CONGES DE AVRIL

Well I made it the two weeks at site till vacation, or as I like to remember SPRING BREAK!!  I've been doing some activities in between...

I have been teaching my classes for my 9th and 10th graders (See photo below) teaching my English night class and going on adventures with my students, the highlight of my weeks!  Last week I went out with one of my students for a bike ride.  She picked me up at my house and we took off for a very rural village which uses canoes to cross the river.  We started off through the village and had to stop each time we knew someone then explain where we were heading.  If you haven't realized yet, my site is completely surrounded by mountains, so we made it to the mountain, which was litterily what I would call mountain biking, and the two of us are hitting these rocks, our bikes were making all kinds of noise, we were trying desperately to not fall off and at one point Hadja turned around to check on me and we both had to stop the bikes and died laughing because here we are biking in our sheets of fabric as a skirt and sandals doing extreme mountain biking.  We finally had to get off our bikes and walk up or down some of the really dangerous parts.  But we did finally get there, and it was amazing.  It was this large river, something like you would see up country in New Hampshire, and what you do is shout into the wilderness and then men will come to whatever side of the river you are on to get you across.  Its not a canoe, but more of a piece of wood hollowed out.  Really neat and interesting, and still exist today for the women who walk to my village then walk home and catch a ride across the river.



Where's Waldo?  My th graders and myself.

 Then that weekend I headed to see the missionaries because I had not been there in quite a long time.  So I took off at 2ish, the sun was pretty hot, but I figured I would take it slow.  I started off great, then hit the mountain and had to walk the last little bit, made it to the top, hopped onto my bike and started down the mountain, my favorite part, only to find that I had a flat tire.  So I debated whether I should walk back up the mountain and head home 5k or walk the rest of the way to the missionaries, so I walked 11 k to the missioaries pushing my bike.  Each time someone saw me they would ask, "Is your bike broken, do you have a flat tire?"  Things in the United States I feel would probably bother you, when someone states the obvious, but I just smiled and said "you've got it, its broken, hense why I am pushing my bike" lol  The next day I was able to get a ride home with a car going to my village for market day.  I helped sell at the market with the principals wife and the other women around me. (See pictures below)

Principals Wife and daughter Ne Ne Kudy

Ne Ne Kudy and another women who sells

Me selling at the market

Then on Sunday, my 10th graders had decided they would take me biking to a bridge the Chinese were building and then go swimming about 7 or 8 kilometers away.  So we took off at about 10ish, me and my students, and on the way we stopped at my students house so I could meet their parents.  It was so nice to meet them and speak the local language with their mothers and French with the fathers, to tell them their son or daughter are smart and to keep them in school.  But it was funny because each time we stopped at someones house, the family would give me a gift, (the custom here is to give a gift to a visitor, they would probably even offer the shirt of their back for you, its amazing) so by the end of the bike ride, we had so many oranges and peanuts, that it had to be distributed between myself and my students so we could carry it all.  We went and met the Chinese who spoke very little English, no French and no Pular.  I'm unsure how they communicate.  Then after we went swimming and tried to eat as many oranges and peanuts so we didn't have to bike them back.  On the way back, I saw an SUV I remembered and it turned out it was the missionaires and another volunteer that lives close to me, came to pick me up for ICE CREAM NIGHT!  It was soo good, but I was so sick that night and the next day at school!  Worth the pain!

Students with their siblings

My students

I taught the next week at school, then took off for my April vacation.  I made it to a friends house in a taxi full to the top, 4 in the back, 5 in the middle, 3 in the front and 3 on top! lol  Arrived a little hot and sweaty, then started to walk the 6k to my friends house, but was picked up and dropped off.  The next day, we went hiking with his counter part to 2 different waterfalls.  At some points we litterly had to sit on our bottoms and slide down. At one point his counter part, as a tour guide, told us not to over step the edge or we would die.  Reassuring! lol  But it was beautiful, he brought his tree cutters and we made our own way.  By the end of the day we were so tired but it was beautiful walking in the true nature and enjoying the sights. 

I WILL BE HEADING TO SIERRA LEONE FOR MY QUARTER LIFE CRISIS!