Almost done!

It's a sad weekend, our last return to Mvae is tomorrow, our last shopping trip. It's so sad to be leaving! That said I did book our safari today (fastest $US365 I ever spent!) so we're all very excited to be going as well. And having seen Jane, Anne Marie and Mike all go a little crazy in their last two weeks I think 7 weeks was a good length of time, 10 would be awesome but I might never be the same :P

So last weekend I signed up for facebook, at the request of all those here who have it and wanted to keep in touch. I agree, it's easier etc. etc. but I already regret it. Why would people I haven't spoken to since intermediate want to be friends with me? Or more importantly, why would I be friends with them? This has nothing to do with Africa, just a small gripe since I have limited time and they're wasting it :P Friends and family are welcome, and there are definitely a few people I'd love to reconnect with but if I ever have more than 100 friends someone please destroy my computer!

Back to the country I'm in... The week was eventful mostly because I was sick for Monday and Tuesday, and then so weak on Wednesday I couldn't work! So it's been a lazy week for me :P I'm fully recovered now, no drugs required, so kein problem. Today was a really great day on site, everyone was in a good mood and feeling playful, we were singing motown hits (Sugar, oh honey honey... I still remember all the words to that) while the fundis played war games with blocks of wood as guns - some boys never grow up!

Thursday we had our last day at school. The kids have exams next week so we spent an hour correcting their exams, very painful stuff! Examples of sentences:

All of us used to watch the footbal World Championship through the television last month.
She was too weak to eat herself.

We laughed a lot at the second one!!! After we ran through such examples of English sentences we got to the fun stuff! Jen and I made a wordfind for the kids with questions like "Where does Catie come from?" and the answers (New Zealand if you couldn't remember) hidden in the grid. I did an example question and you should have heard the gasp when the word Mvae was found in the grid - suddenly they got it! It was a lot of fun, and then Jordi broke out the balloons!!! The kids went nuts! These are 12 and 13 year olds who were so excited by balloons, we got a lot of joy from them. So that's it, no more teaching. We enjoyed it so much, I think we learned a lot too!

Wednesday was my night for cooking and we invited the chai ladies over for dinner to thank them. It was a really lovely night, Anna brought her baby and Joyce brought her grandson Davidi over so we got to play with the kids all night. The only downside for me was the attitude of the local men. We have had two dinner parties previously, both times only those invited showed up. On this occasion our guard, Jumanne, just sat down at the table and expected to be served as did Issa and his brother. Usually we're happy to feed them, when they're invited. I was so mad! There is no respect for women in this country. Although we're always aware of that, it's very hard when it's so clearly rubbed in our faces. It turns out that I'm not actually a nice person - sorry Mum, all that better to be nice than to be right? I gave Mr Jumanne the same size serving as five year old Davidi and because we were out of forks the boys ate with spoons. Oh the horrible pleasure I got in being so bitter. It really was a nice night with the women, and we managed to nicely ignore the men for a lot of it.

I think that's about all my news... I guess I'll see you again next week!