Happy Holidays from the Permanent Substitute!

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Happy holidays to everyone reading, I know its been a while since I updated, seems to be a reoccuring theme doesn't it? Everything here is going great, the second quarter is coming to a close and Ethiopian Christmas is quickly approaching(January 8th).

With some of my classes I get the feeling like I am just a permanent substitute to the students. Not that I blame them, can you imagine a 3rd grade spanish class where the teacher only speaks in spanish?? In a way it is very good for the students as they have had to develop a good ear for listening to English, but still it can be frustrating at times. Their behavior is very poor some days, and since all I can do is yell at them in English(or use the few Amharic phrases I know) most of them just look at me with a blank stare. I know myself as a student would have been a lot of trouble for a foreign language teacher, so I understand.

Last week all of the teacher took a trip to Lake Ziway in Southern Ethiopia. It was absolutely beautiful. The scenery was incredible, I got to see some wildlife for the first time(monkeys, a lot of interesting birds and even a few komodo dragons!) It was refreshing to get out of the city for a while, if only I could do that more often.

Short post today because I only have 10 birr in my pocket so I have to cut my internet short, but I promise I will update more soon with other thoughts and travels.

Again thanks for reading and Happy Holidays to everybody!

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