are very cool!

Couldn't resist a photo of my new porch couch. Now just to make time to sit on it!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone! 

Bonobos

As promised, I am trying to break things up and organize the blog a bit. This post is from Wednesday, August 6, but I was saving it for better internet. This week has been new teacher orientation, with the largest incoming group of new teachers since the 1980s. There are 13 new teachers who have 9 children among them... as I believe teachers get tuition paid for their children, it isn't a bad deal at all to bring kids along. We have been touring about town in the school's small bus as our superintendent says the main purpose of this week is keeping us awake and helping us adjust to a schedule here at school to break out of our jet lag (I am still working at it!) So as part of our more informal first week, we went to one of the few tourist attractions of Kinshasa, the Bonobo Sanctuary about an hour away in the bus. The Bonobo is one of the 4 great apes, the others being Chimpanzees, Orangutans, and Gorillas. (I feel like my grammar/run-on sentence issues are getting worse and worse, you will have to forgive me) The Bonobos only live in the DRC, and there are two related facilities to care for them. The one near us is the paradise of the Bonobos, where they help orphaned and hurt animals to get well (and house ones that can't get well enough to return to the wild) and they also have another reserve way out in the wilderness where they return the animals that are well enough to go. One of the biggest problems facing the apes is the fact that people hunt them to eat and make potions out of them, so they are returned to an area where the local human tribe doesn't hunt them, in the hopes of rehabilitating the species. Many researchers from around the world (Duke University is a main one) come to help research and care for the animals, and the land around the reserve is farmed intensely by locals who are paid to produce food for the Bonobos. They need 14 pounds of food per ape per day and they house about 60 of them! It's incredible! I have very few photos, as I was helping the tour guide translate what he wanted to say on the tour, but I offer my humble photos and also defer to my new friend Emily who is a photo genius to give you all a good sense of what we saw. (Photos are mine unless labeled as taken by Emily) First in the parking lot...

we enjoyed the view of the river...

and the sleepy puppies...

Then we saw the first of three enclosures where the Bonobos are kept. 

They do look a lot like Chimps except their faces are a different color. At enclosure number three, we stopped paying attention to the Bonobos to talk to each other and they didn't like that, as evidenced by their dirt throwing... (Photo by Emily) The building behind is the night house where the Bonobos sleep in their little individual hammocks. 

After enclosure number three, we saw enclosure number two: (Photo by Emily)

And then we went to the baby area, where one of the babies had gotten lose and escaped (he was testing his boundaries, as they say)

And jumped into one of our new science teacher's arms! (Photo by Emily) She gave him back to his human foster mom shortly after the photo was taken (with regret!)

Lastly, an excellent photo of Evelyn, the new high school Drama/English teacher, Emily the 2nd grade teacher, myself (1st grade) and our tour guide, taken by Evelyn's husband Jimmy on Emily's camera.

After a rollicking good time, we got on the bus for yummy sandwiches and a nap after our ride home! This is a link to their website, a much better description of Bonobos than I can give! http://www.friendsofbonobos.org/bonobos/

Next week we will have all faculty, returning and new, so the work will begin as we get to know each other and get down to school business. 

Indoors

I finally have internet on my personal computer! It has been great to have use of the school internet but it's also very pleasant to have all my normal tabs and normal passwords already logged in. I have successfully skyped today, so uploading pictures should be no big deal and I will show you the inside of my home. Obviously, this is not an average Congolese house, this is a place made to have American teachers feeling somewhat at home. I find it hard to feel super home-y without any carpet or rugs, but the floors are nice and cool which will be an advantage once it gets to be summer here. I also didn't feel like spending money on a rug as I would rather have a nice porch chair and just use slippers. Today a nice porch couch was purchased for $200, so that will go:

This is what you see as you walk in the front door, nicely painted porch floor where I apply bug spray and get the ground all gross and sticky! haha Then you walk into the house and you can see the living room toward the right and dining room to the left. 

So this is the view to the right as you look out toward the road, with my desk and living room set, two chairs and a sofa. There is a large chest where I place my computer to watch TV from the couch. To the left is the dining room... In my experience in France I never had a chair that was comfortable to sit on with my large bottom, and here all the chairs are so nice and comfy. I love it! Sitting in the dining room now to blog. 

We have insane amounts of storage, I have my few containers of toiletries and random accessories in one of those large cupboards and the rest are empty. The top will hopefully be a cat play area if I can get some safe way for him to climb up there. The doorway to the right is the bedroom, and off to the left is the bathroom and kitchen. 

This is the kitchen hallway bit, with the bathroom door visible on the left, and then if you turn past the stove you see this: 

Evidently didn't take bedroom or bathroom pictures because they were dirty... haha... but they are very normal looking bedroom/bathroom with just a shower, no tub. In all, I am very very very comfortable and happy here except that I miss my roommates and my cat very much. 

First Impressions

Alrighty folks, due to much pressure from Miss Natalie (and others) I am going to try to show you the campus. We went to an ape reserve today, and I have some pictures, but I will save that for another post... I am trying to ration out the posts so that they keep things separated and organized and I have something to tell you every so often. As a global rule, people around here are not fond of being photographed. We are not allowed to take pictures anywhere outside our campus walls without express permission (such as the ape reserve) because the government believes that the buildings and river are their property and want no one making money selling images of their property, and also because people believe that you are taking pictures of them to make fun of them, like they are somehow abnormal. So I am going to have to learn to draw (not likely) or just describe for you some things so I don't get in trouble taking photos outside the walls. In the walls of our compound we are totally fine to take pictures so that is what you will see here. I have met some wonderful wonderful people and learned so much in such a short time... I will tell you more later! But this is what I have been seeing every day.

First my home, 98A. I have a very small porch with washer/dryer... I have porch envy of my friends, but it's very very nice. And everyone gets a washer/dryer, not just me.

I am on "upper campus" with the superintendent, principal, and several other new teachers including one next door and one behind my house. 

 

This is the road leading left out of my house, toward main campus. The roads to our houses are dirt, but around the school part they are paved. To the right is more housing and the campus workshop. You can see a guard house for a pedestrian worker gate that is near my house, but the car gate is not near me. I have lots more photos of scenery, flowers, birds and the like but uploading is taking forever, so I am going to wait until I am off school internet and onto my own (we are getting sales pitches tomorrow) so that I won't have to wait as long to load. 

Front office of our school, with a worker walking through. Like any school in the beginning of August, the janitors and workers are going feverishly crazy trying to finish all their jobs in time for the students August 18th. August 11th we will meet all the returning faculty and have a week of training alongside them. 

This is the elementary school, across from the main office (the middle/high school are behind the main office) and you can see my classroom (sort of) behind the centermost bench off in the distance. Right near the cafeteria! Behind our classrooms is the playing field, as well as large new playground equipment and then further down behind is the rest of the "lower campus" teacher housing which is mostly for the 3 families with young children... but there are other teachers that live there as well. A doctor is renting housing for our school so he will be our on call medic when our nurse isn't free to handle our small health emergencies. If there is a big problem, there are good medical facilities nearby. Mostly it's just the teachers who live here but a few other people live with us.The elementary school part seems to have the concentration of nice beautiful lizards! I will take a picture soon... they are great because they eat bugs!

Silliness. Not sure if I am sad that I'm not between five and twelve or there's no adult to watch me.

Here is our beautiful pool with lion cabanas. Just excellent. The pool is super comfortable and I am enjoying swimming again so much.

Jackson, here are the volleyball courts and soccer field in the back ground. So basically I just walked out of my house, turned left, walked through some housing to the main office, continued past to the elementary school and circled back past the pool and soccer field to my house. The high/middle school is what I walked around as I circled. There is no map of this place and I have figured it out fairly well but still confusing without a nice map to read! That is the news for now my friends! Much love from Africa!