Life continued...

Right so, it is sad to see the dad be so sad and quiet. Death affects the partner more tha anyone else. That is probably why it is so freakin scary to fall in love. To lose that person is to lose yourself. When you say "I do" you say "I do" to becoming one unit and when one half of that unit is taken you don't know yourself anymore. That is my theory on love and death. Not that I have ever been in love with someone who has died or have been in love at all. LOVE is the scariest thing in the world.

So I went to Madaba to hang with my favorite Sister Judy and fam. It was lot of fun. We chilled. They fed me so much meat and good food, I was happy chappy. We walked around they showed me their brother's grave. It was nice to be with Tanzanian family. I feel like the friendship between me nd SJ is deepening and her invitng me home with her was a big step. Her brother is studying to be a priest and spent the past 3 years studying in the Phillipines. It was nice to meet a nice, handsome, well-educated, and knowledgeable young Tanzanian man. We had loads to talk about and he taught me how to kill a chicken. I KILLED CHICKEN!!! It was really easy and damn tastey (pole to my vegetarian friends. But all who know me best know my love for the succulent flesh of chicken). I was most impressed with the brother cleaning the table, washing dishes, and cooking. This was the first time I have seen this country. Men got it easy. Boys too. Mamma's and girls carry water, wood, and bricks on their heads, clean floors, make the meals, take care of babies, wash the clothes, etc while the little boys roll tires and the men drink the local pombe and walk around the village trying to get signals for their radios. Bloody useless =the male gender in this country (except for the cool brother).I was annoyed at my bad my Kiswahili was at her village. I was not in my element and really need to study it more. SJ's mamma was loaded the whole time too which was quite humorous. My last night there some random guys were running in the street and yellng and she got up and was afraid they were gonna steal all of her ears of corn that she had just harvested and placed outside her house. Bless her.
Then Sister Judy nd I headed back to Songea and met her other sibling sister. I basically met her entire family. Pretty sweet. And SJ's father looks like Nelson Mandela but shorter.
So then I chilled in Songea and visited babu John nd worked on his computer typing my grant for the empowerment conference. I caught the last dala dala back to Namabengo. They packed about 35 people again in a 20 person van. I was lucky enough to have my Form III student pressed against me allowing me not to breathe (note sarcasm). I did have my eyes on her waist and saw a malish hand creeping its way along her waist. It was the hand of one of the dala dala men. I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt nd figured that he had no other place to rest his hand. But then when his skanky fingers pinched her arss I HIT THE ROOF!!! The dd had stopped at that time to let people off and I gave him an earful and hit him. I told him he had better not ever touch another one of my students again or I would hurt him!!!!The entire dd was stunned and enjoyed my lethal Kiswahili usage. I told him that I am the mother of these girls and that he had better watch out. He hd to deal with a death glare form me for the duration of the ride. For those who know my looks best know that the death glare is not a glare anyone wants to get from me.So I returned home to my baby Mila and prayed that I got to teach the next day. Of course I had not missed any classes because the kids were still making bricks. Bricks or education???Freakin Tanzanians and their messed up priorities in life.
So I chilled with the village people as always, finally started to teach some classes when they were not making bricks,and what have you.Teaching Form IV now which is fun. They are now experiencing the Vicki phenomena of teaching. Nothing they have ever seen before. I now know how much they dont know and how much my other students do know. Good I am doing something right.My Form III's this year will rock out next year as Form IV's. But all in all the kids are great. Form IB missed me off by losing school book I let them use. I vowed not to step foot in their clss until they returned the book or paid for the book. They need to lose a lesson. Did I mention tht grades dont matter in this country? Only the results of the national exams matter which disheartens me but also makes me less stressed bout not teaching Form IB. They need to learn that they are screwing up. It has now been three weeks and no book nd no payment. They are starting to feel nervous about their test that I am gonna give them in a week which they will fail (and not count). They could just copy the notes from IA but htey have recognized that they cannot understand the notes without me teaching them. Boohoo, maybe they should hve thought of that before they were so bloody careless with the school book. Any other teacher would have beaten their arsses down with a stick. I never want to go that route. Sad to think that the stick is the only punishment they respond to. My health club advised me (their advisor) that 3 weeks is too long and that I need to send this matter to the 2nd master. Sad. For 3 weeks I step into their class and ask for the book or payment and ge nothing. By me not teaching them to prove point is that any better than the fimbo???I try to tell myself that they are realizing how much they need me to teach. All the wazungu here agree with me but also do feel like it is now time to take it up with the second master. I will go in tomorrow and tell him the deal.It is just sad that he will most likely resort to hitting them. But 3 weeks is too long and they have a test next week that I dont want them to fail. Form IA will rock it no doubt.
So Kissa and Bitwale have moved. It was a really sad day for me. I showered then with crayons, a water color set, and a puzzle (thanks to all who sent me these goodies). Kissa the day before she left was walking around in her hot pink shirt with what looked like a headscarf. No, it was a black plastic bag. How cute was she. I will never lose that picture in my memory. She got real quiet at one point just staring at me and her eyes got all classy. I asked her what was wrong and she said nothing. She just stayed quiet nd upset. Maybe it sunk in that the next day we would part. Or maybe something got in her eye.Regardless, I cried in my house and was sad to lose my best little buddies. I watched one last batch of videos with them, took pictures, and hugged them and said my farewell to Kissa and Bitwale.I will make it a point to visit them in Mbeya before I leave. I also have a plan to be their guardian angel and take care of them for life Inshallah (Lord-willing).