home again home again jiggity jog

Well I'm home from school today for the second day in a row, and I actually am bored enough that I wish I was at school (which is kind of shocking since it's been a bit difficult for me to have any desire to go lately). Yesterday, we had to take care of some things. Today, Telcom (the state run phone company) is supposed to come to fix Mma's land line phone. The RDP (reconstruction and development program) trucks hit the phone line when they were delivering bricks to our neighbor's house (they are in the process of constructing them a little brick house as they've been living in a shack...the shack is actually one of the nicest I've seen, painted pink and black and not too small, but they call any house made out of tin a shack.) So now the phone doesn't work and Telcom is supposedly coming to fix it "this morning". After many days waiting for the phone or cable guy in America, I know it's unlikely they'll be here before the afternoon or even at all, but I can't just leave on the off chance that they do show up. So I wait.

Though I've gotten the chance to teach every day last week and this week, it's been a bit crazy. I haven't gotten much time to plan (though the teacher I'm working with did show me her lesson plans/let me know what to teach about) so my lessons haven't been terribly creative. The kids still have seemed to enjoy them despite the classroom management issues that I feel are beyond my control as basically a substitute teacher. In your own classroom you can set up a routine and a system of rewards and consequences, but that's a bit harder to do when you are approached and asked to teach a lesson about the Earth's rotation in 10 minutes. It's been fun though, and I've gotten to know some of the kids better because of teaching. We now have a steady, but not overwhelming, stream of visitors almost every afternoon.

We had a visit from the Peace Corps Director Aaron Williams on Sunday. It was awesome getting the chance to speak with him. He seems like a great guy who will do a lot for the Peace Corps, and it was fun just to have the chance to sit and chat with him for an hour. We had an eerie number of connections...his son graduated from TJ a few years before me, we know the woman who replaced him at his site in the Dominican Republic, and he was sworn in as a volunteer by Jack Vaughn (the second director of Peace Corps who we met in Tucson last year). Overall, it was a great day and reminded us how much we cheesily love the Peace Corps.

Well I really can't think of more to say right now, but all continues to go well here in Afrika Borwa. Hopefully I can find something to entertain myself until Telcom gets here.