CCT day #2 this week and I had some friends join me this morning on my walk from Morogoro to CCT. I brought my camera today and we saw monkeys in the trees above the road to CCT! The talks today by our PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer) were really good. She kept her talking to a minimal/medium amount and made it interactive. There was an overall topic which included covering such thing as pregnancy and AIDS (how not to get it). At the end of the day she joined with the PCVs to talk about ways of dealing with stress (aka coping mechanisms). Turns out I can still bake here when stressed out; I just have to change from calling Eric to writing letters.
In between the health talks we covered cultural adjustment. Each CBT group presented on different pages out of the book. We were given the assignment last week and were supposed to plan a skit, song, etc. to present the info. My group didn’t really ”plan” ours but it turned out okay – even though they called me out while we were up there to act out some of the things. Didn’t really see it coming but luckily I had though a little bit about it. Maybe if Doug posts the video, you can see my amazing acting. The last group to go was Kayenzi: Colin, Ghee, Eric, David, and Meagan (M). This other group staying in Kihonda is what you would expect from 4 guys being together and they are a riot (poor Megan/Magnet though). Apparently their group though they had to do a song so the boys broke out their own rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody while Megan mimed the parts. Although they kept some parts of the song, the changes they made were brilliant and reflective of us here and now. They even threw in some Kiswahili (ex. ugali leo = porridge today) that was similar to the English (ugali leo = Galileo).During the instrumental part, the guys did some sick air guitar too. We were all dying laughing and it was a perfect way to end the skits.
After CCT, a bunch of us went to Dragonaires. I was hoping for some pizza but the ovens weren’t warm enough by the time I had to get going to get home before dark. Guess I’ll have to find some other way to have it. At home, I helped cook rice and vegetables. I’m getting a little better in the kitchen. I start my internship teaching next week (Monday) so I did a little planning today. Since I don’t know where the students are at in the syllabus and what else they need to learn, I have decided to make the first lesson an introduction to me (& vice versa) and a few questions to help gauge where they are.