Aaand Im back, sorry

August 28, 2007
I’ve arrived in my village. It is small, and now that I’ve finished Harry Potter this morning, Im not sure what Im gonna do for the next few weeks. I got my class schedule finished, Ill be teaching Forms I-III (the smaller kids, the most work) but it shouldn’t be too bad. Ill also be giving some staff computer classes and looks like I might be the head of sports. The good news is I made my own schedule so I don’t teach Fridays, and I don’t teach Mondays until 1030 so I can travel on the weekends. Its been interesting having the community get used to me, but word travels FAST here. The first day I was hear I got a lot of "Hello white man" and strange looks, but after about 4 days people are already ignoring me (or not openly staring and gaping). I am not the only white man in my village, theres a woman finishing her masters from Oxford (American from the Midwest). When I was running by she yelled "WHITE MAN" and I thought it was just another call so I didn’t stop, when I ran by her a second time she was taking a picture of me. I stopped and said hello, it was nice to talk American English. By the way I said my English would suffer living in Francophone, its only going to get worse here in Anglophone. They speak their local language as their first language, and it comes through in the English. I have to find a Pidgin and French tutor, which shouldn’t be hard here because everyone the local language, Pidgin, French, and English almost fluently.
After finishing making the schedule today my VP took us our for a drink (1pm). I was a little skeptical but all the teachers were going I wasn’t sure if they meant a beer, and Id been up for 6 hrs, why not. I wish the others had ordered first because after the VP ordered a beer I did, and then everyone else got juice, guess drinking at 1 isnt very culturally acceptable here either. When I came back to my house my landlady came to say hi to me, we talked about rent, she has 3 daughters away at school, howd shed been to the US once, and then after she said goodbye she turned and said "are you married". I was flustered so responded no…I wish Id said yes or at least that I have a girlfriend, not that that means much to them. Hm so my house, its 1 living room, 1 bedroom, and a bathroom. The kitchen is basically half in the living room half in the hallway. The light in the bedroom doesn’t work, the toilet is broken, I don’t have a sink, and I find about a cockroach per day, but Im really happy with it. The last volunteer left all her stuff so I came with a stove, tables, chairs, bed, and most awesomely all her class notes and books. Cooking has been interesting. I think she had someone cook for her and Im starting to see why. There is absolutely nothing that you can buy in the market or grocery store that you don’t have to cook besides fried dough, cookies and chocolate. Ive been eating a lot of those but it cant be a meal (at least not all the time). Thank god for parmesan cheese. A lot of pasta, eggs, beans, and potato fries have gotten me through. Im gonna have to start branching out though because that’s about all I know how to make. Oh the prunes here which aren’t really prunes are good too. Funny thought from yesterday when I opened a can(with a hammer and a knife). Never did I ever think I would open up a can of what I thought was just tomato sauce and be glad that there were sardine chunks in it. It was delicious. Also popcorn with Maggi ™ and parm cheese is very good.
September 19, 2007 – It has been a looooong time since Ive updated, and I’m sorry. There is no internet in my town and my usb has been acting up, and the internet is so slow I only have time to type a few emails and see how the red sox are doing and I have to go…those are all my excuses, I’m lazy too. It’s been almost a month at post now. Time is going to fly. Here’s what life is like most of the time. I wake up, brush my teeth, make some coffee with ovaltine, and either just relax or plan lessons. I go to school whenever I have class, some days I can come home for lunch sometimes I eat there (made the mistake of drinking the spring water they have there, payed for that for a few days). On Tuesdays and Thursdays I play soccer, and on Wednesday afternoons they "do sport" after school. Today we played volleyball I think its soccer next week. Volleyball was fun, it was students vs. teachers. The teachers take a little bit of an advantage but its all in good fun, they just don’t want to lose. Other then that I read, cook, do laundry, dishes, clean my house, study French, plan lessons, watch the 6 arrested developments I have on my computer for the nth time, and visit with neighbors. I teach forms I, II, IV and lower VI, roughly equivalent to 7-8th grade, sophomores, and seniors. It is in no way like a school in the US. Lets start with the ways its better. My school is at the bottom of a valley, in every direction there are mountains and it’s without exaggerating its one of the prettiest place I’ve been and definitely the prettiest place I’ve lived (sorry Hamilton). Also teachers are always right and you can make your students kneel on the ground if they derange(gonna try and stay away from that). The classrooms are in individual buildings, with no glass windows…its not uncommon for birds to fly in and somewhat more rarely a chicken will wander in. The classes are big, anywhere from 60 to 80 students in each class. Makes it difficult to teach when they talk, but I’m lucky because they all want to learn from me so they are pretty good most of the time. School starts a little differently too, most of the teachers don’t show up until the 2nd week and some haven’t come yet, it’s the middle of the 3rd week. I teach 16 hours a week which might not sound like a lot but it is tough, especially because it’s mostly concentrated Tue-Thu. I have Fridays off which is nice for traveling. On my days off, I try to get things done like laundry, stocking up on water, cooking good meals, running, going to the tailor whatever random things come up. Every 4 days is market day so I buy my rice and veggies there. The food here is pretty good they have a lot of variety, I’ve had fun experimenting, although I’ve bought ginger by accident and haven’t figured out how to use it yet. Oh about the jogging there are amazing trails. Unfortunately there aren’t 2 roads to many places, so you usually have to just turn around and come back at some point. The only down side is it makes for a lot of laundry. I think I’m going to get some help with laundry and keeping the house clean. Hm I cant think of anything else, I’m enjoying it here, still miss everyone. Send me some emails.
NB: I wrote the second entry without remembering what I wrote in the first one, so you can see how I changed a little.
October 5, 2007- I am exhausted from grading, I accidentally assigned homework at the same time I had to give a test so now I have 2 papers from each of my 500+ students. Im through about half of it and its tiring, but its good to be busy. I don’t have any great stories at the moment…but pictures are coming! Im going to mail a memory card to Simon (Simon if I forgot to tell you this sorry but you offered to do something like it so I’m taking you up). So anyway the pics should be online somewhere in 3-6 weeks plus however long it takes Simon to get it together. I’ve been learning how to cook, slowly expanding my "things I can cook" list (theres actually a list on my wall so I remember things if I feel like changing it up). Think Im gonna make some fried vegetables and couscous when Im done typing this. I have 1.5 months down now and am really looking forward to the 3 month mark when PC will let us travel again. There are plans in the works to climb a mountain on thanksgiving and come back and feast. It might not be too late to fit in a package with some good food…After Thanksgiving we have IST (in service training) where all the people from my training get together and have some more training sessions and hang out in Limbe(really nice beaches). It’ll be good to see everyone as Ive barely seen any of them since August 23rd.