"You can kiss someone who has AIDS on the cheek... It could be nice"-Leevan

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Ugh, so I wrote a really good blog entry and didnt save it, and lost the internet connection so its all gone. Ill try to rewrite one but it wont be as good as the first one. sorry!

so the past 3 days I have spent all day at the school getting worn out by little kids. Its been really rewarding and yesterday I got the best "thank you" that anyone could ever receive. I walked into the compound and in 10 seconds had about 30 kids stampeading towards me. They almost knocked me over and I was greeted with a thousand hugs and hellos. It was incredible! definately a "this is why Im here" moment. Teaching english to the older kids is going pretty well. My class has about 12 people in it so luckily its pretty small. Unfortunately they are all at different levels so I have some kids that are bored to death and have learned this stuff already, and then some kids Im going way over their heads. Im trying to teach Believe how to read, but Im struggling. Thankfully she really has a desire to learn so that makes my job a lot easier. I just take literacy for granted and cant even imagine what its like to not be able to read so I dont really know where to start with her.

When we got to the school yesterday we found out that we werent teaching that day, instead we are giving an AIDS talk to our kids... shocker... Ive just gotten really used to the spontanious assignments were given at this place. I'm definately learning to be more flexible and "go with the flow" with these guys. Well the walk went.... um... well not as well as the last one. I dont know if its because I knew the kids already or if its because Leevan would turn to us in the middle of his speech and go "Loren is going to talk about ways that AIDS spreads"...I am? ok... So we were beyond just winging it. there were some funny quotes from this one too. First, let me just say that sex education is much different here in Africa that what I am used to in the south. Back home if a teacher even said the word sex they would have parents jumping down their throats. So for me to hear a teacher talking to a group of kids that range the ages of 6-18 about sex and condoms is just a shock to me. So, Bethany was talking about ways to prevent getting it and goes "You really should wait until youre married to have sex, but we all know thats hard these days.... so just use a condom." WHAT?!!!! I almost lost it. I was "that girl" in the sex talk that kept giggling and trying not to burst out laughing. Leevan then preceeds to tell the kids that "Sex is nice. Some say its not nice with condoms, but its worse with AIDS, so use them" yea... definately lost my composure on that one.

After school Leevan and Josh took us to go see Coco beach which is the local beach in Teshie. It was nice hanging out with them outside of work and getting to know them and their friends. Its just a different experience, I dont feel like I am a tourist here anymore and that is really nice.

"Remember kids; if its not on, its not in"

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Photos

Gladys
Representin in her stunna shades

Comments

[Anne]

so funny
So I was reading this while I was in my very boring Statistics class and I was nearly dying. It was so hard to keep my compsure! I always knew you were that girl and this is what makes this so funny..ha ha ha!