How 'free-range' should chickens really be?

Here I sit - in town - on my once a month restock weekend, after completing two official weeks of teaching. It is overwhelming as I try to remember how I learned in High school - how were quadratic equations explained to me? And I struggle with overlaying my experience with what my students here will have. Two of our four classrooms don't have roofs at the moment, so the form 1 class has been outside under a tree -- being the rainy season makes teaching there a bit difficult. Most of these students get up and haul water from far off wells or farm in their families fields before they make it [most often late] to class at 7:30. There are those that cannot afford pens or notebooks, the language barrier is always an issue, and in form 1 at present I have 100 students in a room intended for 20. But I am taking it in stride.

Outside of school life has been frustrating at times - things don't quite work the way they should and for most of this the chickens are to blame. I remember in my vegan days - thinking Utopically about chickens wandering around doing as they please. At this point I am ready to either kill them all or lock them up. Understand that this comes after they completely demolished my compost bin and scrapped up all of my tomato plants. But next week my neighbor is building me a new bin - I hope his survives longer than mine.

But for now, some of my favourites:
- Being invited to a student's house for lunch last week.
- Having a dance party every morning in my underwear with my Dance!Dance!Dance! playlist on my iPod
- Hearing a knock at the door only to find the church Reverend's cook at the door with a bag of bread, carrots and a HUGE cabbage.
- Walking to my water well -- it is absolutely gorgeous. I always have a moment of "Am i really here?" as I walk through the fields of ground nuts, soy nuts, and finally the maize that surrounds the well. At this point the maize stalks are almost as tall as I am.
- Thinking that I had both rats and bats in my house the other night only to climb out from under my net, flashlight in hand and finding that all the noise was from a cockroach that had landed on it's back.
- Having my form 1 students actually tell my that I had made a mistake on the board (-2 is after all NOT greater than 10)

Such is life at present. I get impatient and frustrated with myself a lot here -- but I also keep telling myself that I have time. That I don't need to know every one's name in my village yet for example....new ones keep popping up! So, when you think about me - think calming thoughts, free from anxiety and frustration. Love and miss you all!