Back to the Grind Or, Mum should be proud!

“C’mon Andy, it’s just a little dirt. It’ll be fine!” Things I
probably wouldn’t have said to myself before coming to Rwanda.

Well, classes are up and running again, and most of the students are
back (by the end of the second week of class). We’ve started up the
English Clubs again and most importantly, the Library is open! We
haven’t had any official opening yet, but the school hired a full-time
librarian and students are now coming in and reading! It’s so
exciting; I feel like I’ve actually accomplished something here! I’ve
noticed that the majority of students are pursuing the French language
math and science books, but there’s also been interest in the English
language math and science, the newspapers and the magazines. Again,
if anyone wants to put together a package for me, magazines are great,
both for me and for my students. I really want to take some pictures
of the students sitting in the reading room, paging through textbooks
and newspapers, but oh yea, no camera. Grr. The only problem so far
is that the librarian has virtually no English, so communicating to
her that she should put books back onto certain shelves, such as
putting the math books in the math section, is a challenge. But I’ve
been making labels for the bookshelves out of construction paper
(thanks Mum and Dad!) and I think that’s starting to help.

Oh and BTW, I’m totally sporting the pant legs rolled up halfway to my
knees for the rest of the rainy seasons. That or the pants tucked
into my socks look. It depends on my mood.

Mum should be proud of me. I recently fixed a pair of pants using
sewing skills that must have lain dormant for years! A hem started
falling apart right in the ass of one of my pairs of pants (the Tilley
pants, at that, which I believe are “insured for life”, and must last
me at least for the rest of the year) so I decided to fix them! I
found a needle and thread, and sewed them right up! The only way Mum
would be prouder is if I knitted myself a new pair of pants. (Is that
the correct past tense of knit? Or would it be “I knat myself a new
pair of pants”?) N.B. I actually wrote this piece before I fixed the
pants. I did actually sew it up though, and I think it will hold, but
I probably would have just found someone else to do it if I hadn’t
found the idea of having knat pants so freaking hilarious. Sigh, I’ve
become a slave to my art.

Have you ever been boiling water and have the kerosene stove run dry,
only to realize that you have neither kerosene or clean drinking water
and that it’s too late to go buy some? Yea, I didn’t think so.

Finally, Happy Graduation to Alisha and everyone else who is
graduating from SDSU! And I suppose to anyone else who’s
graduating from other institutions, I just don’t know who you are