Life here is certainly full of its ups and downs. I suspect my roommate is dealing with these more than I am though since there isn't too much optimism in doing medical work here. School is going well for me still. Tuesday I felt like my lesson was quite over their heads, but I think today's lesson compensated for that. They have alot of difficulty dealing with gerunds. Sentences like "I like to listening music" are really common and I am determined to beat these into them. Today's 2 hour class consisted of me teaching them a brief clarifying lesson on gerunds, infinitives, and the usage of to as a preposition followed by an entire hour of me giving them verbs to make sentences with orally while I wrote them on the board and corrected them. I think this method was pretty successful. Learning Swahili helps me teach them English because I am learning the differences in grammatical structure.
I met with Aggrey yesterday after work (the local coordinator of my program) and told him all the problems in his program. There are many. At my suggestion all of the volunteers will meet on Thursday to discuss problems in their placements, host families, etc... I have been really lucky, but there are a lot of problems with the way things are run here. Aggrey found my advice helpful and has said that I can live in the volunteer quarters for free when the program that I have paid for effectively ends on October 1. This means that I can keep teaching for free and stay longer. I will be here when the IVHQ coordinator from New Zealand comes...perhaps they would like to hire me. I also was told about a program in Iringa, Tanzania that I may visit in October for a few days.
Perhaps I say this alot, but since I don't take time to review my writing you will have to deal with repetition and scatteredness. The things I miss most about America are: being able to walk safely at night, being able to control what/how much I am eating, regular exercise. Dear god, what I wouldn't give to never eat Ugali again. I feel my insides being paved with corn-cement. Hopefully, when my placement officially ends and I move to separate volunteer housing I will have more control over these things.
On an unrelated note, my host family mentioned that it has now been 7 years since 9/11. It has been 7 years since my first year of college as well.
My birthday is on the 19th. I will be on safari then petting hippos.
Issky Cool?
16 years ago
1 comment:
Iringa is pretty cool, and I bet you can find a ton of peace corps around those parts. It's a hell of a bus ride though. Just try not to get malaria while actually on the bus and you'll be set. Plus the road to Iringa goes through the national park so you can see elephants and zebra and giraffes from the bus!
I like Tanga best though. Think you might get a chance to go? If so let me know so I can get you in touch with people there.
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