The first of MANY surprises

Luke shows me some dance moves after his bath one night.

Today was long and exhausting. We got up around 7:00 to cook and pump water before our workshop at 9:00. It’s a 20 minute walk to school from our house and we raced, still getting there just a little late. They fed us a breakfast of fish and casava root and I ate as much as I could (not enough). They passed out the agenda and our collective jaw dropped. It was an all day workshop about lesson planning, classroom management, and teaching methodology. I was really impressed… and small annoyed.

When it was time for lunch it was obvious Krista wanted to go home (sure, we both had to pee) but I smiled and got in line for food. “We’ll share,” I said, asking for two spoons. She said she didn’t feel good but I held out the bowl and gave my least threatening I-don’t-care-suck-it-up look. It was some kind of bitterball soup and, aside from the gnarly meat, quite good. I ate as much as I could (again, not enough) and we went across the road to see if we could use the bathroom at the guest house.

The afternoon session drug on and on. I really enjoyed the DEO, but was losing strength. We had not expected an eight hour workshop! My butt hurt. My back hurt from sitting on the bench. I was learning nothing. But what else did I have to do?

It could wait.

We’re doing some pretty major extermination at the house, but that’s best done at night. The roaches are big. Like, “remember the hissing cockroach your third grade class had?” big. We finally got some spray and hopefully it helps. We probably killed five last night and I’m working on another five tonight. Krista piled their bodies by the back door as a lesson to the others. During the night something ate half of them. My guess is the giant spider that lives in the corner crawled down. Great. We’re feeding him and making him stronger.

I miss Luke and Esther, Princess, David, and Sattah. I miss my family, their routines, and all the love that came with them. Sure the first few weeks with them were tough too. I just wish we could fast forward to a more simple, comfortable time after I have more things figured out. Everything will come together here. It just takes time, white woman.

“Until I understood I had a hand in making whatever happened happen, I was a very sad young girl.” Kaye Gibbons