Busy busy busy

I've been having trouble sleeping, I've been so busy! Before last week a lot of effort went into preparing for the Vieux Fort After School Programme (VFASP), and this past week a lot of effort went into making sure it got off the ground.

Well, it did! We had about 30 students each of the three days it runs, which is of course more manageable when there are more teachers and volunteers present. I'm especially excited that it started last week, because I could include it in my trimesterly report for PC. We still need to get some things in place, like more volunteers, regular club activities for half an hour after homework, etc., but it's great that the basic purpose is being fulfilled. Children are getting help with homework. When there are enough volunteers they get help from adults who already know the stuff, and when there aren't they get help from one another with key guidance from the adults that are around.

But even though this awesome thing is going on, it's been hard. Last weekend was so full of activity, from a fundraising concert in Laborie for St. Jude's to dinner in Balembouche (not the estate!) with a French family to another fundraising concert on Piaye beach--and all the house work and prep work that had to get done anyways! I haven't been getting much sleep for various reasons, and even twice last week I woke up from dreaming about writing lists and sorting out names and words, with children all around trying to help but being a distraction instead. Each day I come home (late, as you'll see in a bit) exhausted, but if I nap during the day I have an even harder time falling asleep at night.

So this three-day weekend was exactly what I needed. Berney and I went to Castries yesterday for a chess-training session, got a little shopping done in the market (mint! vanilla bean! miwi! roti!), and came back home for a quiet night. Today I made some vegan sloppy joes to take for our own cheap Oktoberfest at Sandy Beach, where we limed with Fae for a few hours. Tomorrow I'm looking forward to not leaving the house all day, and catching up on Heroes (since I didn't see the first three episodes of the season--I didn't have a working TV). Then it's back to some long days, but I'll be much more refreshed.

VFASP runs Mondays through Wednesdays until 4:30, so I get home around 5 or 5:30pm. Thursdays and Fridays, though, I still have to stay in Vieux Fort Town until about 4:30 because they're tearing down the remains of the hospital, and it's dangerous to be around the neighborhood with the asbestos in the air. They're working during the day, and then wetting everything down before people come home. So I need to find good reasons to stay around VF Town now. Or at least good places.

Finally, Berney and I recently celebrated two years of annoying each other constantly, regardless of proximity. :) I made a dinner that was special but not nearly as good as the lamb a month ago, along with a chocolate chip cookie cake with mint icing. Today we wrapped up the celebration with the rest of the lobster someone gave us as a consolation prize for getting ice thrown at us at the beach.

Oh. And both pairs of my work shoes broke. :(

Drafted on Thursday, 9/4/08

I shouldn't be allowed to read/listen/watch anything about food when I don't have a kitchen of my own to work with. I listened to three food podcasts in a row. Then I went to the kitchen. I ended up making a sort of grilled cheese sandwich, the first time I've actually made one myself. Wheat bread, mustard, sweet-hot (not very hot) peppers, american cheese, baloney (that had been sitting in the frying pan, covered, since this morning), american cheese, two pieces of lettuce, ketchup. I fried it in the grease from the baloney. It was alright, not enough meat, not enough flavor of anything....I'm sad because I don't have control over the food available in the kitchen, and many of the things that are available aren't for me to use. The women here are kind of possessive of their kitchens--they do almost all of the cooking and cleaning in most cases. My host mom today finally told me, "You can use anything you like in here. Make yourself at home." This is Thursday, now, so I've been here almost a week. But, of course, I don't feel comfortable making lunch (the biggest meal of the day), so it's either breakfast or a snack (or dinner which is a slightly larger snack). I followed up dinner with some crappy-and-bad-for-you cookies (they were the cheap ones at the store, and I picked them out, so eh) and some fresh, ripe star fruit. Here it's called five-finger. It's an interesting fruit--it tastes a lot like a pear or a golden delicious apple, but it feels citrus-y like an orange. It's only mildly sweet, even when it's ripe, but so acidic that it was burning my mouth a tiny bit for a couple minutes after eating a few slices. btw, you eat the skin, just not the seeds, so you can slice it or just bite into it. It's more fun to eat slices, I think.

Yesterday I went to meet my "point person," my main contact for my site/work assignment. He's the district education officer for this part of the island. So apparently I'll be focusing mainly on remedial education for lower grade levels--infant and primary schools. The former includes K-2, the latter grades 3-6. Working with kids directly and maybe trying to train teachers insofar as addressing the difficulties of working with "mixed ability" classrooms--pretty much what most schools in the States are, with bright, average, and slow children all under one teacher. I'll be working initially with these two schools down in Vieux Fort, and the district ed officer might decide to give me another school to work with. In addition, I may have a chance to work on arts & crafts in the schools, and there may be a need for me to do simple IT instruction in the primary school. That's kinda scary, considering how little I know about these magical boxes called computers, but I know how to use word processors and how to use the web beyond email, pictures, and games--but more importantly I have (some) experience showing kids how to use these things.

OH I had a dream on Wednesday morning. It was kinda funny. I was in a classroom, and there was a kid in front of me, who was showing the class and the teacher this starfish that he was trying to cut out, but couldn't quite get it right. So the teacher--who was SAMUEL L. JACKSON!--was admonishing him for being a poor math student. And part of that scolding included something about Melaney Parker being a very good math student. And everyone in the class agreed and looked at me, and in the dream I was embarrassed and my face was blushing, so I put my hand up to my cheek to hide my red face--and then I woke up, realizing that my face actually did feel weird, and I had a small mosquito bite on my cheek where I put my hand. In addition, there was a HUGE bite on my forehead, about 1" high and 2" across, and there was a similarly sized one on my shoulder. :( I was puzzled, since I have the mosquito net up, but I looked and there was a small opening between the flaps, probably from the fan blowing on it.

OK THAT'S IT