hello! i hope everyone saw the pictures, i will try to do more on Thursday maybe. it just takes so long.... and my patience is limited!
I am back in Arusha town today, after teaching 3 periods, to watch the Rwanda trials. We stopped in when we got to town and watched for about a half hour, when of course, they called lunch break. bummer. but we are here, will get lunch, then head back. The guy on trial today is being charged with killing the prime minister of Rwanda, back in 1994. AMAZING! we get to see the big wigs go down... or at least part of their trial! It took a while to figure out which side was defense and which was the prosecution but all my days of watching law and order (!!) are so paying off. haha. We watched the testimony of an American crime expert- we thought that was a pretty interesting expertise... but we came in to the cross examination of the witness by the defense. It is interesting how many Americans are involved, one of the judges and maybe 4 of the lawyers. It took a while to figure out what was going on.... but basically for what i gathered, the prime minister was killed by a hand grenade. The defense was trying to show that the expert crime guy witness was not 100% sure in ruling out a grenade launcher... meaning the defendent would be innocent because he was found in the room. OR something along those lines. I think once we go back and see more i will get a much better idea of what really is going on, details wise with the crime. BUT, regardless, even with limited understanding, it is cool! One of the first questions asked to the witness was 'where were you from june-august 1994' which is when the genocide took place. the second was 'have you ever testified in a genocide trial?' OH MAN, so cool.
So now that ive gotten my super exciting and most recent news out of the way, lets tell some stories from the last couple days.
My students have exams tomorrow, so we have been working hard to prepare for them. I am nervous for them. i really want them to do well, and i feel like i have prepared them, but i just dont know. granted ive only been teaching a week- but i did write the exam. we shall see. keep your fingers crossed. On thursday I will come in to arusha to meet Emma, and we will go on Friday to katesh the town she lives in with the missionaries! I am excited to have a ride and not have to jump right on a bus.... and just to get away for a weekend will be really nice... i cant wait. My students will still be taking exams on Friday, and just grading so i wont miss really anything as long as i get my English and maths exams graded before i go.
My dream came true. The fact that I am white made a baby cry! I have always heard and seen (like in invisible children) of small kids that have never seen white people and they are terrified, and they freak out. On a walk home one day, we passed a little girl with her mom, and she saw us and started screaming and kicking! as we got closer, her face froze and she starred at us as we passed. then promptly began screaming and looking after us! her mom laughed as we walked by and said she doesn't know white people. I was in heaven! what a cool experience to be some where that a little kid has never seen white people! i loved it. it seriously made my week. How i haven't told you before now is beyond me, since it happened last week some time.
it is rainy. it is MUDDY. and the mud here sticks to your shoes til you have an added inch and 3 pounds on each foot. you scrape it off on a rock, and repeat the process until you get where you are going. I need to do laundry too, my jean legs literally stay in place like they still have a leg in them when i take them off. It is colder than i thought and so my jeans have been my daily attire. thank god i did actually bring them, i wasn't going to!
I thought i had more stories. opps. we learned a sweet card game, called big bertha. think phase ten, but with wild cards. and i attempted to teach agape, our host sister age 10, to play spades... even though i knew it was too complicated.
AH remember a story. We have the most adorable little neighbor kid named ellie, but a boy. He is five and comes over randomly and just walks in the house. His mother died and his father is struggling to take care of him so our family does some times. The other morning the family was all at church, we stayed home to see a volunteer off to the airport. Ellie came into the living room where we were sitting and started playing cards... the funny part of the story is he is so young that he doesnt have the slightest clue that we dont speak swahili. at all. he will look you straight in the face and say a huge long sentence over and over and even though you respond in english, over and over, he still continues to talk to you- nonstop. I love it! i think it is sooo sooo funny. Luckily we got into the game of counting the cards. i do know how to count-- all the way to 1,000! in swahili, and i know the word card and game and play. so we managed to play the game (cheza) for a good while. Finally we had to leave and so i managed to somehow say time to go home. And he looked sad, but he left. Truly i didnt know if what i said was right. but it worked haha. They girls were so annoyed with him when he came back that afternoon. Again, deep breaths libby- we all have different ways to dealing with things... and different tolerance levels. breath out.
so there we go, my time i almost up and i have some other things to do.... like respond to facebook posts that make my day... because they do occasionally... and keep me from breaking slow computer screens out of frustration when it takes 20 minutes to open one page.
hope all is well. i am happy... healthy (minus the fungus- which i think is pretty cool)... and love it here.
nakupenda. (if you dont know, its not for you- cept maybe you M&D) (gram... you know!)
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