I
just came back from Saturday English lessons at the orphanage, and I am
currently sitting on my bed, wondering why It’s gotten so hot again after a
week of coldness. The first thing I do after hiking up the hill to my house
every day is liberate my legs by immediately changing into running shorts. This
only confirms my belief that I need to live somewhere where I never have to
wear pants.
This
week, school was good and I wasn’t stressing about anything. Since I started
hanging out in the computer lab with the 2 male teachers instead of in the
staff room with the other female teachers, I’ve been much less stressed, mostly
because I have fewer awkward, small-talk interactions which I always hate.
To
incentivize my girls to come to a Saturday girls’ club meeting, I told them I’d
bring breakfast, which will entail a big loaf of bread. Yesterday, I made a
trial run of baking a loaf of yeast bread in a small pot, then promptly ate it
all, as I was very hungry after running (as I do most Fridays) and then picking
my way through a slimy plate of samp for school lunch. They switched from samp
once a week to twice a week to replace one day of having papa with lunch,
supposedly because it’s cheaper than papa flour, which has doubled in price
from M200/50kg to M400/50kg. Thanks, drought. But samp is also corn and hasn’t
gone up in price, so I don’t know what that’s all about.
Jeez,
what miserable animals donkeys are…
This
morning, I woke up well before dawn and made a big loaf of bread for my girls.
8 out of 10 showed up- not bad. They did show up 45 minutes late, however. The
class went ok. I taught about the importance of yelling and simply running away
if you can get away, then how to get out of a single arm grab. We started on
the disabling moves a little bit, mainly the eye gouge. Most of them still need
to find their voices, but a lot of them have been able to produce that
confident voice I’m looking for. Those girls encourage the shy ones, which is
great to see.
Then
I popped down to the orphanage and taught English, then went to the director
Jill’s house for a very much one-sided conversation of current events (aka, her
informing my oblivious self about world news) and a sandwich.
It’s
almost been a year and people still
want me to give them my dog. Guess it’ll never stop…
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