Journal Post 11/30

Today was pretty normal. We caught the 7 AM taxi to Soma, went online for 4 hours, went to eat at a restaurant, and found out all the computers were down for maintenance by the time we were back. When I say maintenance, what I really mean is that someone took apart the tower and used a lawn blower thing to blow all the dust out. Our decision to stay in Soma or leave was made for us since the internet was gone which meant we walked to catch a bus. For the first time in all of history for me, a bus that I needed actually came 10 minutes after I arrived. What was even better - three Peace Corps Volunteers came out of the bus! One of them was Shawn - one of the women I reached out to before I got into country for tips and advice. She's spectacular and such a kind presence. I met a new PCV and met up with one of them who I ran into on my way to site visit! He said he heard I was really good at language, I was flattered, but I attribute all my success to my teacher. We talked for a lot, a lot, and it's so sucky that Peace Corps is hiding us away from all the PCVs because they're such cool people. I want to unleash the crazy and ask them everything and anything but I think they'll think I'm weird so I'll hold off a little longer. We came back to Jalanbereh, I spent the entire afternoon organizing and sweating, took a shower, and went over to Elizabeth's to write out our one hour lesson plan. I'm so fucking thankful, I can't even put it into words, exactly how lucky and thankful I am that I'm in a group with Alicia who is a Public Health Official in the States because I'm learning so much from her. Everything she says to me, I hear, I remember, and I store it in the back of my head. I'm learning so much from her just by being with her and I'm so happy she teaches me. I'm also so happy I have Elizabeth, who's like a Gambian mom to me, and she just cares and looks out for everyone. We worked and listened to music for awhile before leaving to go home. We finished our lesson plan but decided that we needed to head back to Soma tomorrow to finish our own business and print our product out. When I went outside for math sessions, there's this one little kid and his name is Ousman. He's a chubster compared to everyone else his age and has quite the center of attention syndrome. He hits everyone if he doesn't get his way - especially kids around his age - and I think he's super spoiled. He's also pretty dirty but has so much life in him. He puts EVERYTHING in his mouth and especially his hands... which  touches everything. So again, this reinforces the fact that he's just a dirty, way too hyperactive kid. He tries to catch my bag and I tell him not to touch. He tries to sit near me and pushes everyone out of the way even though clearly he is not there to learn. He reaches his drool encrusted little fingers at the peanuts I'm using as teaching aids and I tell him not to teach and then he tries to touch my book and again, I tell him not to touch, and now all the kids are yelling at him not to touch me lmao. I'm sorry but he is just ... I can touch him with a 5 foot pole and that's about it. All of the commotion kind of drove him away and finally I resumed normal lessons. The end.