Nigerian Culture Day!

The much anticipated Nigerian Culture Day came and went today! Everyone was right when they told us we'd be exhausted (and we cut it short, ending the day an hour earlier than usual).

This is an annual event that the school puts on to celebrate Nigeria's independence. This was the celebration of their 51st year of independence from Great Britain.  The day was filled with native tribal dancing & music, skits depicting a traditional wedding, gobs of Nigerian food to sample, a market to shop for arts & crafts, and numerous activities for the children to partake in throughout the day. The kids had a great time, although they were a bit tired from standing for so long to listen to the speakers. And it was a hot day! It was even more fun to see everyone dressed-up for the occasion. Some were dressed in traditional clothing, others - not so traditional, more fashionable. As you can see from the pics, my outfit is more traditional, Britte's is more fashion-forward:)

Our Nigerian outfits!

Wedding dance.

Traditional tribal dance.

Relay races for the high school kids.

Now, we're off to Barcelona for a few days of rest & relaxation! Adios, amigos!

Arrrrgh!

We've had no water for the past three days!

Power has gone out like 50 times in the last week.

The shelf on the inside door of our refrigerator fell off and a full bottle of Teriyaki sauce just crashed and exploded on our floor, which we can't really mop because there's no water (see beginning of post).

Have to shower at the school in the locker room.

Desperately needed laundry done for our trip to Barcelona this weekend, so had to hike it over to the school flats and impose on someone yet again.

Had to have my entire class checked for lice today - always fun!

It's been a frustrating week to say the least:(

On the plus-side though, we've found three Starbucks coffee houses within about 8 mins. of our B & B in Barcelona, so guess where our first stop will be:) Barcelona is becoming less and less an exotic local for sightseeing and culture-intake, and more a slice of normalcy that we desperately need.

Thank-God we got our passports back from the embassy in time. Unfortunately, a slew of teachers headed to Munich for Oktoberfest have not received their passports and may be stuck here for our first long weekend in two months. I'll be praying for their sanity. Maybe I'll bring them a little Starbucks back from Barcelona.:)

Friday is Nigerian Culture Day at school. Stay posted for a run-down on our first Nigerian event!

Why it's so much fun to be an adult...

This week, my kiddos took a writing assessment, similar to the MSP writing test. The prompts are not a secret, so it's ok if I share it and the student responses with you.

My third graders were asked to write a persuasive essay on the following prompt: Which is more fun - to be an adult or a child? I read through my students' work and jotted down a few of my favorite lines. I was surprised by their answers and that so many of them chose being an adult as more fun. Here's what they had to say:

It's more fun to be an adult because...
1.  They get to have a beard and shave!
2. They don't ever get bossed around!
3. They can go to Lady Gaga concerts.
4. You can be a rockstar!
5. You're never too short to ride on a roller coaster!


On the flip side, I had one extremely funny comment about why it's so much more fun to be a child...

"You don't have to get married and kiss and all that yucky stuff! Uggh!"

Oh, how I wished I still thought like these kids!

Invasion of the Ants!

Sorry, everyone. I know it's been awhile since I've posted much, so I'm catching up on what you've all missed over the past two weeks tonight.

Two weeks ago, we had torrential downpours for almost 2 straight days. The ants apparently thought God was flooding the earth once again, and sought higher ground, IN OUR KITCHEN!

After walking into the kitchen one afternoon, I found hundreds of ants swarming all over the floor. We couldn't figure out where they were coming from. They were tiny (like sugar ants) and there was nothing left out to attract them, so we didn't know what to do. Eventually, we put on our shoes and did a little stomping dance on the ants to kill them all, but they kept coming....so we found on-line that we should "sprinkle" Comet on the areas that they were in. We liberally sprinkled the Comet throughout the kitchen, and it helped to some extent, but not completely. The next day, we made a trip to the store and purchased some Raid, which seemed to do the trick...Until the next day when we got home from school and now the ants had migrated to even higher ground and were now coming in through the windows and climbing all over our counters, in the sink, and pantry. Ugh! We sprayed a lot more raid, and now they seem to be gone. Phew!

Pizza anyone?

This morning before leaving for work, I had Britte' write a quick note to our cook to make us a veggie pizza for dinner tonight. Just got home, found the pizza in the microwave, and this is what we found....

Yep, that's peas & carrot pizza -mmmmmm:)

Note to self: Specify the type of veggies you want on your pizza when in Nigeria.

Woohoo....it's Saturday!

So, we just got up a little while ago (actually Britte' got up sometime around 6am this morning - I may need to start warming up a bottle of milk for her and sending her to bed again:). It's a glorious Saturday morning and we are reveling in a hot cup of coffee and sitting on our computers while the power's on and the internet is working!

It's been a busy week! Of course being the somewhat OCD people that we are, we have both volunteered to be the team leaders of our grade levels, so we have a meeting every other Monday after school. Tuesday was Back to School Night ,  Collaboration meeting on Wednesday, Thursday night I cooked a darn good lasagna (which takes awhile), and last night we just sat in front of our laptop and watched a new Jane Eyre movie (with subtitles in English b/c the sound on these bootlegged movies isn't great). We're getting ready to go out on a walk this morning to explore the grounds of our apartment complex, and then we'll be back to check out a tailor who may make us our Nigerian Culture Day outfits! Don't worry - there will be pics!

Just got back from our walk and now we're ready to go to the pool over at the school. What a glorious day! It's hot, really hot. Britte's got her bikini, and I've got my SPF 50, so I think we're set!