School's out! [Thursday, June 21]

After waiting for a morning downpour to pass over, I took a poda over to Health Unlimited. Poda rides are always exciting, as long as you're patient and don't mind the apprentice and driver squeezing even more people into an already crowded van. This particular one was plastered with the very popular stickers that say "The blood of Jesus is my weapon" and "My family is covered in the blood of Jesus." One of the windows was simply not there anymore and the empty hole was covered in a plastic sheet, which was not very effective in keeping out the rain. After arriving a bit late at HU as I had underestimated the traffic, I worked with Ingrid on a revising a few documents and also met briefly with the two local staff members, Tommy and Samuel. The building is quite spacious and some of the rooms are even air-conditioned. My office lacks the cold air, but I guess the fantastic views from the windows make up for it.

At around 12 I took a taxi to iEARN where I spent a few hours doing a little bit of everything. My photography program is encountering some difficulties: inconsistent attendance, ballooning class sizes, and age differences (my youngest student in 14, my oldest is 29), just to name a few. I'm going to try to restructure the classes and possibly even pare down the sizes a bit. There are three new interns coming this Saturday, so I'm hoping that we can work together help to relieve a few of the problems. Also, exams are wrapping up this week at all the local schools, so soon the students should be able to come to the center on a more regular schedule.

Anyways, I returned to YMCA around 3 so I could re-do my lesson plans as the constantly excited iEARN center is not the best place for quite work. Sara and Jess came back a bit later. Moses had his last exam today, so we (Sara, Amanda, Moses, Mohammed, and myself) all went over to the place down Fort Street (I should really find out the name!) to celebrate with groundnut stew and rice. The lady even brought out some very tasty meat skewers for free...our total for dinner was Le16,500, which is about $5.50. Not bad at all for 5 people!

I talked to Mohammed for a bit and spent most of the evening working on some HU documents before going to bed early, as Osmem is supposed to meet me at 6:15 tomorrow morning...