The Mery Family Adventures: LIS Tour, Kero shopping and pictures!

Owen and I checked the Luanda International School yesterday and got him registered. Nathan stayed home with Riley and Nazi (Na-ZEE), our maid. Yep, we have a maid. She comes twice a week and doesn't speak a lick of English. It's been tricky communicating with her since I don't speak a lick of Portuguese. I am not allowed to drive (nor do I want to try here!), so our driver Aires picked us up. He hadn't been to LIS before so we ended up passing the street and making a loop to get there. There are so many one way streets that you never go the same route anywhere.
LIS looks amazing! We've heard so many people tell us they wished they could take the school with them when there were transferred. I can see why after seeing the school. The different grades are divided into building pods. The courtyard areas are filled with jungle gyms, basketball nets, and tons of other activities. The areas have huge canopies providing tons of shade. Backpacks are all hung outside on hooks. Very where you walk on campus is covered in shade from all the trees. There is a huge basketball court, futbol field and swimming pool. The kids all have assigned swim days. Super fun!
All the teachers live on the campus. The teachers' grounds separate the older levels from the preprimary kids, 3-4 year olds. Their area has a special entrance. They have beautiful gardens providing a great space for the kids to do outside exploring. They have lots of bikes and trikes, jungle gym equipment, a rope climbing wall (not very high), and loads more outside activities. Inside is just as great. There are 3 classrooms with reading nooks, music areas, blocks, Legos, a great corner learning about jungle animals and building a tree on a post, and all sorts of other fun. "All the messy activities" as the teacher said are in the shared area. Painting, play dough and clay, water table, dirt table, etc. Needless to say Owen threw a bit of a fit when it was time to leave! I was able to bribe him with chocolate teddy bears.
Here are the pictures I was able to take. I couldn't take any of the students, so I didn't get a bunch. But these give you a good idea.

The top 2 pictures of the bug jungle gyms are in the primary 1-3 areas. Bottom pictures are in the 4-year old class rooms.

This collage is all in the 4-year old class rooms. See Owen checking out the blocks and toys?
This palm-looking plant is incredibly massive! It's on the grounds of LIS. The street lamp gives you scale. Nuts huh?

After the school tour we headed to Kero, one of the large supermarkets. (Note: Nathan had to go to Casa dos Frescos, another market by our house, when I got home. Completely typical not to be able to get all our groceries at one place.) I snapped pictures while we were driving. You quickly drive from a nice clean area to trash and shanty looking huts and fields full of trash. The terrain is very hilly and a lot of the coast line had cliffs. The country is really beautiful. But you are constantly reminded of the devastation caused from the civil war.