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!