The next morning, I struggled to get out of bed exhausted already from the previous two days shenanigans, but I was roused by an exciting thought: Sunday July 6th. TODAY IS THE DAY! Today is the day Rachael comes. My sweet friend who was my duplex neighbor for two years returned for a short trip to clean out her things, some to the community, the rest to pack into a moving truck to move to her family in Uganda. Ironically, I don’t think we took a single picture together, but here is me with her hot pink snuggie that she left for me when she ran out of suitcase space: honestly something I didn’t know I needed in my life, but will never henceforth live without!

Monday July 7th was our last full day of classes: REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW. So much reviewing happening for final exams. After the students left, I spent my prep time beginning to pack up my classroom for the chemistry lab remodel that is happening now. Not a single thing could be left in the drawers that line the walls of my classroom, or on the walls decorated with lab safety posters and funky science curtains between bulletin boards covered in things like “Why study Science?” facts.

That afternoon I walked out of my classroom closing the door without a thought of doing work that evening, my friend was here for a very short few days and I wanted to soak up every single second.

Tuesday July 8th was slotted for the first set of exams: Chemistry fell into this category. I proctored exams, collated exams, and began grading promptly. Rachael was preoccupied with the movers that had come to pack up the major furniture and appliances, communicating with the driver and trying to make sure all the ducks were in a row for the Kenya/Uganda boarder crossing that ended up much more complicated than she could have imagined.

Wednesday July 9th came and I pressed on, slowly grinding through my pile of grading, working tirelessly to get exams finished so I could wrap up my grades and pass exams back to students in the days that followed. I alternated that and packing, taking a lunch break off campus for a meal and sweet time Rachael and another friend who lives in North Africa. The three of us had been on staff together and now lived in three different countries. It was such a gift to get a few hours catching up and hearing of the work of the Lord in one another’s’ lives! These ladies really have been my iron that sharpen iron here on this side of the world.

Thursday July 10th my lab tech and I moved every single chemical shelf by shelf from the chemical storeroom to the physics classroom for summer storage so that the shelving could be re-done in such a way to allow safer storage of chemicals as part of the remodels happening all over the science block. We labeled, carted, labeled and carted some more.

A few hours later, I sat down to keep working on my exams, only to be interrupted with prep for our first “Junior Store” happening at the end of the week. I unlocked the area we’d been just a few days before for our class party and helped direct as condiment containers were filled, foils prepped to go around hot dogs, hamburgers and more, floors swept and tables were set up. An hour and a half later and I went home to prep for dinner guests: it was Rachael’s last night before moving to the Uganda portion of her trip to East Africa.

Friday July 11th I woke up at 4am once more, this time to hug goodbye to my friend getting picked up by a taxi. I went back to sleep on accident and overslept my alarm. I walked into class half disheveled, two minutes after the bell had run. Twenty-minute classes began, just enough time to go over exam grades and look for grading mistakes. The final bell rang, and I was needed to receive ice-cream from the delivery service:

Drive it to the store area
Unpack it and back to my classroom
Grade labs that were over 2 weeks old B
ox up more lab equipment
Make messes unpacking cabinets
Clean messes
Move them to the physics classroom to be a disaster there
Grade fire-work research papers
Grab lunch from my fridge to shovel into my face before going to manage students doing grill prep for the junior store on Saturday

Where on earth are those breadcrumbs!?!? WHO IS THAT? Alumni from past years started showing up on campus, began asking for my time,
“Let’s get coffee!”
“I have so much to tell you!”
“I’m so excited to see you, can I come over to your house?”

Where was I supposed to find margin for this unexpected development? I still needed breadcrumbs to make 250 hamburgers!!! I found some oatmeal and stood there with a student measuring 100g meat-balls for burgers for an hour, pausing to procure for knives to slice buns, interrupted once more to go to the dukas (local shops) and buy 15 onions, back forth, up, down.

I was drowning.

As my remaining junior students finished the store prep, one of the alumni came over for tea. I was happy for him to talk for 55 of the 60 minutes we were together, hearing a minute by minute playback of the last two years of his life, how he made each friend he is now close to, his part time jobs, how he ended up in each role, and how God sustained him through it all. About then I needed a little bit of that sustenance myself.

That night I collapsed on my couch, less than nothing left in the tank. A friend came over for a bit to help console me as I truly had no idea how I’d manage the next 24 hours of my life…

Come back tomorrow for installment 4: all about our junior store success!