Our building

Our building
Originally uploaded by ASIA TRACKS

Hello all,
Well, it is hard to believe it has been two weeks since Dave wrote about the soil preparation and hole digging. A group has left to go pick-up the coffee seedlings. This is about an 18 hours drive which will take two days to complete. Since we have a huge variety of road types here this will not be an 18hr ride as you would think of it. They will travel on normal 2 or 4 lane paved (concrete) roads, 1 lane gravel or cobblestone roads used as a 2 land raod, and the hard packed clay type which is usually only 1 car wide. Rainy season has not officially started but we have had some real gully washers recently. Remember them as they are on this probably 8-10 day trip.

I will take this time to write a bit about what I have been doing here. As you know I was asked to help some families with the home schooling of their children. I started with 4 students - 14, 12, 9, and 7 but since March I have only done work with the 10 year old and his 5 (almost 6) year old brother. The others have gone to the US to visit friends and family. I do math with the younger for 30 minutes at 0800 M-Th he then goes to kindergarten. The 10 year old comes at 0830 M-Th and we study typing, handwriting, spelling, English, and math. We are finished by noon. Since math is one of my 'things' I have really pushed this subject. Kids now days use calculators and don't know how to +, -, x, or /. I have enjoyed the time thus far and we have had some huge accomplishments. The English we use is called Shurley and it is very good. When I went to school we diagrammed sentences. You don't do the old fashioned way in this course but he does mark all parts of speech in some fairly long sentences. I have had to hone up on my grammar rules but we have had a great time. One of the projects in this curriculum for this year was to learn the 50 states, their abbreviations and the capitols. We were to learn also the date of admission to the union but we opted to learn this part next year. He can now successfully locate and abbreviate all 50 states and tell me the capitol. How many of you adults are able to do that???? I have included a view of the 'desk' he works at for most of his studies. We do not meet in my home nor his. We have a separate apartment to do school in. I have thoroughly enjoyed