Tuesday 19 May 2009

Bunnies

Our rabbits had babies. About ten to be exact, and in order to prevent ten turning into 40 my host mother has been telling my brothers "You need to sell those bunnies. What do we need bunnies for? We don't eat them; they don't give us milk or eggs. Send them away! Sell them at the bazar!"

"What?! Do the bunnies bother you? What did the bunnies ever do to you?"

So we still have ten baby bunnies.

Monday 11 May 2009

A good spin on the outhouse trips

It is the 11th of May! We have been official volunteers for exactly 18 months now and as I sit here thinking about how quickly time has gone by, I start to wonder what will I miss about being here? For a long time, I thought something that I would not miss at all would be the whole outhouse experience, but I’ve started to notice little things that go with the outhouse trips for which I might start to feel a bit of nostalgia.

Observing moon cycles, for example. In America, I might notice sometimes that it’s a full moon, or when the moon looks really red because of all the pollution in the sky, I might think “that’s pretty.” But now I am almost obsessively observant. A full moon means I don’t really need the flashlight, while a new moon means I try not to have to go out there after 9pm. It’s pretty and functional.

Barnyard animals get in the way, making you think more than usual. It’s annoying, but kind of fun when you have to get through a maze of cows, broken tractors and barking dogs to get to the toilet. I don’t know, maybe it’s weird but I get a kick out of it when it happens.

You find out the weather in the morning. In America, I would leave the house sometimes not at all dressed for the cold or hot it actually was outside. But when you have to go outside first thing in the morning, you get a pretty good idea what you are in for that day.

… Ok, so there’s not that much that I will actually miss about the outhouse, but there is a little.

Monday 4 May 2009

How to keep control of your class

Draw a line in chalk down the center of the table and tell the little boys, "DO NOT cross the line".



It was working until I took out the camera.

Friday 1 May 2009

Seminar

My site mate and I had a seminar this week called "Using Multi-Media in the English classroom." It was mostly on how to use PowerPoint, songs and video plus how to do Google searches... We weren't expecting that many people, but 29 English teachers from the region came. I was going to put some pictures on here, but it turns out that somehow everything I have has a major virus on it and I can't open any of the folders on my camera's card... Sorry. Just know that it was really successful and that the general public (or just the English teachers) is demanding another one.