Letters from Liz: First Day

"Welcome"

The Nigerians have a way of always saying "You're Welcome" (or just shorten it to "welcome"). I still haven't quite figured out when it is appropriate to say this, but I find my self saying "thank you" when they do. From what I can gather, this phrase can be say as a way to tell people that they are accepted and welcomed(not as a response to "thank you")

So, today was my first day of classes, and yesterday was orientation for new students (only 1 of mine actually showed up).

(We all had to wear school shirts)

It was nice to get to meet my students today, but only 7 showed up. Of those seven students, one of them was not even on my list, so now I have to add his name to another desk, locker, etc. Get this though... his name is Himanshu. How cool is that?? I have so many new names to get used to(and spell phonetically so that I can remember how to say it). For example today one of my students Yuvasri came into the class, but I found out that you pronounce her name YOU-wash-ri. (both of these students are from India). Thankfully most of the rest of the kids go by shortened names such as Eni whose full name is Enioluwafe. One of my students, Favour, informed me that she in fact has ten names, and this is just the name she goes by.

To try to get to know the students, I gave them a questionnaire asking the usual first day questions, such as, "what are you excited about this upcoming year?" "Do you have any pets?" and "what's your favorite sport?"

Most of the answers are the typical kids answers, "hanging out with friends", "dog", and of course "soccer", but the one question I got many different answers for was, "what is your favorite food?"
I did get a couple of "pizzas, french fries, etc" but I also got a whole lot of other answers, such as, Jollaf Rice(several students wrote this), Indomi, and Chapatti to name a few.

I'll have to show some pictures of the before and afters of my classroom.