Message!

The other day I observed how the mail reaches me. As I was walking home from school, one of the big passenger buses came whizzing past me blaring its horn. I watched as the post woman came sprinting out of the post office, arms flailing in the air. As the bus threw itself around the curve, the driver chucked a bag out of the window which the post woman failed to catch. It hit the curb15 feet down the road where she retrieved it. “What’s that?” I asked. “Oh, just the mail,” she said, “look, you have a card!” As it turns out, the post office has a contract with the buses to deliver the mail along their routes. Just don’t send anything too fragile.

School is going well. The English program here is like a wild knot that I’m trying to untangle. I think I’ve got all the ends figured out, now I just have to work with my counterpart to slowly develop a strategy to implement a program that will last beyond my two years of service. It’s a little bit tricky because she plans to retire as soon as I’m gone!

Back at my host family’s house, I’m enjoying the food…maybe a little too much. Fresh veggies every day has me eating more cabbage than I ever thought possible. Add fresh carrots, squash, okra, onions, ginger, potatoes, watercress, chayote and, of course, rice rice rice! I’m weaning myself off of coffee and started drinking an array of wild tea instead. They have a several varieties of “mountain tea,” wild lemongrass, mint, and some plant that I can’t decide if it tastes like peppermint or root beer or something in between.

In my spare time, my host brother has been trying to teach me to play guitar. Otherwise, I have been reading or trying to recreate Taboo, Balderdash, and other vocab games that my class would enjoy. Know what a dingleberry is? Look it up. Holidays are fast approaching (we’ve been celebrating Christmas since September1). Next week is semester break for the students, the week after that is filled with days off due to more holidays, and then it is the district athletic meet. I’ll be going, hopefully, to Manila to attend the 50^th anniversary not only for Peace Corps in the Philippines, but for the agency itself. Thank you JFK!

P.S. Change of address! You can send letters and small packages to the address on the right. Please don’t send anything expensive or, like I mentioned before, might break due to being thrown out of a window (defenestration – thank you balderdash).

My counterpart, Mam Nellie, and I.

Teaching in my 1st year class.

Volleyball is probably the most popular sport.
The boys play it every chance they get.

Where my food comes from.