8 months, for super serial?

Shnazerfrazzle!

How am I supposed to keep up with all this? I have 15 topic points and I can’t even remember what one of them was about. I think it was when I had to plug my hard drive into African computers to print something and it came back with literally hundreds of copies of a virus. SO glad sean taught me about Microsoft Security Essentials.

I tried to write an entire post full with legit Africa observations (culture and daily life and things) and it turned out to be Way more of a rant than I intended, so I’m gonna try and clean it up a bit before I send it out.

Until then, you still get to hear about what’s going on to/around me.
The last weekend of April was a little crazy. 4 people went home including one of my roommates from training. The weather mourned their loss too as it Poured all week. We made luau-flavored kabobs and fun-fetti pancakes that weekend (check out the pictures on facebook). It was pretty classy. Made for a great May Day.

Despite my calorie gorging weekends, I have managed to drop down to a size 8 in my jeans. To make sure this was more muscle building than just slow starvation; I copied some P90x files from my friend and added abb work-outs to my morning schedule.
Yes, I know. Shush you. I am not on a perfectly consistent routine yet, but I’ve worked out 2 weeks of the last 3 and I fully intend to make this a permanent pattern.

My parents called the other day and asked about my ‘community’ English classes, and what was ‘keeping me’ from getting those going. My completely honest (and reasonable) answer was that I was too lazy and selfish. If I forced myself out of my comfort zone and gave up more of my weekends, I could probably set up a time for public classes and they would soon quickly be over-run by varying levels of adults who mostly don’t really need to learn the language since it’s not like they’re helping their children with their homework anything.
I have always worked better on a small scale – tutoring v teaching, organizing v cleaning, few friends v large parties. I figure my ‘community’ is my host family. After that large shipment of books, I spotted one that I had loved as a child and grabbed it to take home and use in my nightly English lessons with Bosco. 3 pages into “Sylvester and the Magic Pebble”, I knew it was the right idea. The flow of a language is much different in a textbook for ESL than what natural speakers would read, and honestly, much more enjoyable. Bosco loved the new vocabulary he could pick up, especially when I pointed out that often writers will repeat ideas in a sentence, or he could use the pictures to help him remember certain words. He also loved that All the characters were animals. He thought it was hilarious that the neighbors were chickens and the police were pigs. My favorite part was his automatic ‘critical thinking’ jumps. He made inferences, predictions, made the story personal (what would you wish for if you could have anything?), and was Really excited to see how everything was going to play out in the end. That my friends is when the joy of teaching really hits you.
In return, I was so happy I started singing more. The babies have colds because of the changing seasons - turns out, the “dry season” really means “cold season”, we’re all very chilly and wearing lots of layers. Anyway, they both climbed into my lap one night and I sang them to sleep – every soft sweet song I could think of. Best night in Africa.

Side-bar – CONGRATULATIONS!!! To Andy, Casey Megan, Kelsey, Elise, Matt, and all the other high school and college graduates. Also to PCV-RW/H2! All those letters mean the new class of health volunteers is officially sworn in and at site. We got 2 on the north with us, one living with Jen and one in the main town where we have our post box, cyber café, etc. American day that weekend was a blast – total of 6 girls on moto parade out to Scott’s for – check it – Mexican seasoned food (burritos). Avery and Devin fit in rather well and we’re excited to have our crew growing.

However, first day Michele and I went to visit Avery’s house, I lost my phone. That is, one minute I had it and the next it was gone. It’s very possible it was stolen, but I don’t really even remember where I had put it – pocket, bag, hand only? Who knows, but my number is now different and has been changed on facebook. If you have the inclination to call me and need my number, email me and I’ll get it to you.

Work:
I am officially working in all 4 secondary classes. My S1s are incredibly eager and willing to try and make mistakes. My S2s vary between stubborn and sullen. One class can be coaxed to participate sometimes, but other times they seem a little lost. My other S2 class is like teaching in opposite world. Quite a few of them are Really smart, so I know it’s not because they don’t understand what the program. But if I say ‘don’t talk’, they either read on top of each other or confer with their friends (standard, I know, but when combined with the rest of my list here…); if I say ‘discuss this question with your desk partner’, they stare mutely at the desk; if I say ‘read and discuss’, they copy everything into their notebooks; if I say ‘take notes’, they blink a lot. I can’t even get them to answer if they understand me or not. Last week, I was inclined to say “you’re killing me Smalls!” every minute or so, but I felt it would be tragically underappreciated. (to those of you who are a little lost right now, find someone between the ages of 23 and 33 and ask them about a baseball movie called “The Sandlot”.)
My co-English teachers are actually doing really well keeping up with our syllabus and taking time to plan lessons with me. The other secondary teachers are warming up more to asking me to help explain / translate things.
I have made an official schedule of when I will be at school so the teachers can find me for language questions etc. We’ve also started language classes for the teachers. We start with a short focus on phonetics and pronunciation, and then I walk through some vocabulary. The questions they come up with stemming from even simple topics like ‘family terms’ can leave me a little confused sometimes, but it’s nice that they’re really interested in learning. I’m working up to including current event articles and pushing for more language produced by the teachers than by me.

Bits and pieces:
I finally gired someone to help me with my laundry. Washing everything by hand is just becoming overwhelming and I do Not have the self motivation to do it. Most stuff isn’t too bad, but when you add in the jeans, sheets, and towels, it wears you out! And I’m getting scars on my knuckles… so she comes over once a week and washes my over-wear and sweeps up the paths and the yard. She’s very good at what she does, and she’s working to support her 3 kids as she is a widow.

I’m still working on keeping my budget and came very close to empty this quarter in my bank account. But I could NOT resist the Batman: Dark Knight UNO deck. #1 – it’s UNO. #2 – it’s Batman UNO. I’m very excited to incorporate UNO tournaments over our American weekends. =D

Picked up another package from the CA Fam a few weeks ago – awesome drink mixes and pics of my beautiful cousin. Thanks again guys!


Books:
Ok, last section. There is an NGO that supports sending books to Africa and only asks for money to pay for the transportation costs. Clever people that they are, it’s called Books for Africa. (I think they hired the guy who came up with Coke II to help them) They coordinated with USAID and there was a pallet of books (a little over 20,000 I think?) that needed homes and MINEDUC didn’t really know where to send them, so all the ED PCVs were asked if their schools could use some books. Most of us jumped all over this and we received our shipment of ~350 (+/- 50) books a few weeks ago. Some people have been enjoying helping their librarians stamp books and find room for them in the libraries. Some people have been looking for primary schools to share the books with. Some of us (myself included) have been trying to figure out how to get a library started at all. We don’t have rooms, we can’t afford shelves, and our teachers are really too busy to take on the extra responsibility of running a library such that the books don’t just get stolen. I’m excited as this represents the true first Secondary project I could be involved in. It will take a while, but there is some funding opening up at the end of the summer that I can apply for to get this started. In the mean time, I’ve contacted the other schools in the area to see if they would be interested in also receiving books. Now, as the first shipment was coordinated with USAID, our schools didn’t have to pay anything and the books were delivered to us. Standard procedure involves a group of schools so they can split the books and the 20% of the cost they have to raise. There are about 14 schools involved in this next round and we will all be contacting people from home to help donate for the rest of the cost. (again, standard procedure) if you want to help, I’ll provide the info as soon as I have it.
This was actually a big step for me to get other schools involved. I had to step out of my comfort zone and go to other schools and try and communicate with a new set of teachers who don’t speak English very well and pitch the idea while explaining all of their responsibilities if they participate. I don’t have to write the whole grant proposal, but all the volunteers who are involved have to help.
Anyway, it's my first official active project and i'm very excited.

next month:
- this week's training experiences
- cool people I've met here
- stuff that hasn't happened yet.

thanks for reading!