Back at Site

Since I returned to site there have only been, really, 2 things worth noting.
First, on the subject of new year's resolutions, a few friends and I decide we were going to fight the seemingly inevitable rice-belly most female PCVs gain. I've heard through the grape-vine that we "hot weather" volunteers are actually a little luckier and tend not to gain as much weight as other regions but all the same, when your diet consists of carbs with almost no fresh fruit or veggies, it's a struggle. To help, I've started running (not very far or fast, but it's a start). Even though I've only been doing it for a few days, it's really interesting each evening when I go for my run. I turn my music up loud enough that, while I can haer people yelling at me, I can't hear what they're saying (which helps a lot). Motivating yourself to run is hard enough in the heat (and I don't particularly enjoy the sport) but motivating yourself to do it knowing people are going to be laughing at you (it happens at least once everyday) is even more difficult. I do like the odd looks I get from the men out running and I've even taken to waving or giving them a head nod which is typically well received. Usually I run past the same group of old people who didn't say anything to me the first day (which I appreciated) so I've been greeting them everyday since. Today one of the people said back, "you're not running very far!" and everyone got a kick out of it when I said, "Slowly, slowly, I'm starting!" Hopefully I'll keep it up and people will stop thinking that it's SO weird (probably not).

The other thing that's happened recently is I became a pre-school teacher's aide/teacher. It started when I was on another unsuccessful quest to find the middle school in my neighborhood. I KNOW there is one here, I see kids walking home all the time (legitimately at every hour of the day - I have no idea when classes are), but every time I look for it someone gives me directions of, "it's over there." When I get "over there" I ask again and am told there's no middle school in Leona (my neighborhood). Though I didn't find the middle school I found a pre-school and decided to introduce myself. They offered to let me stay and help which I cashed in on considering everyone else has told me they would love to work with me but because I'm gone for all of February for Peace Corps training, they want me to start in March. The first day I sat in the yard while the kids crowded around me and either cried or touched my hands and then looked at their own to see if some of the "white" came off.

I went back to the pre-school today and actually helped, or tried. There are 3 classes of about 25 kids each, 3 year olds, 4 year olds, and 5 year olds. I worked with the 4 year olds today, who only speak Wolof. Their teacher had me working with one kid at a time (while the rest sat on a mat and stared at me) and teach drawing vertical lines. Luckily enough I know that "a line goes straight" (ask my parents for the story if you don't know it), so I was pretty good with that. After we finished it was snack time and each kid's mom had packed bread and chocolate spread and sometimes cookies for the kids. At that point I helped open cookie packets and sat outside with the teachers. After snack the kids had "play time" (I guess), mostly we all sat in a sandy yard and every time the kids started running around the teachers told them to be calm. There's one 3 year old who's just a brat, he hits people and when he realized that I saw him make another girl cry he started crying. He did something else bratty during break and the teachers turned to me and said, "he's going to be a criminal one day." And! break was over!

Afterwards I was told to pick 6 students (which I eventually made the teacher do) and watch them while they colored half sheets of printer paper with a colored pencil. Once a kid was done someone else rotated in - the rest sat on the mat. They kept trying to tell me things but my wolof vocabulary isn't suited (yet) for pre-school so the only thing I picked up was when a girl asked, "dem ngay pee-pee?" Not wanting to have to clean anything up I quickly sent her on her way.

Eventually everyone had finished coloring when I noticed I was the only adult in the room of 3 and 4 year olds. Stuck with what to do and no language skills to explain a fame if I could come up with one, I decided on the only thing I could think of...to teach them how to do jumping jacks. After that, I learned another lesson, when you get kids moving they only gain energy but I was saved by "song time." After that it was time to help the kids put on their backpacks and send them off.

I really want to stick with the pre-school if for no reasons other than kids are funny and some of their parents dress them like adults which I find to be HYSTERICAL. Other than that I'm just biding my time until training in February.

Oh! Happy 12th night everyone! Tomorrow (once I buy potatoes) I'm going to try to make my family pirogies!

KO