More African Music

Hello all of you! I hope that you enjoyed your holidays, and are now on the count-down to Easter!
I want to tell you a little bit about a wonderful concert that I went to last Friday. It was held in the Hilton hotel and was by a singer from Ivory Coast, another West African country. She sang really powerfully and also danced and also played instruments!! She was truly talented and I was spell-bound by her! I bought her CD and want to leave a copy of it in school, as it reminded me a lot of our African fortnight last year!


I am really busy preparing for the opening of my new school. Tomorrow I start to train the staff in the new curriculum, and we have two weeks of sorting out and discussions to have. We also start enrolling next week, so hopefully we will have lots of pupils to open with after Easter. All the teachers are Nigerian, except for one who is Indian. We have 9 staff who are teachers (we still need three more to look after the babies in the crèche) as well as a cook, cleaners, secretary, guards and gardeners. I am very excited, but also a little nervous, as I am really in charge now!! The school building is now being painted, and hopefully the furniture and equipment will start arriving next week, so that we can make it look more like a school for those parents wanting to look around it! I will include some photos of the staff and school next time, when I have managed to get them all together for a photo-shoot!


The weather is still very dry and dusty. We have had two sunny days over the weekend, but it has been very overcast with dust through the week. The temperature s also climbing, approaching 40 degrees C, so things are starting to get a bit uncomfortable!

Hope you are getting on well at school. I think that your website is wonderful! I have included a flier from my school which has the website on. I hope that we will get some photos of the building and the children onto it very soon.

More news next time. Hope that you find time to reply to my blog this time…I’d love to hear from you!
Take care, lots of love,
Mrs. Sanchez xxx

Money, money, money

Hello all,

I can’t believe we’re into February already! It doesn’t seem a moment since we were eating our Christmas dinner!!
Thank you Class two and Mrs Peart for your comments on the blog.It is so good to get post from Holton le Clay. I think that your web-site is brilliant! My new school has got a website, but we are still adding to it. If you are interested it is www.cradletocrayonschool.com. It sounds as if you are having great fun at school. I remember the 1960’s very well and also the man landing on the moon. It sent shivers down my spine when we saw the pictures on the TV; we just didn’t think that it was possible!! Glad you liked the photo of Mrs Cox and I…we had great fun, and the costumes kept us nice and snug!!

To answer some of your questions about Grace. She goes to school from Monday to Friday, but school starts at 8 o’clock, and finishes at 2pm. She finishes earlier on a Friday. I book some lovely books for Grace…A big collection of Mog stories, a selection of Percy the park keeper books, and a large book about different countries with a blow- up globe.

I thought that I would show you some of the money that we have in Nigeria. The currency is Naira, and there are about 250 Naira to £1. There are mainly notes, in 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 1000 (there may be more but these are all I’ve seen) There are also some coins 2naira, 1 naira and 50 kobo (there are 100 kobo to a naira) . The whole money system is very strange, as you cannot change money at the banks, and you are advised not to use your credit cards. So you carry large piles of notes around with you, which is rather unnerving, but there is no other way that you can pay for shopping or meals out. You have to make sure that you take enough money with you, as you cannot simply use your card, like we all do back home!

I thought you might like to see some of the notes. I have managed to find some new notes, as most of the money is very dirty (due to the dust and constant handling) and you always make a point of washing your hands if you’ve had to count out any money!!




The coins are quite pretty, and remind me of the £1 and £2 coin…but bear in mind that they are worth less than one penny! (Actually, you only ever see these in change at shops sometimes).The notes have interesting pictures on one side, and on the other are famous Nigerian people. The streets in Abuja are named after these people. The picture on the 1000naira note is of Zuma Rock, which is the other big rock like Aso rock that I can see from my window. It is on the other side of Abuja. Also there are pictures of the cattle, and people.

I am including some photos of my school. As you can see, it still needs a lot of repairs doing to it, and it needs painting inside and out. Then we need to put all the furniture and equipment into the rooms and make it look welcoming! I am going to teach the 4-5 year olds and I am also the head, so I will be kept very busy. I will start at 7.30am so will have to make sure I get up really early! I’ll let you know more about this as the school grows.


I hope that you all have a lovely half term holiday…the weather certainly looks quite nice for you at the moment! Don’t forget to reply to the blog if you have time…..you can maybe ask your mum or dad if they can help you at home?

Lots of love to you all,
Mrs Sanchez