A Few Anecdotes

·         I was working out in my backyard doing a P90X video.  I heard my back neighbor greet me and turned around to find her plus five children in their papaya tree watching me over the fence!  I just kept up with the workout pretending like no one was watching.  You kind of get used to a lack of privacy here. 

·         About five or six girls come to play at my house lately.  Typically we play cards, jump rope, throw a Frisbee, or draw (I have some of their drawings decorating my living room wall).  On Saturday, I read with them from a few books Peace Corps had given us.  I must admit, even in the level one books (which is along the lines of “big fish, little fish, skinny fish, fat fish” etc.) I did not know some of the Portuguese words so it was a learning experience for me too.  I think this is probably one of the few times these kids have/will ever hold an actual book and it was cute sitting there reading with them.  They are between the ages of 7-9, yet have not learned how to read.  One girl I think knew how, but was too shy to do it for me.  Maybe another day.

·         I showed these same girls a picture of my family and they pointed to one person asking, “Who’s that?” “That’s me!” I replied…. I guess I look a little different with my hair down, straightened, and clean…

·         On my walk home from school on Monday, I saw a guy wearing an Anaheim Angels t-shirt, my hometown’s baseball team.  Getting closer, but I’m still waiting for the day I see something from my high school…

·         The weather here is probably the most bipolar thing I have ever experienced!  For instance, Tuesday morning, it was over 100 degrees, before 8am.  Then around 1pm, it got cold (“cold” now means like 70, which compared to over 100 definitely feels cold…) and started pouring!  And I mean pouring! Thunder and lightning too!  The roof of my house is made of zinc, so imagine the noise inside when it rains….then multiply that by a factor of 10!  It’s so loud, sometimes I can’t even hear my computer even with headphones in! 

·         Any ideas for how to teach a computer class when the electricity is going crazy, making the computers shut off every couple minutes or when there is no electricity?  Any suggestions are greatly welcomed!  I resorted to bringing some of the keyboards into the classroom for them to at least get to touch and learn where and what some keys are for.  Definitely learning to be flexible and think on the spot! 

·         A new friend in the house Tuesday night, a little frog about an inch big in my bedroom.  Captured him in a small pot and took him back outside where I think he will be a little happier.  Not gonna lie, I definitely let out a little yelp when he tried to jump towards me.  But rather him in my room than the rat who I think has been running around looking to eat anything and everything.

·         Wednesday afternoon, bored and tired of sitting at home alone, I decided to go for a walk and ran in to the five little girls who come play.  We walked through a few streets then returned to my front yard and played “duck duck goose”, joined by about five other kids.  Hot in the sun, we moved to sit in some shade, and I soon discovered that I now had about 30 kids curious about what the strange American was doing.  We danced a little in the road and then I brought out a Frisbee.  Now with 40 or more kids, we threw around the Frisbee, them acting like any other child, diving, kicking, pushing, laughing, running for the Frisbee.  It was quite the “Peace Corps moment”, I’d say.  Any ideas for more games to play with them?