So I've been an inhabitant of England for long enough now that an entire month has managed to sneak away, and I'm sure its siblings will not be long kept from following the leader. I'm not sure if I thought ahead enough about this adventure to have specific expectations about how things would be going by this time. Even so, I think it is safe to say that I am pretty happy with how things are. I'm starting to feel solidly settled in. I realize that I haven't yet told you what I do here, so here's a stab at it:
On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, I wake up in time to have a cup of tea and a bowl of muesli, put on teacher clothes and walk through the expansive cemetery to the primary school on the other side, Lidget Green Primary School. I try to get there for at least half of Breakfast Club--during which I walk around for a while and listen to whatever the little 'uns wish to tell me and then I sit myself down with the group of girls who choose to spend their time drawing and draw whatever they ask for and chat with them about their pictures and whatever else they want to talk about. We usually swap pictures at the end of the hour. Then I make my way into one of the two year 5 classrooms (American 4th grade), both, oddly enough, are run by teachers named Vicky. I spend the day switching between these two classes, working with small groups--teaching kids how to tell time and about story structure, and answering random questions like how i got to have such a good American accent and how one spells pilgrimage. I'm beginning to know some of the teachers, and have people to chat with during the mid morning coffee break and lunchtime. I also do a lot of laminating and copying etc. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Matt and I work at and after school club. Quite a few kids at the club go to Lidget Green and also live in our neighborhood. One of the nicest things is seeing the kids around and how happy they are to see us. By the way, one of my favorite little girls--Kirsty, who is in my class and goes to the after school club and lives in the neighborhood, is going in for heart surgery on Monday. She's such a sweet little girl and quite well liked. That's going to be on my mind and in my prayers for the next while. This last week, on Thursday as well, during the morning, I helped out with an African Womens/Asylum Seekers circle. That seems like a really neat thing to be involved with. Many of them are stuck home a lot and don't have many venues to be social, many of them really value the time to come and visit with each other. They are also learning some skills. This last week, we did a bit of baking--many of them come from places where ovens are not particularly used. I had a good time hanging out with them--some of them are not really English speakers, but French speakers--so it was fun to put that to use again. I have enough for basic conversations, at least enough to be welcoming and friendly. I did spend quite a bit of that time being a babysitter --I understand that it is important for them to have time away from their kids, but wow--my life seems to have been completely flooded with small children of late! Oh, also on Tuesdays, I've started going to "Just Church" which is a group that meets close the University and is mainly comprised of students doing their Masters in Peace Studies. They are very involved with social and environmental issues around Bradford and beyond...quite a good group to be involved with. They feel like Little Goshen. Friday and Saturday are not rigidly scheduled, but tend to get filled up somehow. Sunday, Matt and I either wander up to St. Wilfred's Anglican church or over to Great Horton Methodist for the service and generally wind up with a lunch invite. Sunday evenings then we meet with the Methodist youth group and generally go around to the leader's house for a light supper of tea, biscuits and cheese. On Mondays, I practice with a women's singing group from the Methodist Church in the evenings. Add in a few dinner invitations, lots of rambling walks around the city or the countryside, a bit of cooking, a lot of reading, and the random excursion to somewhere cool--like Leeds or Saltaire and you'd have quite a good idea of my life here. And now for the pictures.
View of a highly typical Bradford Street from the window of the second level of a city bus.
View of a highly typical Bradford Street from the window of the second level of a city bus.
display of old buses in the town center
On a trip to Saltaire, as soon as we got off the train, we followed the flow of people and the sound of bells (attached to shoes) to the canal where there was a group of Morris Dancers--the Rainbow troop, putting on a performance. Jolly good.
I wandered up the hill via foot paths through residential areas and pasture to the Moor above the town--saw some delightfully pastoral scenes.
Picturesque English Countryside. Hello Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters.
a public foot path--these are the coolest things--they run between houses and through fields. what beautiful respect for the walker!
One lone sheep and the lay of the land.
so nice 
