Happy Thursday

Alright so a lot to report since last week I am proud to say. It’s been a really busy week and I feel like it’s been really successful! First of all I want to say that I’m listening to Rodrigo Y Gabriela and let me say, first Chad you were right and Chiggie you have fabulous taste! Also that I feel like I’m cheating on Africa with latin rhythems. It’s like eating a hamburger at a Mexican restaurant, but I digress. Okay so this week started of steady with my girls group. After a rigorous day of teaching I ran home and set up my house to create a comforting and girly atmosphere. I guess it worked because 18 people showed up. Some of whom are my older students and they are super cool. Some of the students that are in even older classes came as well and some of them already have children (which will be slightly awkward during the abstinence speech- or maybe helpful?). But these girls are really driven and know what they want. It is however slightly odd that they all see the height of their possible achievements to be a functionaire of a village, (this would mean they married the principal or high ranking teachers at a school or they were/married an employee of the government. It is a big thing to be a functionare, you get to set up parties and stuff, but no one really cared about anything earth shattering, but I’ve realized out here that that’s cool too. We did an activity where they had to draw themselves as they were now and write three adjectives (thanks mom for the markers!) and then on the back they drew themselves as they would like to be in the future with three adjectives. This is the first time in Cameroon where I’ve seen a large group of people actually be creative and not follow my example exactly!
This week also saw me cracking down and stop coddling my students. I am writing them harder lessons and harder tests and I’m not so worried that htye are all going to fail (because mostly I was told everyone expects this and they aren’t happy with all of my passing students). The students will soon realize they have to work to pass my class and it is not easy and ub so will nto repeat directions four times. This is a hard lesson for me to learn as well as them because I actually want them to succeed and I hate when they are sad. It has also been good because my relationships with the students have become closer and they like me outside of class more so they tend to be better to me in class when I ask them why they are acting so bad when they were so cool the day before. I’m also writing a lot more reading comprehension exercises and not using their horrible book so much. The sutdnets have been reading about Barak Obama (much to their delight) as well as about 15 year old conjoined twins (there was an article in one of my newsweeks). The students are interested finally and they seem to be enjoying the lessons more.
This week was also the beginning of ht eEnglish club. My English head told me I couldn’t bribe them with points to come ot the club so I bribed them with cookies. This worked until I got swarmed and felt like a small child who has gone into that cage at the zoo to feed those scary green and red birds and they don’t have enough apples to feed everyone. It was really scary and those kinds acted like animall when I dropped some cookies they swarm in and actually sotle my bag to get them all. I don’t think they earned more cookies for next meeting. But I do have a very good club president and we played 2 English games- one for grammar (like a puzzle to put together a sentence) and one for vocabulary (a modified scattegories) they liked these a lot though they are scary competitive ( I guess this happens when cookies are on the line). I also pitched them my idea for a sketch for Youth week and they liked it so next week we will be writing it together.
That was pretty much my week, but I did just pass a small child that fell in the dirt and tried to help her up and she started scrying so loud when she saw me everyone came running. Turns out she fell in the dirt because the white woman scared her so bad! Wow, nothing says Africa loves you like a terrified toddler.
I hope you all had a great week and are continuing to have one. I want to tell everyone to enjoy the cold if they have it because it is terribly hot here right now, I don’t mind it so much but it makes you sorta sluggish- something we know about in Arizona. Also my parents pitched an idea to meet in New York this summer so I oculd see them and as I recall tons of you folks have moved out there so let me know if you want to get a drink in NY in the summer and if you make the starving volunteer pay for it you won’t go to heaven!

Love you all and miss you!
Elyse