Model School of Hard Knocks

Dear diary, it's been two weeks since my last entry. Food supplies run thin and moral is at an all time low. The amount of excrement in this cave is unfathomable. Time is a meaningless notion here, days come and days go, but no one knows why or how. All we can do now is hope and pray for some semblance of the reality we once knew. If this becomes my last entry, someone.... please tell my story.

So yea, everyone is really anxious to get to post. Training has been great and we've learned a ton, but it's also been seemingly endless. It will be really nice when we are all somewhat in control of our own lives and schedules again. Although I will miss mama Jacqueline's cooking. Spaghetti omelettes are now a staple of my diet. Her fish and chicken are excellent as well. I particular like the head and brain of the chicken, although I enjoy other parts of the fish more than the fish head and eyes. But when you're hungry, really anything is edible. Also, killing the food makes eating it much more satisfying. I helped kill a chicken which was very interesting. My host brother chopped off it's head, threw the chicken in a bowl, and then had me hold a lid down over it. The feet were kicking and the wings were flapping for at least two minutes. Eventually the headless chicken lost the will to continue struggling, at which point we poured boiling water over it. This made the defeathering process quite simple. Now that I've seen it done I'm allowed to machete the head off of the next chicken, I'm excited.

What else has gone on? Seems like a ton. We started model school two weeks ago which has been awesome. I'm quickly learning how difficult teaching is. Fortunately I'm teaching in English, and the topic is magnetism which I enjoy. I'm giving my kids a test tomorrow and they're really smart so I expect most of them to do well. They start learning physics at a much younger age here and know much more than I ever did at their age. Right now there are only twelve kids in my class, but at post I'm expecting between 50 to 100 which will be really challenging to manage. Once I go to post I will also find out which specific subjects I will be teaching, I'm hoping for upper level math or physics.

French has been going well, although the accent is definitely difficult for me. I came in at the lowest level and moved up three levels after my first test so now I only have one more level to go to pass the language criteria. I've also started learning pidgin which I'll be using a lot at post. It's relatively easy to understand what people are saying but it's a lot harder to speak it. I think once I'm speaking it in my day to day life I'll pick it up quickly.

Other things...

Our training group all bought matching pagne (fabric with printed designs) to make clothing out of for our swearing-in ceremony. I just was at a tailor putting in my request. I'm getting a Bubu made, sorta a fancy long man dress with matching pants, can't wait! The tailoring doesn't come cheap though, 16 american dollars for the whole ensemble, geesh. When I'm near Bamenda I plan to start getting all my clothes tailored. I'm through with wearing garments that weren't made for my precise dimensions.

Last things, pretty sure I'm going to get a cat, to hunt and kill any and all mice at my soon to be new home. Convinced myself today that I'm going to get a baby goat as well, because they are SOOOOOO CUTEEEE! Still not sure about getting a puppy yet. I'd love to have one, but they do need a lot of attention, and when I leave, there's a 50 50 chance that whoever I leave it with will end up eating it. I won't mind if my cat or goat gets eaten, I might even eat them both myself. But I don't know if I could emotionally handle not knowing the fate of my little pup.

And oh yea, great job team USA. That final game vs Belgium was exciting. Glad to see we didn't pull a Brazil! Too soon? Feel free to ask questions about anything.

Cheers!