Thursday, March 29, 2012


With only three more whole days left here in pommern (for two pt us) did not sleep well. My dreams reminded me of how much I miss my family and my day reminded me that our time here has been too short and there is still so much I want to do. For example : Become flivent in Swahili , carry objects on my head or witness childbirth at the clinic. Each day has amazing food, great company, glimpse of rain , work and calm . But at the same time each day is so different from the previous. Today began much like the rest we were treated to penciled , jatmeal , banana and toast. I had my pancakes with peanut butter and my jatmeal with a pollop of jam. After breakfast , things took a different turn. Jessica went to the clinic a usual, and reported back w/o too much new excitement at the clinic , she said today was actually a bit slow. Steven and I switched rolls though , Steven played teacher today! It was a geography excerpt! And he felt that he was well received and that the students loved him. They must have ,because he didn’t return until after lunch. Today was an extra treat for me. I got to play plane boards at the mill with the men. It took much longer than I could have ever imagined but it was interesting to see how then men reacted to having a Mzunga women joining them at the mill and it was especially fun bonding with Moses. Was impressed by how well we were able to communicate w/ body language despite an obvious communication barrier. We did accomplish our goal and delivered beautifully planed lumber to be turned into tippy tap pies for tomorrow! Lunch rocked my world. Then Steven spent the afternoon engulfed in a book while Jessica , Edward and myself went to the primary school to present practice exam materials to the students. They were remarkable . They worked in groups to guess answers , then we presented them. It is so amazing to see yet again how well the students were able to exceed expectations despite, a classroom with no lights, a difficult to read board, and no photocopies of the work, only hand copied notes by the students into their copy books . After finishing at the school Jessica and I took a stroll quickly through the very busy market down in the man area of town around past mama Mzango’s where Steven and Mohammed had already stoppeed for a warm Kilimanjaro and a water respectively . Dinner was the bomb! As usual Dr. Elton joined us to talk about common diseases in Tanzania. Then it was off to bed to shover and begin planning for tomorrow’s lessons! Cheers .

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