Saturday, June 27, 2009

Its almost July!

I can't believe its almost July. Time goes slow here normally along with the pace of life but then there are times when it seems the weeks have flown by.
The reading program I'm working with is going pretty well. I'm trying though to return to some schools on our off days for some tutoring for older students who can't read English yet. Since they cannot read us giving them books is not much help... and it seems some of the teachers have little interest in catching the students up who are behind.
Last weekend I went to give a basic first aid presentation to a community NGO that my friend is running. The presentation went well (and there was someone there to translate for me since my Swahili isn't that great). The interesting part of the trip though was that I decided to walk to this place and got hit by three different storms within a two hour period. I got to meet many interesting people while I was trying to find shelter from the rain and hail.
I went to a church last weekend just to see a church service here. It is very similar to the one I went to in Mississippi. Lots of singing and dancing. I had to introduce myself as a new comer, so I decided to do it in Swahili. At first I thought I said the wrong thing because after I introduced myself everyone started laughing. I found out later though that people were laughing that the white guy was speaking Swahili (so it was a good laugh).
Thats whats new here. I have some pictures but I wont be able to post them until I return. Hope all is going well.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

One month in!

So on saturdays we normally go to an orphanage and play African style football (soccer) with the kids. This entails kids half your age being ten time better than you are, avoiding hills, rocks, trees, stumps and goats (yes thats right I said avoiding goats!). It is quite fun though and the kids enjoy it. If we don't play football we generally chase the kids in circles, let them climb on us, or engage in crafts of somthing of the sort.
Also this week I had several visits to the hospital (only one was because of my own illness). One of the hospitals we took a friend of mine too was a public hospital. Not the best place in the world because it looks like the set to a horror film. He got decent medical care but it is not the first place I would want to go to.
Thats all for now, time is a bit short so I'll write more later, just figured I should get in the habit of using and updating the blog. Hope everyone is well.