Mim In Mali: SPRING CLEANING!! (sort of ; >)

I did some spring cleaning today- well, sort of.
This week the boys are unexpectedly home from school several days--something about the final exams. If I have it right, the 9th graders are taking exams, and to prevent cheating opportunities, they cannot have them sitting 2 and 3 to a bench like they usually are in the classroom. So all the other classes have no school and their rooms are used to spread out the test-takers. Makes sense!

Most of our boys are in the first 3 grades, even tho they are older than you might think of when you say 1st grade. Most did not have opportunity to attend school as young children, and some are struggling to learn now. We will need to see what ways we can come up with to continue their education over the summer so that they do not regress. Maybe those of you at home who are teachers can help us with some ideas. We do have a couple of boys who are in grades 4 & 5 but none above grade 5.

Before heading to the States on her trip, Claudia had asked Ray to see about putting a back on the open shelf that is home to their books and papers in the family room. The shelf was full: books, loose papers, empty book covers and parts of books all stacked haphazardly on its 3 open shelves. Some had slid off to the back of the shelves and were laying under the desk, others tottered precariously close to the front edge, waiting their chance to slide down and join their friends on the floor. All was covered with the fine, rust-red dust that covers everything here, thick enough to make mud pies out of the bottom of my cleaning bucket when I was done. Imagine, if you will, an old bookcase that is out in the back shed, or in a corner of the barn loft, and has not been dusted for several years. Add to that the fact that these are books that are shared with a dozen children, and they do not have my concept of careful care of all things literary.
I decided that a cleanup party was in order while I watched over their "Marinade" time for Christian, who wasn't feeling well. I began sorting, stacking by types: full (seeminglycomplete) books, empty book covers, book parts and what looked like salvagable pages. Coloring and workbook types, all well used, I thought, went in a separate pile, and the torn pieces that seemed to me to be beyond salvaging I put in the small trashcan on the other side of the desk.
Since my children regularly accuse me of keeping things that are not worth keeping, and being hopelessly conservative when it comes to saving anything that looks even remotely like a book, imagine my suprise to be confronted later in the afternoon by a serious 7-year-old, who came to me, holding the offfending trashcan. It is Bakary's job to clean the living room this week and in the process of carrying out his duty, he saw the papers there. With an expression of gentle reproof on his face, he proceeded to sort thru the discarded paper, removing about 2/3 of the pages that I had thrown away, shaking his head and saying "No, Mimi,.. no, Mimi...no, Mimi" as he rescued each one. These he placed back on the table to be returned with the sorted books to the shelf.
What a lesson in perspective that was for me! I DO remember thinking that the stack of books that I had sorted and put back together looked woefully smaller than the jumbled stash had looked before I started. What looked like an abundance when disordered and piled up in dusty disarray, shrank when stacked in neat piles, and I thought about the multitude of bookshelves that my own children and grandchildren enjoy.
We will work to put the broken books back together (using some more of the duct tape that Ginn and Garrick gave Ray for a Christmas gift-- what a treasure trove that has turned out to be. Ray has already used up the blak tape, rebuilding 5 Bible covers that were falling apart with wear.)
I can also solicit help from some of you to send me books (preferably French, or maybe even Bambara) to help fill the shelves as we go along. (Ain't Amazon wonderful!?!?)
That got me in the clean-house-mood, and I began to think about finishing the job of cobweb sweeping that Julie and I had started in the big room earlier. Not knowing if it would last more than a few days given the climate and dust storms we have seen, I still determined to try, and have been pleased with the results thus far. The children may not notice, but I do!! So I have stretched to wipe cobwebby ceilings in the boys familyroom and bedrooms, and will wipe down some walls while they are at school again. Big improvement!

(For you to be able to grasp the problem of the dust here, I think I have an illustration for you. Are you familiar with powdered tempura paint? Picture a handful of rusty, red colored tempura powder being thrown in your front door, and each window, with a strong fan blowing behind it. Then repeat that experiment at least daily! That is partly why there is dust on books and shelves, ...... and canned goods..... and storage containers....and EVERYTHING! Add a plethora of granddaddy long leg spiders who weave their gossamer webs across 10' tall ceilings and you'll begin to get the picture.)