Lovin' my kids, my house, and Larry

I've been BUSY! What is that all about?

School is great. I only wish I got to see my kids more -- two 50-minute periods a week per class is not much. As hard as I try in my planning, I almost always run out of time in class for all that I want to do! But we're having fun. I love that I can have legit conversations with these kids in English. Their contributions may not always be entirely grammatical, but they can make themselves understood.

We just did a really fun activity for International Women's Day where I divided the students into small groups to read and summarize a short text about a particular distinguished female. I tried to pick mostly strong black women as good role models for these kids, so we had Michelle Obama, Condoleezza Rice (though some found it hilarious that she is named "rice"), Rosa Parks, Wangari Maathai (ashamed to say I'd never heard of her before researching this project, but what a cool Nobel laureate from Kenya). Summarizing in a foreign language is not an easy task, so I was, yet again in this country, really impressed by some of the results. I also asked them to write what they had learned from the text. Actual responses: "to love each other and never care about the color of the skin," and "try and fail, but do not fail to try." Where that came from, no idea. Awesome.

Plus, my kids here are SO well-behaved! I've not had a single discipline issue so far in six weeks of teaching. When I gave my first quiz, I prefaced it with my customary ixnay-on-cheating spiel. In Mauritania, cheating was the standard, and the kids were masterful. One rolled up a tiny strip of paper inside the clear barrel of a pen; another had a friend outside the classroom toss a balled-up sheet in through an open window. But here -- I didn't see a single instance. And I'm darn good at busting cheaters. I was stunned, happily.

In grading, there are the mistakes that break your heart because they're just so far off the mark, but I prefer the mistakes that just crack me up. For instance, one kid gave me a late assignment with a handwritten note: "I didn't the homework because I was illing." (Yeah you were, son, yeah you were.) Anyway, the most enjoyable part of marking midterms for me was the fill-in-the-blank vocab section, with a word bank. Here are a few priceless errors that felt the wrath of my red pen:

- The doctor will give you INJURIES to make you feel better.
[Only if I'm looking to win a malpractice suit!]
- In a democracy, everyone has the same OPPRESSION.
[Technically I guess so?]
- Mutoni brought the SKUNK to start the fire for cooking.
[Count me out for that meal]
- The USA has more than 300 million RIGHTS.
[Interesting from an outside perspective]
In other news, I'm thrilled to announce to you that I'M IN MY NEW HOUSE!! I had to fight for it ("But the fence isn't done, and we still need to paint" -- I don't care, let me move my stuff!!), but I forced my way in about two weeks ago now. It's pretty spectacular. I'm getting all settled, still waiting for a few pieces of furniture, but I promise to give you a proper tour when it's all set up. I'm loving it, though. Here's a teaser pic of the view out my front door. The tallest mountain in the distance is Muhabura, 30 miles away on the border with Uganda. It's a volcano about 13,500 feet high.


So I got the big birthday present of getting to be in my new house! Other highlights of that day included teaching my adult English class to sing the "Happy Birthday" song to me, opening two stellar care packages (props to Teresa and my sister Brenda!), and most importantly, a shout-out on Voice of America radio. Now, please understand: VOA broadcasts worldwide. And the best DJ is Larry London, who I listen to every day. So I was giggling like a little girl for a solid hour after he wished me a happy birthday in Rwanda *and* said I put a smile on his face! OH, LARRY LONDON!

I leave you with this: for the past several birthdays, I've taken photos of myself displaying my new age. Turns out 26 doesn't work quite as well.