A New Year and happy Valentines day!

Oh dear - Our blog posts are about as sporadic as our internet at the moment! Beginning of Feb Lucy and Albert have a 'study week' this week so that means no afternoon activities and study time instead. Next week is exam week for them. They are doing well and love it here - The sports activities are so good. The weather is sunny for most of the time and even when it rains it is still warm so sports just continue. We went to another school at the weekend for an inter-school competition. They played Hockey, Cricket, Netball, Football, Water Polo and did a cross country race. Lucy came 3rd out of our girls and Albert 7th. We only won one hockey match but the the other school were really good and a boarding school so they practise every weekend. Malcolm was the only one who was miffed about the scores. The kids just enjoyed playing. Our church leader came out 2 weeks ago. We have a team arriving today, another lady arriving a week later on the Monday, Em's Mum and Auntie Lynnie arriving on the Friday and Em's Dad a week later- so Beyond Ourselves has been very busy with work and teams coming out. Em has been observing lessons, modelling lessons, doing some teacher training and (most fun of all) helping to decorate the classrooms with display boards, posters and the inflatable globes that Malc's mum brought out. (Photos will follow) We took out Grade 7 pupils for a day trip out and did some leadership training and team building games with them. We showed them how to teach the younger children games in the playground so the teachers get a break at break and the children learn some valuable leadership skills. One senior teacher even insisted on cooking Em a fried egg sandwich with a cup of tea the other day - all pretty much on what we would probably call a BBQ (Brazier) Emily Some teachers are insisting that I learn Bemba (the local language) and they managed to teach me how to say "I love you very much". I said that will be helpful tonight with my husband but doesn't do much for my teaching! Next week I'm learning how to say "Be quiet and sit down'. Malcolm I am in the middle of making up my grade 5 exams for my class - then I will be spending most of next week marking them, and then I'm writing reports so not that exciting. Today I took the children swimming while Em went for a 'Galentines Brunch' with the girls. Malcolm is also the director of the Upper primary school play, 'Yee-Ha'. Lucy has a speaking part and has been practising it and all the songs without fail every minute of the day! Albert is loving long division and generally anything Maths related at school. He also keeps showing off his newly learnt 'cursive' handwriting - which is actually quite impressive. They are both currently playing with the latest addition to our family - A black and white kitten we have named 'Mischief' which fits her very nicely. Cute when she trying to catch a bit of ribbon not so cute when she is pooing in the corner of our bathroom!