more homestay

Hello there! Alot of stuff has happened in the last week but I will try and remember the interesting stuff. Last week was much more oriented towards teaching prep, which has been interesting to say the least. I don't want to bash Peace Corps, so I will just say it was rushed and disorganized (especially compared to the extremely well thought out/planned language training). Last week I met with the teacher whose classes I will be taking over for the next 3 weeks at my internship school. I'll be teaching the form 1 (~8th grade) physics class. There are 86 students. In one classroom. You can imagine it is pretty cramped, and they have to sit two to a desk. It is surprisingly quiet and orderly, which goes to show how much discipline and respect for the teacher are taking seriously in Tanzania. I sat in on math and physics classes last week and it was a bit of an eye opener. Although I am sure that there are plenty of great teachers in Tanzania, both teachers I happened to observe made pretty substantial mistakes. I guess it puts less pressure on myself, because if I can just teach accurate information the students will be better off. Also interesting is how mismatched the physics and math curriculums are. I'll be teaching a unit on pressure, which starts off pretty simply (force/area), but then essentially goes into fluid mechanics (which I didn't learn about until my sophmore year in college). Meanwhile the same kids are just now learning about perimeter and circumference in their math class. Anyways, my first class in on Wednesday, so I guess I will gauge what they know and have to make some adjustments. Three of the PCVs in my group taught their first classes today, so I am already getting pretty excited for mine!

In other news, I was sick this weekend, but I'm all better now so no need to worry. We had the 3rd shot for the rabies vaccine midday Friday, and my body had a bad reaction. Spent Friday afternoon and night feeling pretty shitty (headache, nausea, fever) and was still feeling not so great Saturday but was all better by Sunday. I was well taken care of by my Mama and had all kinds of neighbors stop by to wish me well, phone calls from family friends and other PCVs, etc. I decided to pass on a big 8 hour hiking outing with a bunch of other PCVs on Sunday to climb a nearby mountain, which was a bummer but that's just how it goes. Instead I spent a leisurely Sunday morning cleaning my room and washing all my clothes and shoes for 3 hours (Tanzanians are very particular about cleaning)...needless to say my raw knuckles aren't too happy! Went over to the house of Mama Isaac's best friend for lunch and then went to visit her sister-in-laws. I'm still getting used to being the center of attention. I'm a source of endless wonder, and people just stare and talk about me right in front of me. They also like to touch my skin, hair, etc. Could you ever imagine going over to a stranger's house, where they'd take off your shoes and start painting your toenails with henna?! (you also need to understand how impossible it is to keep your feet clean of all the dirt and dust, and how grossed out I am by my own feet)

We got kind of scary news today. One of my fellow volunteers, Danielle, got in an accident involving a pikipiki (motorcycle) yesterday evening. I don't know the details, just that she was hit and she was taken to the hospital in Dar. Luckily she's fine, and just has some cuts and bruises on her leg, so hopefully she will be back soon!

Next weekend marks the halfway point of training, and all the volunteers will be traveling to a nearby nature reserve for a safari. Some of us were going to try to camp, but it looks like that might not work out. Either way it will be a nice break from training and I'm really looking forward to it!

Anyways, I just want to say thanks to everyone who has messaged, emailed, commented, etc...I wish I had enough time (and money!) to reply to you all individually, but I have read and appreciate every word!

AND NEXT TIME I PROMISE PICTURES!!!