25/08/10

Today in the middle of class a student raised his hand to ask a question (the same one who last week informed me that my bata was mis-buttoned). I eagerly called on him and he asked “what does ‘you are the best for cook’ [in English] mean?” I LOVE his speaking up in class, now we just need to get the comments math related!
While I was in Namaacha my host mother asked me about one of the girls in the orphanage who she knew when the girl had lived in Namaacha (there is a Salesian Sisters’ mission with an orphanage in Namaacha too). She asked how she and her sister Nora were doing. I was surprised, “we have a Nora, but I didn’t know they were sisters!” Tonight I asked one of the sisters and she confirmed, I was surprised, I had no idea! “You didn’t know?” she asked. “Did you know Mariazinha and Julia are sisters?” No! “Did you know Sheila and Angelica are sisters?” No! She then rattled off a list, turns out we have 8 sets of sisters at the orphanage and I had only known about 2 of them! It’s interesting because the sisters don’t act any differently with each other than they do with all the other girls, but maybe they actually see themselves as having 51 sisters, not just one.
I finally got someone to do my laundry for me once a week. I hadn’t before because I felt so guilty about my posh life here that I felt like I had to suffer somehow. I will just have to find a less time-consuming way to suffer.