5:00am wake up
5:40 walk to church with the sisters and aspirants (the sun is just now about starting to rise)
6:00am Mass
6:45am walk back to the school (usually by this time the streets are bustling with motorcycles, wheelbarrows, chickens, dogs, goats, and kids going to school)
7:00 am breakfast (usually consists of banana- regular or boiled or sometimes both, bread or spaghetti or corn mush- sometimes with spam ; for feast days we have scrambled eggs .. oh and of course a cup of coffee)
7:20am wash dishes- by hand of course
7:30am Sr. Gracitane rings the school bell (it’s a hand bell)
One of the Sisters gives the word of the day which could range from being a light of Christ to washing your hands
8:00am classes begin
(I sit in the main office while a student from each class comes to ask for 2 pieces of chalk. They now have to ask in English)
9:00am- 10:00 gym class (every class has gym for 30 minutes once a week except 7th grade which I get to teach by myself for an hour on Friday )
10:45am I sort out the jumpropes (they use actually rope) and the balls for recreation
10:45-11:00am- it’s playtime! Recently the 3rd graders have been asking to play Simon says! I love when I have the chance to play basketball
11:00 am – Sr. Gracitane rings the bell- time to line up! I help line up the kindergardners. Sometimes it feels like a mosh pit.
12:00- lunch (it varies but a typical meal is boiled banana, rice, beans, spinach, goat, and for dessert sugar cane. This c On very very special occasions there is goat head. There’s always a fight over who gets to eat the eyes. Unfortunately, I can’t describe what it taste likes because I’ve been too chicken to try it)
1:00-2:00 English class- every day I have two classes.
2:00 Sr. Gracitane rings the bell and it’s time to line up to go home
3-5- I usually meet with someone for english or creole class
6:30 prayer time
7:30 dinner (rice, spaghetti, or fried banana and okra. There is always banana porridge)
9-9:30 bed time
You might wonder what I do in my free hours. Sr. Gracitane or Sr Danielle will typically give me a project or administrative work to do. For example, the Sisters wanted me to make some posters with pictures of the students except I couldn’t use any tape or glue. It was worth it in the end to see how excited the kids were when they saw the posters.
PS Ti-blan is the name some of the kindergartners call me or mwen ti-blan, meaning my little whitie. It’s a privelage to be someone’s blan than just to be a blan. Lokensy, a little five year old girl, came up to me during recreation and said ” Mwen ti-blan manje” (my little whitie eat) while holding up her crackers to my mouth.
A Little Seed Makes a Big Tree 