On to the Second Week!

I finished my first week of practice school and had to give an exam on Friday.  My first class which I posted a picture of below of, did pretty well, and I was excited to give the results back to them, which I will be doing tomorrow.  My second-class, aka the call from hell, did not.  I wonder why?  I handed back the exams today and they were all pretty surprised.  So hopefully that will be a wake up call for them, but at the same point, I remember being in junior high school and thinking it was fun to piss the professor off, which the have successfully completed that mission, even though I am trying not to show it when I get angry; which for me is quite difficult. 

This weekend was a lot of fun as well.  On Saturday I was a little to confident in myself and thought that instead of taking the bus to the waterfall I would ride my bike with a few of the other volunteers.  STUPID IDEA!  I found out just how out of shape you can get, when your not running every day or going to the gym.  At one point I started to get dizzy on my bike and the poor other kid trying to be nice and stay behind with me had to stop.  He adjusted my seat, and I blamed my poor performance on the height of the seat, lol.  But seriously, we were biking in over 85-degree weather, in direct sunlight, up hills both ways… lol I’m just out of shape!  The waterfall was amazing especially because I was sweating like a fat big by the time I finally made it to the waterfall.  Thankfully I did beat the bus, so the other volunteers didn’t know I had been dragging ass the whole way.  To top it off, our new country director came to the waterfall as well and brought brownies; can you tell she’s American!  I don’t even enjoy brownies, but I was not refusing after that bike ride, seeing my legs felt like jello and I had belly button sweat!

After working on my lesson plans back at the bureau I returned home, to my host mother having a huge dinner waiting for me, then I went for a walk with my brother to see all the people dancing in the street to celebrate the end of Ramadan.   I’m starting to think this “fete de Ramadan” is sort of like what my girlfriends and I did in college, make your birthday last the whole week, so you had an excuse for every craving or idea to go out.  I did refuse to go to the club with my brother, which I later found out, the next day, that he was upset with me, when he said, “Je ne suis pas d’accord avec toi pas ce que tu as refuse d’aller au boite avec moi” (I’m angry with you because you refused to go to the club with me)  Oh well.  Then on Sunday I went on another bike ride, did some yoga as a wake up call after my out of shape bike ride, went home and cooked dinner with my host mom.  She made just me, meat and potatoes, cause she said it was like home for me!  Everyone else ate rice and fish sauce, how spoiled am I. 

I only have 15 days left here before I will be leaving for site!  Also I found out I will be living in the house I was shown and fell in love with; with an outdoor shower and latrine, corn field to pick from, tomatoes plants, and a place to relax and not be on guard 24/7.  Oh the luxuries!

Hope you all enjoyed Labor Day!  And Nicole good luck at Columbia, so excited for you!!!!  Also hoped your enjoyed the man-jamas below and African get ups!