Edson's

Friday October 22, 2010

We made our way to town today on our extended lunch break. Our first stop was the internet shop. Ohhhhh it was so good to see there was life out there, tell everyone hello and that I’m doing fine. Our next stop was the market.  What a fun experience! It's like a maze of dealers; wherever you turn there is another person offering goods--fish lined out on boards, chickens hanging upside down, clothes strung from lines, and bags of rice and food on display in booths. The market is not only huge but finding your way out is half the challenge.

At the market I purchased a large piece of cloth, called capilana, to have a dress made. My roommate did that last week and it looks spectacular. The cloth was 100 mets and she paid 250 mets to have it made. The conversion is 37 mets to a US dollar. To say the least, things here are very inexpensive so when I can, I  enjoy supporting them. I’ll tell you how my dress turns out next week.

In the late afternoons on Tuesdays and Fridays we teach different levels of older students in a playground area. I may refer to this group as Edson's (the title of the original text that was used). We have 4 different levels of students. I have the highest level, which I love. I love that they know enough English to communicate with me. My group is made up of about 15 boys from the ages of 18 to 30. We have good discussions and are currently working on reading comprehension. I will read them a children's story and then they have to answer questions about it. We go over unfamiliar vocabulary and then correct their sentence structure. I love working with this group also because they want to learn so badly. They know that it will improve their life, so they try so hard. There are only two females in Edsons, and they are not in my group. We encourage females to come and learn, but there doesn’t seem to be any demand for it. They are very much expected to stay home and be the caretakers of the family.

My students love that I’m from America. After class I let them ask me any questions that they want. They are so curious. Today they asked about JayZ and Emenim. They wanted to know what a gangster was. Then they asked me to teach them some slang terms. On the spot I couldn’t really think of any… I still can’t. Good thing I have the weekend.