Ronnie, Our Pet Rooster

This week we have continued with work from previous weeks. The students seem to understand me better, especially the grade 5 class. This week I also went to teach a grade two class because the teacher requested it, so she was there to translate for me. I taught them “The Itsy, Bitsy Spider” in English and they caught on quite quickly. I was going to teach them “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” but they already knew it. We sang it a few times, faster each time and they loved it. Frank’s been working on more computer training during the week, showing the staff here how to input information into excel so that it can be sorted, which will save them so much time each year. He also supervised children who were writing letters to their sponsors and went on some home visits, photographed some children for annual update letters to the sponsors. On Monday, he also participated in athletics class, where they were training for the district track meet. We were not sure if they were supporting him or not, because when he would run past the all 600 children would scream “Muzungu!” while laughing. He ran with the older boys (12-17yrs), but did not do that well. He could only complete 3 of the 4 laps because he was trying to keep the fast pace the boys were keeping, and he didn’t want to be last because the last place person each lap would be beaten with a stick by the athletics teacher. He also made excuses that because we had hiked for about 15kms the weekend before his legs were sore, but I was proud of him for trying! He also spent the lunch hours each day playing football (soccer) with the older children.

On Thursday we were invited to a woman’s home in Bufukhula. An FH volunteer named Apollo took us to her house, as she can’t speak much English so he had to translate. She made us matooke (mashed bananas) and chicken. It was so nice. After our visit she presented us with a live chicken. We had to ride home with it strapped on the back of the motorbike and every time Frank would hit a big bump it would squack. We left it out in the shed for the night and then the next morning Frank took it out because he felt sorry for it. He tied a rope to one of its legs so that it could walk around, but the rope was too stretchy and it managed to escape. So, next Frank duct taped it to some banana leaves which he tied the rope around. We had originally named it Harriet the hen, but someone told us it’s a rooster so we had to rename him Ronnie the rooster. Frank loves his pet very much and gave it some oats to eat today. We’ll see how much he loves it tomorrow when it wakes us up at dawn!

Yesterday, I went to get my braids taken out. It took 2 ½ hours for them to do it, with 2 people working on it. My hair felt like a big cotton ball and was so frizzy. I also lost a lot of hair, I don’t have much left L It just kept coming out in clumps; but I’m happy that it went straight again after the first wash. Let’s hope that I don’t lose anymore!

Creature of the week: a big frog in the bathroom, that jumped up on Franks leg when he was about to get in the shower, and scared the “ba-jeesers” out of him (Frank’s term, not mine).

Prayer requests:
That Amber’s cold would get better
That children would be motivated to come to school and learn.


We are thankful for:
Continued safety when traveling on our motorbike.
The staff that we’re working with.
Friendship with the American students who are visiting.