The Simple Life

So today has been a wonderful day and I thought I would write about it.(although it started off to a questionable start). I woke up not wanting to have to go to school….typical Monday. Then as I was going to the bathroom sitting on the toilet I heard a noise in the kitchen and my first though was that I had an intruder… little did I know I was correct. A rat went scrambling by my doorway. For the past two months I have known that Ive had companions living in my roof, but they have never ventured out before so I was never too worried about them. But my morning consisted of me following the rat around in the house trying to get it to head to the door. Pretty exciting : )


Then today I had to teach my form 3 life skills class. Last week the entire school attended a lecture about HIV/AIDS during which the lecturer told them all that condoms are for prostitutes and have small holes in them that allow the virus to pass though. So my goal for the lesson was to correct the information that they had been told. This turned out to be the absolute best lesson that I have had with my students. I asked them if they believed the woman and that condoms have holes in them. 2 of the students said they did not! So that was good. But after I told them the truth about condoms, my class proceeded to ask me a bunch of questions about condoms and AIDS. It was wonderful!!! It is the most I’ve had my form 3 class participate before. I told them that we have an agreement, what is said in the class is secret… I wont tell the other teachers and they will not either. So I’m really excited to be able to continue the class next term.

The students are truly wonderful. Its so funny because when I put notes on the board, if it involves a chart or a picture all of the students will get out their protractors and rulers to draw the pictures… they are so particular and precise. Also I gave my form 1 students an assignment, but I told them that we would just go over it together. But this morning when I walked into the staff room… on my desk was 12 notebooks from my form 1 class with the assignment finished.

I had a lot of free time today since the term is coming to an end, and I contemplated a number of things. I had to plan when I would be able to walk to town to mail a letter. Then I started to think about how much I would take that for granted in the US…mailing a letter. You can walk 30 feet out to the end of the driveway and put the letter in the mailbox. But here I have to walk 20 minutes into town to drop the letter in the letter box. But I wasn’t upset when I had to make the walk… I was looking forward to it. I enjoy hearing all of the kids along the route yell out “how are you?!” continuously even after I have responded. The children here dont have the luxury of a school bus coming to pick them up for school. Some students will walk as much as 2 hours maybe even sometimes further just one direction to make it to school. I never truly considered all of the things I took for granted while in the US. However, this past weekend I also enjoyed washing my laundry which took an hour to do… it did not consist of just putting the clothes into a machine and walking away… I have to do the scrubbing myself. But I’m starting to enjoy the simple life.

One thing I still struggle with is when I have to take my trash outside. We don’t have the luxury of just leaving it at the end of the driveway for someone else to take care of. Instead they burn everything that is trash here. So I have had to face the consequences of consumerism. I cant bring myself to throw out the plastic bottles know that they are going to be burned, so I have a collection started, which I know at some point I will find a use for them.

Anyhoo, that’s all that I got on my mind at the moment. Now to potentially attempt to make dinner….
Love and miss you all!!