Diary of a 26 yr old daughter of the chief

Hi everyone!! Well, here's the scoop.. I have been without internet access for some time now because our last time in Gourcy the internet was not working, and since there is only one place in town to check email, that means I was sh** out of luck... SO... today, me and my homies biked for an hour and a half (about 20 km) from Bassi to Gourcy (let me clarify that these are not paved roads... it's sand and gravel, mostly uphill and into the wind), followed by a half hour bus ride up north to a city called Ouahigouya... so now I am here and there is internet... for the next 13 min.. that's when I am out of time because now I have to get back to Bassi..
yes I know.. cry me a river..

So I have been quite the busy person these last 2 or 3 wks.. we have been practice teaching, which has been going pretty well. With HUGE classes, it's somewhat difficult to keep their interest and discipline them, but we have been working out our own methods. Plus, ther's always someone observing and giving feedback afterwards, so that really helps a lot. AND I have teaching in my blood, so how bad can I be??

We try to do a lot of fun stuff in our lessons, like the one I am teaching tomorrow is about graphing on the x and y axes. So I am turning the class into a big graph in their seats, and handing out big papers for each kid on the x and y axis, and they have to find which kid is at whichever point I ask for.. Is that clear? Probably not, but I don't have enough time to go back and clarify that last statement.

Funny story.. I was teaching in Bassi, with close to 90 13-yr olds, and while 3 were up at the board doing an exercise I asked them to do, one of them had turned around while I was addressing the class and put green chalk all over his lips, so when I turned back around I saw a kid with brght green lips looking at me with a totally serious face. Andi f you know me at all, all I could do was crack up in front of the whole class... and kept giggling some more about it even 10 min later... I wish I could be more serious, but I'm not.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes.. Rebecca and Arline and Herb, you sent killer packages, and the cards and emails I have received were equally wonderful!!! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

To all you wise-asses, I did not eat shit to get the giardia... probably inadvertently, but not on purpose. Stop researching so much on the internet... don't you have jobs???

OK, I'm out of time!!! aaaaghhhh so much to say!

I will be in Ouaga next week... training is just about OVER and I am very happy about that!!

More from Ouaga when I have more free time... I have lots to write!

Love you and I miss you all and America tons!!!

FYI - for now the Ouaga address is OK to use to send letters or packages.. I will let you know when I have a Bobo address..it will reach me eventually either way. Letters seem to take about 2 wks, and packages about a month.