Nice

Well, it has been pretty nice weather here lately. Some days we will wake up and both grab for the blanket, because in the morning and as soon as it gets dark it is very cool. Very desert-like weather. I have to make sure to get my bath in before 6:30, because after that its a bit uncomfortable to take a cold bucket bath. The routine has been that I usually get home from work, read or practice letter activities with our host family, and then jump rope just before I take a bath. After that I make tea with powdered milk for us, and we sit out on the porch in our long sleeve shirts (or sometimes I've even broken out my hoody!) and chat with the family.
Lately we have been making more of an effort to help out host brothers and sisters learn letters, letter sounds, numbers, etc. One of them Fatou Bentu who is 6, is really enthusiastic about studying with me. I think because she is at the age where her brothers and sisters are older than her, (except MoLamin and he's 3) she kinda gets left out, or bossed around. I think she relishes the alone time we spend together studying, because I don't let anyone else come around, because she gets shy in front of the boys (cultural gender roles). What I really love is that every time I say "Ok, we're done!" she jumps up happily runs back to the house. Andy and I are really trying to set up a situation where they come to us in the evening to study, or do something academic, even if its just looking at a book with us. Andy and MoLamin were looking at "Goldilocks and the three bears" last night, it was very cute. Molamin just likes to point out things that he knows (in mandinka mostly, but if we don't know the word in Mandinka, we will tell him the english word, like the word "bear"), so he just goes turning all the pages, and saying "bear a fele, bear a fele, bear a fele", (bear is here, bear is here, bear is here) I have put alphavet letters on bottle caps and he really likes those, right now, he knows abc, so of course, every bottle cap is a, b, or c. He also likes to count with those, practicing dumping them out of the container, and putting them back in, (alternating between fistfuls, or 1 at a time) and counting, which he is good at. In the morning if I don't go to work until a little later, he comes in the house and asks where the bottle caps are, after the bottle caps, he will ask where the "booko baa" is (big book) that I got from the peace corps office. He likes to point out the girl and her father on all the pages of it, and when our host mother came over to see what he was up to, he showed her too! Gotta love it!
The other night we were have a laughing good time, and it all has to do with a plastic bag and frogs. (Tootoo in Mandinka). Andy had his plastic bag of charcoal on the porch for brewing attaya, and we were out there playing cards when the bag started to move and wriggle around. With a little bumping from me, out hopped a charcoal stained frog)
Well, one day when we were cleaning out the house, I put a plastic shopping bag outside on the porch. Well, it kinda just stayed there, because Andy thought it might be useful. The weather turned cool at night. And one day the bag started moving like the charcoal bag. MoLamin, (who used to scared of them, but has gotten braver) picked up the bag a little bit off the ground and 4 frogs plopped out. Well, this got him very excited and he started chasing them around our porch with a miniature sized grass broom, flicking them and trying to sweep these frogs off our porch. Well, after he had gotten those off the porch he went to get the bag, to throw away, and out plopped about 8 more frogs of all different sizes! They started hopping away for there lives away from MoLamin and he was ecstatic chasing them around the porch. Meanwhile, Andy and I are sitting in our chairs (like an old married couple on the porch) laughing our heads off, it was the most hilarious thing you've ever seen. Well, after a few more frogs got swept off the porch MoLamin and Fatou Bentu started chasing them in the dark around the compound, whooping and hollering. hehe.
The other day when I was getting water the cute white kitty kept sneaking up to my filled buckets and taking a drink. It was so cute, but he/she left dirty paw residue on the edge of my buckets. On his third attempt up to the bucket I got a hold of him and picked him up, he was purring! (must have been confused....) It was funny, and Ndea (our host mom) was on her porch laughing at me.
Oh, I know this is the most random of blogs but I'm just flowing!
The other day at the nursery school I made a teacher bulletin board, for me to put up things about particular topics for the teachers to come and look at. With the help of one of the teachers there we cut some poplin fabric into the right size, made a border with some left over fabric, pinned that in place, glued on some letters I had cut out, and then pinned on some information cards I had printed and mounted and colored poster board. With great effort I put two nails in the concrete walls, cut small holes in the fabric, and looped it over the nail heads. We also had a little table set out in front of it, and there I spread out some examples of items I had made, having to do with our theme. The teachers there were sooooo excited, and I think it will be a good way to get information to them about other techniques and issues, so they can start seeing new ideas and ways of teaching.
Well, next week grades are due at the college, and I still have about 250 test papers to grade., then I will have to go through all approx. 350 students grades and average those, it is going to be a quite a task. I can only sit there and grade for a little at a time before my bottom goes numb or I goes crazy with the answers I'm getting. Next week we are having a friend stay with us, she will be down here doing a training with the college, so that will be nice, and I think we are planning to do some hot chocolate get-together with some of the other area volunteers for Christmas while she is here.
Well, I think thats it for now, later!