Paired and bored

5 3 July 2007 Tuesday
So today don’t know if it was a positive in the internship or not. Everyone kept telling me that I need to learn the language, but that it was easy to learn and that Ill sound like a native if I practice.

I actually didn’t get to do anything, I sat around, wandered around, talk to few people. At I was like the first to arrive at the teachers lounge and then sat with Matron, my next door neighbor, it was good but hard because she cant speak much English. Cool thing it rained all morning which was nice, so I could wear my sweatshirt. The matron showed me around the compound, I met some of the girls and the boys that the school already. Everyone was all smiles, and very friendly. On another outing myself, I met a form 6- Rose, she said that her English was not that good, but I was impressed.

But yea I didn’t do anything as to start preparing for class, the headmaster said that I was to wait for someone, in the science dept and that he would come find me when he had time for me. Apparently today was not the day.

So I sat around with some of the other teachers, a chatted about why I was here how I liked it, would I want to stay forever, if I was married, how old, differences between here and America, if I was a Christian, about divorce? At one point one of the older teacher (31ish) said that he was not married yet because he wanted to marry a American and ask if I could be that one. I laughed and said that I was not ready to settle down yet. How do I get myself into these things. However I do think that I may have been paired with the other male teacher that is similar in age to me (26). His name is Donald (Mr Garrison) and he teaches history. He started to talk a lot to me and asked me all kinds of questions. Around 11AM was tea time and he showed me where to go, it was really funny because about half way there I asked him were I was going and he told me not to worry and follow him, that is twice that it has happened here in Tanzania. At lunch I also followed him to lunch and he waited for me to finish. He later took me to see the surrounding area to walk another teacher home, well we went half way. He kept asking me if I was getting tired we stopped half way and took some pictures by the bridge across the river. We talked about spiders, snakes, the difference in climates, my asthma, which started to kick up on the way up the hill. As we walked back it was funny because everyone, especially the little kids would smile and say hello. This one group of kids were like freaking out our we were at least a 100 feet away and they were yelling goodbye, goodbye. Donald said that there are not many whites around here, ever.
Donald walked me home and the kids that live next to me were smiling and laughing, I don’t know if I have been paired or not. We’ll see.