Different Folks

It is amazing how different each person's site is. I just got back from a friend's site -- and her school was crazy. She has electricity and a kick-ass science lab. We spent 4 hours organizing boxes and boxes of beackers, flasks, crazy bizarre glassware, pulley wheels, scales and chemicals I have never heard of. She had 3 life size skelatons and models of the ear, eye and mouth. It seemed unfair, well it IS unfair -- why couldn't resources be more evenly distributed? Did one school really need 3 skelatons? We cooked fabulous food: delicious oatmeal in the morning, potato curry stew with rice for lunch, and hot cocoa for dinner! It was suprisingly as cold there as it is in Kalumbu which made me happy. Inspite of that...I still prefer my home here. I remember our trainers saying when we first got our site assignments, that no matter where you end up - you will learn to love your site. And they were right. I wouldn't trade my village for anything. I love that women give me free donuts at the market when I'm buying gauvas. I love that it takes me an hour to ride a distance that should take me 30 minutes because I am called off the road by families along the way. I love that my students can interpret my funny faces and sound effects as I'm teaching. I love that I can cook things for my neighbors and that we always have something new to talk about. I love that the people around me continue to challenge my language proficiency, that they constantly teach me new words and are almost always patient in their corrections of me. I love that my house is my own, that kids come over and we draw pictures in my freshly swept yard, that they teach me dances as I teach them how to use crayons.