help

Help arrived this week. Rodrigo arrived yesterday and is here  to help teach our business courses. And Ben, another Iris missionary who arrived this week, has offered to help me get some footage of the school for you to see! I cannot wait to show you the sites and sounds of Pemba. I have failed at really giving you a good picture of what it is like and my time even on the internet to come here and write is limited and it is just hard to do. I write you often in my head and soak in sights I wish you all could see. I wish you could meet all the students and cheer them on with me. Some days are hard and the work I do seems like a drop in the bucket and I need cheering on too. Nothing ever goes according to plan and it seems my job is to roll with the punches and constantly think on my feet. We are offering tangible courses and students are learning and I understand that this is a feat unto itself. I am learning that some of my students don’t read and write. I am trying to find more hands on courses and apprenticeships for them. Most days I am just proud of them for showing up and give myself a pat on the back too. 

Life here bares no similarities to life back home. I don’t dress the same, eat the same, talk the same, drive the same, shop the same, sleep the same, bathe the same. Everything is different. I wear baggy linen and tank tops and my hair up in a sweaty bun. I eat a very repetitious menu that I am constantly trying to change up a little. I drive a little plastic scooter on the other side of the road. If I know the word in Portuguese, I use it. I shop at little barraccas and the one overpriced South African market and only purchase food items and phone credit. I sleep in a twin bed under a mosquito net. I take bucket baths and very cold showers. 

My new house has mold and it is making me sick. I painted in hopes to get rid of it but it seems to be in the weak little air-conditioning too and I don’t know what else to do. 

I took the kids on a field trip this past weekend to the Iris Farm for them to see a farm in operation. I took a field trip once to the State Capitol and that and my 4th grade teacher influenced my life in a pretty big way. 

I will be leaving here in 20 days and feel like I have a ton to do before I go and so much to brief Rodrigo on. I am apprehensive to leave my kids and pray that the momentum grows in my absence. I am also elated to come home to all of you. I’ve missed you more than you know. Even my little “cardboard town” of Hartwell. Someone sent me a thank you note with a pen and ink sketch of the Square on the front. I have it in a tiny easel on my desk in my room. I cannot wait to hit the produce aisle at Ingle’s and I am pretty sure I am the first person to ever say that. I cannot wait to see my family and squeeze them tight. Every day I am grateful to all of you for sending me here. You are making a difference. I know these kids are learning something at least. Even if it is to speak English with a Southern accent. I know my life is forever changed and the longer I stay here the more I change and grow and learn. It stretches you here. I will never struggle with all the issues these poor kids do, but I get to stand next to them and watch it all up close, and that changes you. I am praying that time slows down a little when I get home and I can spend time with you. I need you. It is going to be a full six weeks.