Sunday 10 April 2011

A Week in the Life






Since I've been here for 3 months now and I've got something of a routine going, I thought I'd just do a nice simple week in the life of me. So we'll start at the beginning.

Monday mornings I spend helping to home school one of the children of the missionary family. This is generally fun/exhausting/intense/educational for me as well as my pupil - I recently learnt how to do long multiplication, which I think I must have learnt a few years ago but I'd totally forgotten since. Monday afternoons are filled with English Class which I blogged about a few weeks ago. Last week was Spring Break so we had a extra special class which we spend painting our nails, knitting and putting on face masks. Good times. After English is my first Albanian lesson of the week, which is usually interesting... I'm getting there slowly I think, although by "there" I mean the very basic conversation. But it's more than I had in January so it will do!


Tuesday mornings I help with the school for special needs children, which you're all familiar with. There are only two more weeks of school left so I'm not sure what I'll be doing with all my free time after April! I'm sure I'll find something. Tuesday afternoons are usually free for language study and baking or cooking for the evening. Before Bible Study we share dinner with the other internationals in town, alternating where we have dinner. If we're not hosting dinner, we're baking, or vice versa. It's good, I like honing my culinary skills and I think my team mates don't mind...


Wednesday morning I go back to my home-schooling role, usually sticking around for some lunch before coming back to the house for some more language prep before my lesson in the evening.

Thursday mornings are spent at school again, and then Thursday afternoons are free. Carol and Eileen play on the music team at church so they go in to Pristina for practise in the evening. I'll either go with them for the fun of getting out the house, or I'll stay in and occupy myself some other way. The exception to the Thursday rule is the first Thursday of the month when the female missionaries in the country get together for lunch or a trip out. Last week we visited Prizren which is a couple of hours away by car. It was a really nice day out, the weather was cracking and it was good to spend some time with other people and in a new setting. This is me standing on the wall of a Fort up a hill. It was good exercise getting up there that is for sure.


Friday is officially my day off, but since the pace of life here is pretty gentle I don't usually feel the need for an actual day off. It is nice to know I don't need to get up for anything though so I usually appreciate that bit of the day. In the afternoon, the leaders and helpers of the Kid's Club meet to prepare for the meeting the following day and I go along for the ride. It all happens in Albanian so I don't really know what's going on, but I like to go if I can to support what they're getting up to and spend some time with them all. I do still owe you a Kid's Club blog, coming soon...

Saturday is cleaning day so I do my bit of the hoovering and dusting. Fun times. Then it's Kid's Club for a couple of hours and later on in the afternoon the girls and I do Bible Study together. We finished reading Ruth a couple of weeks ago and last week we watched The Blind Side. Next on the agenda is Esther which should be interesting. I'm enjoying working out how the girls here see the world differently from me and how that impacts the way they interpret the Bible. Something surprising usually comes up!


Sunday is church, obviously, so that's a trip into Pristina for the morning. Here are Carol (clarinet) and Eileen (piano) doing their thing. We usually go out for lunch after church and today we went to a restaurant on a hillside in the beautiful sunshine and spent a few hours eating and drinking coffee. I will be completely outraged when I get home and can't get a coffee for 1 euro. Shocking.


So that brings us back to Monday and the cycle begins again. Actually things are changing a bit around here so the routine probably will be changing too. On Tuesday Carol is leaving and returning to England which will be sad for us, and I think for Carol too. But my sister Jess is coming in on the plane that Carol leaves on so we're doing a swap. I'm excited that Jess is coming, she is bringing me creme eggs! Woo!


Here are some other pictures of various weekly activities. Enjoy.

1 comment:

  1. Who are you holding?
    Are you only excited to be seeing me because of the chocolate delivery?
    Your hair looks better.
    See you tuesday!!! x

    ReplyDelete

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