Back to School (almost!)

As of Saturday I have been at my site for one month! Sometimes it went by really slowly, but overall it’s been interesting. I’ve definitely gotten more comfortable in my town in the last two weeks. I’ve met more people and the people in the community have gotten used to seeing me around and have been more friendly towards me. I’ve also gotten better at occupying myself at home and being okay with not being super productive since I don’t have that many things to do!

A guy that I had met a couple weeks ago through a friend tracked me down after church on Sunday and invited me to a party that he was going to with his family. I accepted and as we walked through town he also invited me to come to a meeting of a local group who gives aid to poorer local families. When I asked what kind of help, he said that they check in on them, make sure they have food for their meals, help them build or fix their houses, give them rides places, basically whatever they need. It sounded interesting enough to me and I was excited to find someone who was interested in community volunteer work in my area because I really want to get involved with that when I’m not teaching at the school. I went to the meeting on Tuesday and my friend who is the new president of the group introduced me to everyone and explained that he had invited me to join their group. At the meeting they were voting on positions for the next two years within the group (President, Vice president, secretary, moderator, director of activities, treasurer, etc.). When they passed me a piece of paper to vote on I said that I shouldn’t vote since I didn’t know anyone and they all looked at me like I was crazy! They said that if I didn’t know anyone I should just pick a name and vote at random. Again, I thought that was silly and tried to refuse but they forced me to vote. Also names in other languages are really hard to spell! I’m pretty sure I spelled all the names that I voted for wrong and they probably knew which paper was mine, but at least I don’t think I influenced any of the votes at all. The next meeting is on Sunday after church so hopefully we will get more into the activities that they are planning then.

Here are some other fun things that happened this week:

-I watched a bat fly around my room for about an hour last night hoping it would find its way out the door while I hid underneath my mosquito net. It didn’t find its way out and instead crawled back into a hole in my ceiling: bummer. BUT I caught him the next night, yes caught, in a bucket. Also caught one of his friends the following night...I am really started to get sick of these bats...

-Both of my clotheslines outside got stolen at night. Clotheslines? Really?

- I was called to my school to “work” 3 days this week! The amount of time spent at the school probably only amounted to 5 hours total, but it was nice to have real work to do.

-I found a big hairy spider the size of my hand in my shower room. I tried to wait and go back later to take my bucket bath, but it was still there so I bathed very carefully and never took my eyes off of it and luckily it didn’t move while I was in there.

-I treated myself and bought skim milk and yogurt in town this week! (I haven’t had either of those things in 3 months so it was pretty exciting).

Okay, I won’t bore you any more with this stuff, but life is good here. I’m learning to be really patient with people and time and everything. I can never stay in bed for too long in the morning because there’s no telling when someone will show up at my door to ask for something so I always feel like I have to be dressed. One of my school’s directors came over at 6:45 a week or so ago to see if I had a cable to put the pictures from his camera onto a computer. I didn’t, but said I could probably figure it out and put the camera memory card right into a computer to put it on a flash. I figured they were probably pictures of some school event or something and sneaked a peek at one of the pictures while I was copying it. Turns out they were pictures of his friends and family drinking and partying on Christmas, haha. Oh well, I did it anyway for him and now I am always prepared for visitors early in the morning.

I think classes officially start on Monday the 17^th and planning and scheduling happens the week before so hopefully I’ll get some more info on what grade I will be teaching very soon!