giving time!

Today it was my turn to send a package!!  I'm trying to condense everything I have and the stuff I have accumulated over the past 27 months and it's not all going to fit so I will be shipping some home.  Today I used the one of the boxes my mom sent with a Bible verse on it; I didn't know way back when how important all the boxes people have sent me would be!  I remember this package because it said "God is love" on the side of it and when I went to open it in the post office the lady asked me what it meant.  After I explained she asked "is that "good?"  I used the side of the box to write the word "good" under the word "God" so she could see how similar the 2 words are.  When I went in this morning she was telling the other lady "she had so many packages at Christmas!"  I may have to send some more, I'll just have to wait and see. Last summer I made some rainsticks with some of my students for a legacy project by the B26s with toilet paper rolls, nails, duct tape, and beans or watermelon seeds or popcorn seeds, or rice; small stuff like that.  I was down talking one night to my neighbors and told them what I was doing and Ivan gave me maybe about a foot long hollow cylinder and said "here, try using this!"  Well I had the PC in my head then and, remembering sustainability and "...teach a man to fish..." that has been drilled into our brains (and rightly so) made a mental note to save that project and do it WITH Ivan.  Flash forward to yesterday at about 11am.  I came back from taking some stuff to the Kindergarten with Neriman and her sister and saw Maria and Ivan sitting at their little table they have outside of their apartment building and thought "aha!"   I asked them if they were going to be there for awhile and when they said yes headed to my apartment for the nails, beans, the cylinder he had given me last summer, and a hammer (with toilet paper rolls I can push the nails in but the cylinder was a tad harder!).  I walked up to the table and started unloading my stuff and said "remember this from last summer?  We're going to make a rainstick!"  I had started another one in my apartment and just not finished so took that one down to work on as well.  After we were done I gave them all the nails I had purchased (you have to have different sizes so they sound different) and the beans we didn't use along with an exacto knife that has come in handy the past 2 years that is not coming to the states with me.  Yesterday Neriman and I gave the pre-school room in the Kindergarten the 3 puzzles that mom (I think) sent me, the BINGO game (complete with 16+ laminated boards) I made to use in the pre-school room (that they didn't get exactly but hey, English letters are English letters!), a set of 100 English laminated (I so loved that thing!) flashcards that the English students made complete with both the British and American English words and a pictures of an item, the Tiger mask and tail mom and Ron brought me 2 Octobers ago for Halloween (it had a bowtie but it got lost somewhere), and some colored cardstock/construction paper I didn't end up using.  The flashcards were something and I so hope they get used; the students had so much fun making them!  We ended up making 5.  2 sets of 100 (give or take) of the same laminated cards with both the American and British English words on one side and a picture of the item on the other went to the library here, 2 sets went to the 2 schools here, and the other went to the Kindrgarten.  Then, because the students had so much fun cuting out pictures and showing off their English knowledge, there were 2 random sets with about different 80 words (each set give or take)with both the picture and British/American English words that also went to the library here.  I also intend to take some of the books you sent me to the library.  now I just have to make an announcement saying that they are there!!  that's for today or next week!  other than that i'm stuffing things in plastic bags and in general de-cluttering my apartment!!  Love and hugs from me!!