First days of school

This will be our first blog post! We'll see how it goes...

Wednesday May 2nd was first day of school! The girls were incredibly proud with new, fancy school uniforms - pink and white with black leather shoes. Maria has deposited money for the first term via Western Union, but wasn't allowed to send more than NOK 4 000 (GBP 360 / USD 740). Which means there's NOK 2000 still lacking and the school won't let the girls live in or eat there before the whole sum has been paid. So Wednesday, Thursday and Friday they were in school till four, and then came back home to eat. Maria has sent the rest of the money to my account, and today (Monday May 7th) Douglas is in Dar es Salaam (the capital) to withdraw the money. Then we have to go the bank here in Bagamoyo to deposit the fee to the school's account. The receipt will be brought to school.

There's a long list of stuff the girls need and we had to go shopping for; pens and pencils, shoe polish, soap, tooth brushes, tooth paste, socks, underwear, waist-slips, rucksacks, gym socks etc. We also had to buy large metallic chests with padlocks, to keep the girls' belongings in school from being stolen. Douglas got hold of these containers in Dar on Friday. Barnabas (Douglas' little brother and big brother to the girls) went shopping with the girls on the 'top pop' market (the local Monday market) and found most of what they needed. When we went through the list, we saw they hadn't bought any underwear - they didn't dare tell Barnabas that! Things are a little different here from Norway; the girls had to go with me, another girl, to buy underwear... Thursdays are gym day and for that they're wearing green T-shirts, dark blue skirts and trainers. Can you imagine doing exercise in a skirt? Ugh... All the girls needs compression shorts underneath...

The weekend was taken up by homework. Anjera borrowed the books from a school friend and has taken copy of 20 pages in English! In this country pupils haven't got school books, only exercise books. The teacher writes on the board, and the pupils copy. Then they must try and remember what was said, and understand what they have written... Anjera's 20 pages were about the union between Tanzania and Zanzibar and she understood it quite well, even though she only just started learning English. She picks up easily and thinks homework is fun.

Melida is a typical teenager, alright! Giggles and laughs all the time and frequently cracks up completely. She's sometimes little and sometimes a big girl, and is too restless to sit still too long. She's been working on maths over the weekend.

Meresiana is the youngest. She's both shy and tough at the same time. Last night she learnt how to spell her name. The 's' and the 'd' was hard, and tended to be written the wrong way round. But after 20 tries she was doing pretty well...

Other news - we've finally got power in our house, and Saturday we had a crash course in how to use an electric cooker. Hihihi - I sat there laughing; it was sooo comical with all three standing around Douglas, completely absorbed in this weird and rather scary machine! But it was very important with a quick introduction, so noone hurts themselves or sets the house on fire... Last night we watched 'Beauty and the Beast' on film on our laptop - the very first film the girls had ever seen! So nice.

Well, better get back to work, and I promise to write as often as possible.

(Written by Kristin)