26/01/11

Guy and Anat, two family friends since before I was born left today after a wonderful visit. I was partially named after Anat and here, where even sharing a name with someone is a big deal, being named after someone is a huge honor, so everyone enjoyed meeting her. They came to the mission on Sunday to see the afternoon dance party and meet everyone at the mission. Then Ann, Erin, and I took them out on the town in Inharrime for dinner and the one restaurant actually had something other than chicken as a dinner option! They must have known it was a special occasion. Monday through Wednesday we went to Tsene where we had a wonderful time hanging out with John and Yvette, lounging about, and where I basically embroidered for 72 hours straight and my hands kept cramping up but I discovered I love embroidering! Our first night at Tsene I cooked Thai massaman curry to everyone ALL BY MYSELF. (Anyone who knew me before I came here knows that is a huge feat!) I literally sliced every vegetable and did all the taste-testing by myself! And it was delicious!
Wonderful to have visitors, it’s always such a pleasure to share my new life here with people from back home.
One thing I am realizing that I miss is that I don’t have my students trained yet like I did with last year’s students. They don’t yet understand that I never make empty threats and when I tell them to do something like sit on the floor there is no discussion. Today I kicked out all 45 students of one class and gave every single one of them a bad mark for the day. I think now they are a little closer to understanding.
Tons of the girls from the orphanage have been sick the past week, at least 4 of them sleeping with high fevers at any given point. Irmã Lucilia explained that this happens every time they return from spending time at home, because in their homes they don’t have mosquito nets, often aren’t eating well, and don’t practice as good of hygiene.