Water Shortages motivate me to organize.

Basically, I have decided that my blog needs to make more sense. I have lots of time to do this, so I don't know why it hasn't happened yet. Honestly, I've never had this much time in my life, and until very recently, didn't exactly know what to do with myself. I'm not really sure that I do now, but I am working on it. Its kind of exciting actually, because one of the reasons why I wanted to come to the peacecorps is to do the things I've never had time to do. And help people, off course.

PHE Class

Anyways, yesterday, I had my second PHE class, it was much better than the last. 4 out of 5 of the learners seemed to understand me, and we played musical chairs, so that was great. Also, I think I am getting better a gearing the activities towards learners here—obviously, i still have a lot to learn, but I can relate to the teachers. Things you would normally expect to go wonderfully (or things that have gone really well for me before) can fall flat here... well honestly, i can't even tell if they're going well or not because the kids are so quiet. I know its cultural that the kids are so shy, but I also feel like despite culture, I don't want them to be shy around me. I don't have to deal with the same discipline issues that teachers do, because fortunately, I already have good learners.

Discipline

Speaking of discipline issues I had a conversation with some teachers on saturday about methods of punishment and not using verbally abusive language to punish learners, but i was kind of caught in my own inexperience. I guess it was obvious that I was speaking to them from the perspective of a student, just having finished being a student myself. Basically though, they had a valid complaint... people are always saying they should do things differently, but they never suggest how. I can understand that, but still have nothing to offer them. Any suggestions? I am thinking about it and realize i should ask fozia, since she is the only person i know with real training to be a teacher. If you're reading this... yeah, let me know.

Dirty Details

Outside of work, Omuthiya is fine, except there is no water for the second week in a row. Well, to be fair we had a small intermission between pipe breakings last week, but then someone accidentally hit the water pipe again saturday and the water has been out since then. Fortunately, my homestead has an outdoor tap that I can fetch water from, but I really am not enjoying doing it for extended periods of time. Plus, it does put a damper on my avoiding the pit latrine scheme, b/c a pit latrine is really the cleanest option during a water outage. I am sure you all wanted to know about that... haha, but you wanted the dirty details on Namibia, so there you go.

Chickens and Cats

So, I've grown pretty accustomed to seeing animals everywhere. Its just how it is, people let their animals roam around, and I can't really think of a problem with it, its just weird at times. For example, yesterday, I was sitting in the computer room, and a chicken walked it, and just chilled out in here for a good 15 minutes. For some reason, the contrast of me sitting online reading CNN and typing up my PHE syllabus for the afternoon while a chicken clucked around me seemed hilarious. Unfortunately, I had no camera, but one day, it will happen, and I will display it for all to see forever when I return to the states. Yesssssssssss.

Also my cat, which i am starting to hate, has started doing this creepy thing where it jumps through my window at night and tries to jump on my bed. Eeeeeeek. This morning, i seriously freaked out. It also has the effect of ruining my screens. Well, that is all for today. I realize that is more understandable, but probably more boring. Like I said, I'm working on it, I have time.