Finally internet.....

So I have to apologize if I do not get to reply to any emails from my yahoo account. The email here is crap and every time I attempt to send an email it never goes through. So for those who wanted to know if I got the goods...yes to Kate, Liz, Vinita, Lisa and Anja, Lisa S,and Anil. I got it all and love it all. I heart you all. Can I just say that all I need now is the "FAME' soundtrack and I am well on my way to recreating my childhood dance moves when my sisters and I used to be known as "V4". Karibu (welcome) cd's now. My house is a rockin with tapes and cd's now. My dog looks at me as if I am a freak when I try to break it down to Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch or attempt the water dance scene from Flash Dance with my buckets o water. My poor dog. Whate else is a girl to do in the bush?

So life is good. Actually life has never been better. All the people i know and love are healthy and are relatively happy. My mom has moved to India and has finally started to live life for herself. How awesome! Maybe 63 years late, but better late than never. V1 is pimping it out in Bmore fixing up the house and working on a cooking video. V2 is blissfully happily married and will finish business school now. WHOOHOO! V3 has a new job and is planning her wedding. My fam is good. Friends are good. Life here is good. I actually love what I am doing. Teaching is my calling. My kiswahili is getting awfully good. The villagers and I are tight. My new name is "Mamma Mila". My dog loves me. Hamna shida...life is good.It's funny I think about Baltimore an awful lot now. Maybe it is because now that mom is in India we don't know what will happen to the house.Once that house is gone, I have no "homebase". Mom used to be my homebase but now she is gone. Oh well. Such is life huh.

On April 11th I celebrated my 6 month anniversary in this country. 6 months!!!I recall feeling like I aged 5 years my last 6 months in England. So far the wedding count is on to 11 and now 3 friends are having babies in 2004...how exciting!!!

So I decided to break down my thoughts into points

Teaching the students-So I have to speak in both kiswahili and English. Sometimes I forget that some of these kids don't even know kiswahili (because they have some other tribal language). After seeing the poor results of my tests I was so upset and took it out on my poor Form I (9th grade...just now learning English). One kid could not tell me what a mother feeds its baby and I lost it. The day before most came in late. Earlier in class several kids did not have their notebooks. I had had enough. I threw my book down told them that they could read that and maybe do better than when I teach them and said they don't need me and left the classroom. I returned to my office where I cried at the thought that I came to this country to empower children not to tear them down...what have I done???My students came and got me and apologized to me. I replied by saying that they had no business apologizing. I had no reason to get mad and told them that I needed to have more patience with them. They thanked me and since then I have been doing damage control. That was a while ago and I think we are fine again. My nuns told me "Bado, bado" which means "later, later"...I have to adopt that mentality that I cannot just snap my fingers and have every child understand me and have them all get A's.This takes time.