Monday

This morning we were back at Grey Memorial School to our kids! My teaching partner Desiree wasnt feeling well so she stayed home and I had to fly solo. She wasnt going to teach the lesson today about poetry so I just took her stuff she had planned and tried to make it good. We talked about poems and I read them one of Desirees poems. Then I had them write their name longways down a piece of paper and write a word that described them using the first letter. Lynley came at the end of my class to help since I was alone. They did so well on the poems, they really got it and it was fun reading some of the words they came up with about themselves. Like preacher. haha They were getting crazy towards the end of class so we just went outside to play. When I told them I was leaving for America soon they kept asking when I would come back. Its sad to leave them.
After school we drove about 20 minutes to a school called Happy Kids School. Its in a bad part of town it seems. We taught Boy Scouts and Girl Guides. They were the youngest group we have taught AIDS to so we had to tone it down a little bit and be careful with what we said. They were around 9-15 years old. My lesson on condoms got skipped because the headmistress only wanted us to teach abstinence and being faithful. Those kids were so smart. They could have taught us the lessons. They knew what HIV and AIDS was and how you get it and what to do about it. They had lots of intelligent questions and we were shocked about how open they were. We really could have taught anything and been fine but it wasnt up to us. They were so different from the adults we have been teaching because they werent afraid to participate or tell us how it is or things about their culture. They were genuine and in that way they were better than the adults. When we teach children I feel like we are really making a difference.
After teaching we stopped at a market we have been to a couple of times and all of us still bought more stuff! But we saw the vendors who remembered us and its fun to talk to them when they arent trying to sell us their stuff. It gets easier going to the market every time we go because we are learning the prices of things and how the vendors work. Since we are white and American they think we have tons of money. There are no set prices for anything, its all bartered. I think its kind of fun actually, to argue about a price. They hound us constantly when we walk around the market. They always say "My sista, come, look at my shop, I give you good price!" Theres always stuff in your face and if you say what you are looking for they run and get it for you. Its hard to just walk and look at everything because they hound and yell the whole time. We learn all the tricks so that they dont expect us to pay outrageous prices for something. If we start to walk away since they wont give us a better price they will say "Okay, Okay take it for 4 take it for 4." Once you catch on to them it can be really fun.
We were sitting on our bus after shopping waiting for the others to come and there was a boy with a wire basket of water on his head. He came to talk to us and we asked him if he was wokring today. He said "If I dont work, I dont eat. Ive only made 50 pesowa today" Pesowa is the cents. He made less than 50 cents today. Erin gave him 2 cookies and a hard candy. I gave him 20 pesowa.
We are now back at the hostel waiting for dinner and we cant wait because we are starving. We are having stroganof, pasta with red sauce, fruit, and rice. Yay :) And our choice of drink every night is Fanta, Coke, or Sprite. Thats pretty much the only choices of pop around. Everywhere sells those 3. Going to eat now!