Nicole Keen, a May 2007 CU grad and former CW Program Staffer, is spending the better part of the academic year serving as a missionary in Africa.  Following is her latest entry from Swaziland, where she will be serving through the spring.  Please keep Nicole and others serving in Africa in your prayers...along with the people of that beautiful yet so often broken land.  CLG

Hey everyone!

Well another week has gone by, and I have survived being a teacher!  It is still hard getting up before the sun is up, but it is worth it.  We leave the house around 7 and were able to come home earlier this week because school was getting out around 1:00 for sports and running.  Most of the time the kids are still pretty bad, but I like them and we have some fun in class.  I played hangman with a couple of classes and they loved it. We are also learning the period (they call it a fullstop), the question mark, the comma, and capitalization.  Sometimes it gets frustrating to start with the basics, but most of the kids do not know it.  It is also hard because the kids are at many different levels within one class.

This week I found the list of repeaters, promoted, and passed kids in my class.  Repeaters are those who did not pass at least 4 subjects, promoted are those kids who passed 4 subjects but failed English, and passed are the kids who passed all 5 subjects. So you can imagine what I have to work with!

This week has been fairly uneventful, I am starting to tutor at the library on Tuesday afternoons for an hour.  I still walk the little girls to and from school each day, along with about 15 other kids!  One day I got done with classes early and so Allison and I went to play games with the kids at the care center and they loved it.  We played an interesting version of Duck, Duck, Goose and had relay races.

We had a fun night for Valentine's Day this week- most of the people on the team made Valentines for each other.  For dinner we had spaghetti, garlic bread, and salad.  Our leader Cassie had made us goody bags with American chocolate and treats in them, and all of the girls got V-day socks!  One girl on our team got us necklaces from the Market where she is hanging out.  They had also made a heart-shaped cake for dessert with pink icing.  It was a great way to spend Valentine's since none of us were at home!

Throughout the week I have been telling my classes that our team would come hang out with them on Saturday, and they were so excited!  Allison told her classes, and so on Saturday our whole team came to play soccer and other games with the kids.  There were so many there! The boys played soccer, and the girls played netball.  We played tag and Sharks/Minnows with the younger boys and girls.  We also taught some of the littler boys how to play volleyball, since they were too small to try and play soccer with the older boys.  It was really fun, and the kids loved having us there.  They do not get much attention, so being able to spend more time with them outside of class was really neat.

I have also become pretty good friends with the secretary at the school named Busi.  She wants me to help her exercise to lose the fat she says is on her stomach haha.  I go in the office and talk to her frequently throughout the day because I am not always in class teaching.

On Monday we have to go to South Africa to get our visas renewed, so we are going to hang out at a mall in Nelsprit.  It is supposed to be really nice with a movie theater, so I think I am going to relax and watch a movie there for the day.

I hope everything is going well in the States, can't wait to hear from you!

Nicole

PS…I found out my Praxis scores (the test you take to become a teacher) and I passed with flying colors! Dad called me to tell me my scores yesterday.