Doing It Like Doolittle

Eliza Doolittle (from "My Fair Lady") has never connected with me more before this week. Yes it is only Thursday, but still the sweet street urchin Miss Dolittle has come to mind often enough to be recognized.

This week we changed language groups. I am still learning Tigrigna, but my language teacher has changed and my group has shrunk down to a pair. My new language teacher is a phonetic and pronunciation nazi. He's not that much different than Henry Higgins in his determination to have me pronounce sounds correctly. There are just some sounds my throat struggles to make. Of course one of those sounds is very important and used frequently in Tigray. For example if said correctly in a word, it could say "kid," but if incorrect it changes to "he said". It is also used in many numbers which is going to be key for me in a bartering system. While my frustrated brain wants to just say the sound, I feel stuck like Eliza repeating the same sound over and over and over again. However, I do recognize that this frustration can power determination to keep going for a pay off. Besides, “kid” is a pretty important word to say.

Partly due to the fact we are one month in, some friends have started reminiscing about home. Usually this involves food. A select few have received care packages with some luxuries. While I agree it would be "loverly" to have "lots of chocolates for me to munch," I've noticed my priorities have changed. I got excited on Tuesday when Peace Corps delivered my weekly stash of bottled water and even more so on Wednesday when we got our biweekly supply of TP. Having the water off in our house for sink and shower (not heated) for the last five mornings, led to bucket showers this week. Even though I wash my hands with water that will probably make me sick if I drink it, I miss it when it is gone. My little hand sanitizer  has become my go to. One of my friends was sent a gigantic hand sanitizer and her offer to refill mine whenever, totally relieved an unrecognized stress. Sure I miss American food, but my focus on what would be "loverly" has shifted. Locally made ocholoni (peanut butter), kolo (roasted birdseed) and spritz (mango avocado juice) are my new favorites snacks that I crave.

"Words! Words! Words! I'm so sick of words!" While this lyric could describe my battle with Tigrigna vs Amharic in my life, it could also be used to express a change in my teaching mindset I have undergone this week. The Peace Corps has a pretty cool "Lesson 4Mat" for Practicum and teaching. As punned, this has four sections to it: 1) Motivation: activate prior knowledge or schema 2) Information: present new material 3) Practice: all structured and guided practice time 4) Application: students apply new skill to life to produce a concrete product showing the skill. My job is to take the learning competences from teacher book, adapt student book activities to fit daily objectives (sometimes tricky as they are designed by different people) and fit 40 minutes into the 4Mat. My problem last week was not fitting in the time frame what I wanted to do. Then I realized, after observing another PCT, that I was spending too much time talking. I know English! Why am I talking the majority of the time? This week I've concentrated on condensing my lessons to a 3 minute motivation that leads directly into a 5-7 minute info section for a 10-15 minute guided practice and ending on 15-20 minutes of application. My talk has gone down, but the student talking has gone way up! It is amazing what students can do when they are engaged with a purpose.

One of the major reasons my hand sanitizer is dwindling is because I fist bump, dance, play with and twirl adorable, dirty kids. There are three beautiful girls that live by my language class. They will run with open arms as soon as they see me to see who can get to me first. Then they will jump into my arms and smile as I twirl them around. Once they are on the ground and everyone has had a chance, we play patty cake games. Some locals laugh and smile while some other PCTs think I am crazy. I love walking that road to see if they are out. Ring around Rosie type games and the Hokey Pokey games with neighborhood kids get cut short as the sun sets, making me grumble that "I could have dance [or played] all night." The children definitely are a big blessing.

Also this week I was reminded how “fair” a lady I am when I got my first sunburn. It wasn't bad enough to crazy open the sacred bottle of aloe, but a hot, stiff reminder to put on sunscreen. In all fairness, a giant storm had come in at 5am and was still going on as a constant drizzle at 7:45 when I left for class. There was no way to know the sun would come out or that one of my classes would be outside. I may need to throw the sunscreen in backpack with TP, Neosporin, hand sanitizer, chalk, and markers.

Life is busily good. I will put up schedule when I can. Love you all!