Court date & school

September 10, 2009

We have a court date for our adoption of Mphatso - Monday, September 21, 2009 at 8:30 am. Yeah!!! Please pray that it goes well.


Mphatso started school last week at St. Andrews International Primary School. We decided that we needs to get her up to US school standards because someday when we move back to the US, she will need to integrate into the US school system. There are no American schools here but there are three British internationals schools in Blantyre. While the curriculum is a bit different than the US, the basics are the same. We thought it would be better for her to struggle now while she is young than when she is older and is set in her ways regarding school. She was in Standard 2 at the orphanage school but after they assessed her, we put her in Standard 1. The teacher sends home extra work for us to work with her on to help her catch up. She is improving and is smart.

She has spelling words every night and a reading book. This is the first week of spelling words and I noticed the improvement in her concentration in just a few days. She just doesn’t know how to learn yet so the process is struggle for her at times.

She *LOVES* her new school. They have swimming lessons twice a week, art class, music class, library, PE and computer class. She started telling everyone that Lake Malawi is at her school – she meant the pool. Esther teases her and asks her if she has caught any fish yet at school. Mphatso puts her head down and laughs.

The night before her first swimming class, we put on her swimsuit. She told me it was too small because she is not used to clothes fitting as tight as a swimsuit does. She didn’t want to wear it and was embarrassed because her legs were showing. She wanted to put something else on because girls here do not show their legs. I assured her that this was ok and that wearing this in the swimming pool was fine. She would put something else on as soon as she got out. I even had to have Lyson come in and explain to her that it was ok. I thought since he is Malawian, she would accept it coming from him. She did and is fine with her swim suit now. Such cultural things we don’t even realize that she will face.

Mphatso was excited after her first computer class because they have enough computers that they do not need to share. She assured me that her computer teacher told them that they were to go home and work on their mum or dad’s computer that night. Yeah, right. She loves the computer and is very good at working the mouse to play games or watch a movie. She also loves to look at pictures of people in America so if anyone has any pictures they want to email me, I’ll download them for her.

I don’t have any pictures of her in her school uniform on the camera we have with us so here are some other pictures of her. She made nsima one day by herself and shared it with her Abambo (dad). Ray was watching her make it then they ate together. We also met another family here who adopted a girl from Malawi. They came over to our house and the girls played together. They are playing bubbles in the back yard with Lukia. We also found a restaurant outside of town that had a tree house. Mphatso and Ray are braver than me. I preferred to stand on the ground and hold the camera.

There is also a picture of a galimoto (car) one of the orphanage boys made out of scrap wires, etc. The kids make items out of clay also so they were taking a picture of us with their camera while we took a picture of them with our camera. Peace fell asleep in church one Sunday so I snapped her picture with Lyson.

May God bless you.

Ray, Alice & Mphatso.

PS – Jamie, this blog’s for you because you complained that I don’t blog enough. Oh yeah, D1a is the best!