What I do

These days.  I'm busy and feeling uninspired by my food choices lately.

I'm teaching 8th grade Biology 12-8:30 pm two days a week. My students are much more enjoyable this year since I've learned how to manage my classroom better.  I'm also teaching an English class once a week to the three priests-in-training at Kim's mission school.

Kim and I are running a reading activity/tutoring program once a week.  We're still working the kinks out (IE:  how to avoid Book Riots)

I'm writing a grant to get the water system fixed at my school.  Right now, students have no access to bathrooms or drinking water while they're at school.  Kids who live in the dorms have to climb on top of a water tank to pull up buckets of salt water for washing and drinking.  Their bathrooms would classify as cruel and unusual treatment anywhere else...

I'm working with the Museum in the city once a week, trying to get a functional educational program started, but I'm running into all sorts of obstacles on this one.  Turns out the employees that would be running the program don't actually have a job description so we had to go back to the beginning on our training plan, and then I was sick for a while and so was my counterpart at the museum so a few meetings got cancelled, and then next thing I know I lost a whole month.  Hopefully this week we'll get moving again.

I volunteered to generate the schedule for my school (which has 43 teachers, 35 classes and 17 time periods a day--it's a triple shift school) so that I could manage my free time myself.  Turns out this was a gigantic mistake.  Each time I made a schedule I would hear countless complaints and then the Ped. Director would tell me of the three professors who couldn't teach their assigned classes because of whatever reasons.  After I made the Ped Director swear to talk to all the teachers and find out what their restrictions were I'd remake the schedule.  We'd post the new schedule and within minutes at least 6 teachers would be knocking on my door or cornering me in the teacher's lounge telling me why they couldn't work at whatever time was assigned...and so on.   I believe we're on the 5th round of this.  I think this time it's going to stick.....

I'm over Mozambican food.  I'm tired of endless days of soggy green leaves in coconut sauce over rice (which is really really good...but still....).  I'm tired of trying to be creative with the limited choices in the market (beans, chicken, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, cabbages, coconuts, peanuts and green leaves).  I want fast food.  I want things in cans.  I want frozen vegetables.  I want variety.  Good news though, it's Avocado season, so I'm eating lots and lots of delicious guacamole.

I'm really getting the hang of cooking while sitting on a straw mat. You should try it, it's fun.