They are real hams!
Friday, February 19, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
The New Year...
January 30, 2009
Is the Super Bowl this weekend? Or was it last? Who played? Why do I care? Who had the best commercial? I have no idea why I need to know this, but it suddenly occurred to me that I want to know- and I also have an intense craving for cream cheese bean dip.
First of all, I really want to thank all of you for your donations for Camp GLOW. I know that the economy is not the best and that extra money is always scarce after Christmas, but I really, really appreciate it, and the girls that will benefit from the camp thank you too!
Anyway, the posting of this blog (the 4th or 5th) marks the end of my longest continuous stay at post. During “lock down” (the first three months at post) I made the mistake of calling the doctors whenever any little something health-wise. If I lived further from Cotonou this would not be a problem, but because it’s only 2 hours from Cotonou they would make me come in for things that either could have waited or they could have told me what to do on the phone. So during “lock-down”, while I stayed every night at post, there were several harried and hurried trips to town, which I hate doing, FYI. It’s so much nicer to be able to even stay one night and then come back.
So the last month has been interesting. Because I spent Christmas at the Med-Unit in Cotonou, I am super broke this month. (We got paid on the 23rd, because of the holiday). So I have been doing my own laundry and hauling my own water this month (yes, I’m that broke) and I have decided that I kinda like it. Not to mention that if I pull my own well water for 2 years, my arms will look amazingly toned when I get home!
The Oweme Festival was not what I thought it was, but it was fun! For one thing, we didn’t miss class, which was a blessing. The festival lasted for 5 days (Wed-Sun), there were speeches, music and dancing and some little booths where I wished I had money to by things. Its always fun to hang out with my students too. Especially when they convince me to dance, pretty much so they can laugh at me. (I’m pretty glad that there’s no photographic evidence).
The first weekend of the New Year, I bought a new cat. My friend Kara went to the marche with me. We were at Marche Ouando in Porto-Novo, which I hate. Its too big and everybody just screams “yovo, yovo, yovo” at you. Kara decided that I was a bad person when I splashed water on a beggar with no feet because he grabbed my arm while I was opening a water bottle. (Sorry, Mom) I was just pissed off at Ouando already and being forcefully grabbed just really pushed the wrong button. So we got to the live animals section (cats, dogs, chickens, turtles) and a woman there actually TOOK my water bottle from me. I had to pry it out of her hands (I paid for cold, clean water, I’m not just gonna give it to some woman because she thinks that because I’m white I can afford it- did I mention I hate Ouando?). The lady charged me too much (1500 CFA) for a very tiny, emaciated kitten. I don’t know why I didn’t barter better, but I think it had something to do with this woman shoving tiny, starving, dehydrated kittens in my face. I asked for a girl, because boy kittens spray. Kara and I went to get some soy milk at Songhi (a kind of teaching farm that sells the best produce around, and also makes things like soy milk, honey, jam and organic soaps) and I promptly named her “Eleanor Rigby”. However, by the next day, when the kitten was less emaciated and had sprayed all my furniture, I decided it was a boy. My vet seconded this opinion. So, I renamed him Rocky Raccoon. Rocky even had rings around his tale! So we were getting along great, I spent the 10,000 CFA to get him vaccinated, and a week later, he died. Yep, that’s right, number 2. Why do the Pet Gods hate me? My vet’s reaction? “Again! What happened this time?” Glenna’s Response: “Um, he was real little?”
School has been going really well. I am finally getting the names of kids down, in large part I think because I made them all nametags out of cardstock. Not only that, but when they are working hard during work time or do something difficult (read aloud, answer a tough question) they get stickers, but I will only put stickers on their nametags. This has two awesome effects, (a) it means that they don’t loose their nametags and (b) they are really excited to participate (they love stickers). So I am finally starting to get good at names. This month has been pretty fun anyway, I got to do music vocabulary! Yay! I love music vocab! Last Thursday was a little nerve wracking for me, as my APCD (I cant remember what the acronym is but she’s the boss of all the Education volunteers, her only boss is the CD- the Country Director) came to one of my classes. The lesson I did was a Jeopardy review game as exams are next week. She really liked the lesson, but she says I use French too much in class (which is totally true, I’ve just gotten lazy, so my students have too- no worries, I quit French cold turkey in my next class and it went really well). She also talked to my worst class (that was the one she saw- they were unnaturally quiet, especially for playing a game) and I’m really glad she did. I feel like this class might be a lot easier to handle from now on.
Is the Super Bowl this weekend? Or was it last? Who played? Why do I care? Who had the best commercial? I have no idea why I need to know this, but it suddenly occurred to me that I want to know- and I also have an intense craving for cream cheese bean dip.
First of all, I really want to thank all of you for your donations for Camp GLOW. I know that the economy is not the best and that extra money is always scarce after Christmas, but I really, really appreciate it, and the girls that will benefit from the camp thank you too!
Anyway, the posting of this blog (the 4th or 5th) marks the end of my longest continuous stay at post. During “lock down” (the first three months at post) I made the mistake of calling the doctors whenever any little something health-wise. If I lived further from Cotonou this would not be a problem, but because it’s only 2 hours from Cotonou they would make me come in for things that either could have waited or they could have told me what to do on the phone. So during “lock-down”, while I stayed every night at post, there were several harried and hurried trips to town, which I hate doing, FYI. It’s so much nicer to be able to even stay one night and then come back.
So the last month has been interesting. Because I spent Christmas at the Med-Unit in Cotonou, I am super broke this month. (We got paid on the 23rd, because of the holiday). So I have been doing my own laundry and hauling my own water this month (yes, I’m that broke) and I have decided that I kinda like it. Not to mention that if I pull my own well water for 2 years, my arms will look amazingly toned when I get home!
The Oweme Festival was not what I thought it was, but it was fun! For one thing, we didn’t miss class, which was a blessing. The festival lasted for 5 days (Wed-Sun), there were speeches, music and dancing and some little booths where I wished I had money to by things. Its always fun to hang out with my students too. Especially when they convince me to dance, pretty much so they can laugh at me. (I’m pretty glad that there’s no photographic evidence).
The first weekend of the New Year, I bought a new cat. My friend Kara went to the marche with me. We were at Marche Ouando in Porto-Novo, which I hate. Its too big and everybody just screams “yovo, yovo, yovo” at you. Kara decided that I was a bad person when I splashed water on a beggar with no feet because he grabbed my arm while I was opening a water bottle. (Sorry, Mom) I was just pissed off at Ouando already and being forcefully grabbed just really pushed the wrong button. So we got to the live animals section (cats, dogs, chickens, turtles) and a woman there actually TOOK my water bottle from me. I had to pry it out of her hands (I paid for cold, clean water, I’m not just gonna give it to some woman because she thinks that because I’m white I can afford it- did I mention I hate Ouando?). The lady charged me too much (1500 CFA) for a very tiny, emaciated kitten. I don’t know why I didn’t barter better, but I think it had something to do with this woman shoving tiny, starving, dehydrated kittens in my face. I asked for a girl, because boy kittens spray. Kara and I went to get some soy milk at Songhi (a kind of teaching farm that sells the best produce around, and also makes things like soy milk, honey, jam and organic soaps) and I promptly named her “Eleanor Rigby”. However, by the next day, when the kitten was less emaciated and had sprayed all my furniture, I decided it was a boy. My vet seconded this opinion. So, I renamed him Rocky Raccoon. Rocky even had rings around his tale! So we were getting along great, I spent the 10,000 CFA to get him vaccinated, and a week later, he died. Yep, that’s right, number 2. Why do the Pet Gods hate me? My vet’s reaction? “Again! What happened this time?” Glenna’s Response: “Um, he was real little?”
School has been going really well. I am finally getting the names of kids down, in large part I think because I made them all nametags out of cardstock. Not only that, but when they are working hard during work time or do something difficult (read aloud, answer a tough question) they get stickers, but I will only put stickers on their nametags. This has two awesome effects, (a) it means that they don’t loose their nametags and (b) they are really excited to participate (they love stickers). So I am finally starting to get good at names. This month has been pretty fun anyway, I got to do music vocabulary! Yay! I love music vocab! Last Thursday was a little nerve wracking for me, as my APCD (I cant remember what the acronym is but she’s the boss of all the Education volunteers, her only boss is the CD- the Country Director) came to one of my classes. The lesson I did was a Jeopardy review game as exams are next week. She really liked the lesson, but she says I use French too much in class (which is totally true, I’ve just gotten lazy, so my students have too- no worries, I quit French cold turkey in my next class and it went really well). She also talked to my worst class (that was the one she saw- they were unnaturally quiet, especially for playing a game) and I’m really glad she did. I feel like this class might be a lot easier to handle from now on.
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