Rice & Beans, Yum!

After 2 years of eating kilos and kilos of rice and beans you would think you would be sick of it. But everytime I see a plate of rice and beans, I can't wait to dig in!

It rained for the first time in one-third of a year the other day. Yup, we had not seen a single drop of the life sustaining substance in over four consecutive months. During that time we had seen lots of gray clouds hover around but we knew it wouldn't rain - so confident was I that I didn't even take an umbrella when going to town. Now, I'll probably think twice. Along with the rain came a cold front and we've started to bundle up again at night. The rainy season doesn't start until late November or early December so we know the rain over the next few months will be sparse and sporadic.

The past few nights we have not been sleeping well. For me it was malaria prophylaxis (mephaquin) day and paranoia is a by product of taking it. So that kept me on edge. We were in bed by 10 pm on the dot. Not five minutes later we heard what sounded like a light knock at the door. Not sure if it was a knock (why would anybody be knocking at 10 at night with no lights on inside?) or just the mango tree hitting the roof, we ignored it. After another minute we heard the door handle jiggle loudly - someone was trying to enter our house. Russ promptly got up and yelled, "We, nani?" - "Who is it?" and ran to the door. However when he reached it, there was nobody to be found. We eventually went to sleep but kept our ears open. Some time later in the night I heard sounds coming from our dresser drawer. Russ got up and took a peek and noticed something was trying to eat our cliff bars by chewing through the wrapper. We didn't find what was trying to nibble our American treats, but I did put them into a plastic container in the kitchen the following morning. Not to worry though, I feel very secure in our house. Some other PCVs left town that day so we think someone saw them and thought they were us and knew where we lived. I bet they didn't expect anybody to be in our house. But no one has ever broken in so I'm not worried at all.

Going to Arusha next week for our COS conference so I'll blog about that in two weeks or so.

Spring Arrives

As the weather changes my nose takes notice and makes a fit. I'm not sure why I'm sneezing so much but I have a temperamental nose and it doesn't like change. Over the last week or so we've had a lot of visitors. Shadowers, PCTs (PC Trainees), came to our site for a few days to see how PCVs really live. As they noticed, it's so much less tramatic than being in training. When you become a PCV you're on your own schedule and you it's at a much more relaxed pace. We had a big pizza party for all the shadowers in our district on Sunday and it was a hit, especially with red wine!

My students are doing well...sort of. I'm juggling two classes who learn at different levels so I'm still trying to figure things out. They are currently learning about statistics and how to create bar charts, line graphs, and pie charts. It's interesting what the students come up with when they try to graph information...it goes back to common sense and if you know how to read a chart you'll be able to draw it correctly. I had a "guest teacher," my good friend Sajigwa, come in and teach them a little more about bar charts - in Kiswahili. We're supposed to teach in English but because my students were so frustrated, I thought it would help them if they understood the concepts in Kiswahili. Then they would be able to apply it to any table of information they see and draw a correct bar chart. They asked Sajigwa questions and seemed to get a better understanding. I'll find out next week as I gave them a few more assignments to do.

With three English teachers at my school, we have organized an English Essay Contest. The topic will be: Why I am Protecting Myself from HIV/AIDS. There will be a winner from each Form (grade) and the winners will receive a certificate (Tanzanians are BIG on certificates) and a pen or something small. The English teachers and I agree that if the students will need to learn English to do their subjects they should be encouraged to use it. They will have two weeks to complete the essay.