Sunday I went to a "Fun Fair" that was actually about AIDS awareness, to observe World AIDS Day on December 1. Some of the schools in the southern districts had skits or songs, although it seemed like there was some miscommunication between some schools and the organizers. There also weren't many people attending that weren't in direct relation to what was on the program. I saw some teachers I knew, and one of them introduced me to the organizers. I gave my email to one of them, because I think this event could be even bigger next year, and it should be, and I might be able to help with that. So hurray for making a step forward on one of the PC target areas, AIDS awareness and prevention.
I have had more success this week in my phonics classes with the kindergarteners. Partly it's due to my asking a couple of teachers to keep one or two children that had been giving me infinite problems. It's worked, at least. When the trouble kids aren't there, the other kids are still rambunctious (they are young kids, afterall), but they do listen to me. I also have been working on giving them incentives (e.g., sit still and be quiet for this song, and the next song you can dance around). I have started sending kids back to their classrooms if they misbehave to a point where I can't actually teach. I've also noticed that the easiest way to get their attention is to start the music (if it's not on) or stop it (if it is). My throat gets sore a little, but not nearly as bad.
Still, I know I'm not the kind of person who should be a teacher. I like organizing things and people, not controlling them (or trying to).
Yesterday at the Infant School the District Education Officer came and had a meeting with the task force committee (myself, the principal, the special needs teacher, and a teacher representing each grade). We talked about different activities we can do to improve the students' literacy and numeracy and therefore the school's test performance. Perhaps I'll get to work on getting a reading room running there, and maybe the afterschool program too. I'll see what I can do.
At Belle Vue I'm working on getting a small booth together about the Reading Room for the Open House/Showcase of Talent next week. It's neat because PCVs back in 2005 got the whole thing started, and it's still going. Hurray for sustainability!
On more personal notes, I sent the last of my Christmas packages today. I've only sent four, one to my mom & her house, one to my dad and grandma, one to Berney, and one to my Secret Santee. Unfortunately, I couldn't send the breadnuts to the last two that I had peeled and dried for that purpose. The post office wouldn't let me. It was very sad, since I wrote out instructions for cooking and all that, and I had to just cross it all out. But at least I don't need to worry anymore about sending anything else for a while. Sorry everyone else, I just can't afford it (it's cost around $15-25 for each package, in addition to contents).
This evening my neighbor Kathy invited me to the hospital's volunteer pizza party. She's an administrator from Iowa, and she's worked here at St. Jude's on and off for the past 14 years. I met some of the hospital staff, including groundsmen and doctors, and some nurses from Cuba, some med students from Switzerland, a priest from Nigeria, and some volunteer doctors that are only here a couple weeks from the US. It was really interesting to learn a little about all these people, and lots of fun to sit in on conversations in English between people who speak different languages back home. The pizza was interesting, too! One was vegetable (a frozen veggie mix of chopped green beans, carots, corn, cauliflower?), one was tuna, one was hot dog. This is how they do it down here, and though there were onions on all of them (I've been trying to get over it), I have to say the tuna pizza was actually pretty tasty!
Also, on Sunday after the AIDS event I passed by my friend Albert's house, and ended up staying for about an hour and a half to chat and have a bite to eat. He and his girlfriend Babsie are very nice and welcoming, as is the norm here. They gave me a huge soursop fruit, since Albert has a soursop tree in his yard. Now, I had already gotten myself into trouble when I bought too much fruit for the weekend, but I figured it would be ok. Well, this thing ripened, so I had to cut it open to taste, and now it's open and only a quarter eaten, despite my efforts eating and sharing with my neighbor. So I might get a chance to make some juice with it, except I only have one pitcher (which is perpetually filled with golden apple juice these days) and no large bottles, so even that might have to wait.
What is soursop? Well, if you remember waaaaay back to September, I wrote about sugar apples. Soursop is related, but pretty different. While a sugar apple is generally the size of a fist, this soursop is as big as a medium sized watermelon. It's spiny rather than scaly, and fibrous rather than grainy on the inside. The seeds are almost identical though, hard and black and shiny. Finally, the taste of the soursop is much like the sugar apple--very sweet, almost like plain old sugar--but with a very nice tangy flavor. Pretty much, it's delicious. To make the juice I should pour boiling water over it, press out the juice, add milk, and maybe sweeten it. Sounds like a delicious milk tea that could be served with tapioca pearls (bubble tea!) although I don't trust myself (or the availability of ingredients) to try that right now.
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