Party

W packed and cleaned this morning since we leave the village today. I had enough time before teaching to go for a run. It felt great to exercise but I’m really out of shape. During my lesson for the Form 3 Chemistry, I talked about caves because I was trying to explain what limestone is, since it is used as part of the process for extracting metal. I was excited and a few students may have even understood what I was talking about. Then at the end, before leaving, I asked if they had any questions at all. I told them about the snow back home and even tried to describe lacrosse because they asked about sports. I explained that lacrosse is a local sport where I am from but it is spreading and my (2^nd) cousin even came to Africa with someone who was teaching the sport to kids in Uganda. I tried to make them feel special that lacrosse has come to Africa when it hasn’t even spread throughout the US. They mostly looked confused.

Due to some confusion w/ the taxis, they were waiting for me when I returned from teaching and there were 2 instead of 1. We learned that it is important to know the language and be able to order a taxi by ourselves, not thorugh someone else. In Njombe, we met up with all the current PCVs for a party for those leaving (COSing). The party was at the house of an RPCV who is now working for an NGO. Her and some of the PCVs made spaghetti and garlic bread – with some mozzarella! Cheese is pretty scarce here so it’s generally considered sacred. We had a good time hanging out with the PCVs and we learned a lot to tell Jordon, Tim, and Philip who are coming to the region from our training group. Both Tim and Jordon are replacement sites so I found out a lot about the sites from the guys they are replacing. One PCV, who is coming to training next week, was trying to remember my name and was going through “M” names because 3/5 in our Shadow group have “M” names. For some reason he said “Matriarch” so I am now Matriarch too. We met a celebrity too! Jill, who is about to COS, is dating a guy on a really popular TV show here called Ze Komodi Show (not quite American comedy but beloved here). So yeah, we partied with a celebrity.

While leaving, I didn’t see the crossbeam fro the opening in the fence and I whacked my head. When Eric returned to the hotel on the next taxi trip, he said he did the same thing. Except Eric was running to catch the taxi and ended p on his back. He had good major motor control and his pupils were responsive so I let him go to bed despite the mild lateral nystagmus (little eye shake when following finger) indicating a concussion.