The rain last night meant no dust this morning, which was a welcome relief. I was observed for the first time while teaching today and it went well. Rose really didn’t have too much to say for improvements; hopefully I’ll have a good lesson next week when I am observed by the PCV. During our Internship teaching, we have to be Teacher on Duty at some point. Today I found out who one of the teachers is on duty for the week and will join her on Thursday to shadow her. She was with other teachers when I was talking with her and among the questions I was asked were, “Are you engaged? Why not?” I responded that I’m a teacher and too busy…plus my friends are in America. Then I think I was asked if they are black (or white) and I just told them that friends are friends. I mean really, does it matter?

Mid-afternoon we walked to Educare, the private secondary school in Kihonda. Kids who don’t do well enough on their exams to go to a public school, will go to a private school if their parents can afford it. Generally, the students at public schools are better students than those at private schools (not always the case but overall). Of course the school fees at private schools are higher and the facilities can be a little better. The room the Educare CBT meets in is the teacher’s lounge, which has couches, coffee tables, and a fan! It is much more comfortable than our classroom (or the teacher’s lounge for that matter) at Kihonda. It didn’t take us long to figure out how we are going to present on American focus in interactions. We recognize that the focus changes depending on the situation so we chose 5 areas to demonstrate: corporate, big purchase, small purchase, friends, and family. Sometimes, like for large purchases or when asking someone for something important, there is usually some “small talk” first, which shows a focus on relationship. However, many of our interactions in America are task-oriented; the focus is on the business at hand, then the relationship.

Will and I were able to get my photos downloaded to his computer this evening and I saved some to my jump-drive to post online. Unfortunately, we had to install the Kodak software from the disc in order to get the pictures transferred from camera to computer. Not sure what I’m going to do when at site if no other PCV w/ a computer is “close”.

My CBT group decided to stop having a local lady make our lunch and bring it to us she was making good food but it cost us each 2,000Tsh, which is half of our daily allowance. So in order to save money, eat different foods, and interact more with locals, we are on our own this week for lunch. I had good ol’ peanut butter and jelly with a couple of bananas and it was sooo good! I’ve missed peanut butter. Actually, I ended up eating 4 bananas today but they taste better and are a little smaller than the ones sold in the States. At dinner, I was served some pumpkin. It seemed more like what we would call squash in the US but it’s close. I wonder if they made if because they think it’s an American food? It is, but is there brown sugar here to put on it?