Today I might teach 3 hours and I might teach none. I'm seated here in the Dar Chebab, it's my place where I can find peace and quiet to do work. It's so strange, from the beginning I knew this was both where I'd work and also where I'd have the chance to get away from the home. Then I got sick and didnt come here. The strange part is that during that time I forgot how this was a place where I'd be able to focus, be by myself, not have to hide in my room where I try to work but am too easily distracted. And the family would be beneath my window in the courtyard calling my name and thinking that I was asleep 16 hours a day (in this culture, noone goes to their rooms except to sleep).

Take yesterday. I woke up then stayed in my room for two hours. I finally decide that the coast is clear, and so I try to take a chair to the roof to the furthest place up there, where noone can see me unless they come onto the roof. And it's there that looks out over the palms. But next think you know, I go back to get my book and am ambushed by Islan, the 5-year old. Haa. And it's impossible to explain that I want to be alone.

So we look at my magazine in my hand and she turns to each of the 130 pages, pointing to the king in each photo, saying malika!‌The past week I enjoyed playing with her, Osama and a visiting 5-year old named Mathiu from France, who took his parents here (or vice versa?). We tried an hour or more each day to have a three person juggling show, one to the next and so on. Never quite got it but it was great fun!

But finally I gave up trying to study above the gorgeous oasis, and instead I retreated to my room. Then her parents interrogate her for having bothered me, which I felt responsible for—i didnt know the words to explain, leave me alone, in a nice way so I just let her roam around the roof with me but then she sees the red-and-yellow ball in my back pocket and grabs it.Suddenly, 'shuma!' and pow, corporal punishment still exists out here where I am. SO now I've lost 2 hours, I feel extremely horrible like as if I colluded in fooling her in and instigating her punishment, and then trying to make my lesson plans again, I have to put in ear plugs because she is crying loudly and horribly for 20 minutes.

The point of this story, I suppose, is that I've reembraced my Dar Chebab. It felt good to walk around here, thinking of what might happen here once things get started, picking up the pieces of plastic that become unwound from the chairs, sweeping and opening the windows.Hey! Visit from my Mudir. Asking if I'm in good form, la bas, no problem? Yes, yes, nope. But like I've said before, even the best days here leave you tired, confused, unsure, wondering if you can make it or if its just a temporary success. Now I'll spend half an hour, prepare some things and see if any of the girls come to my girl-only class (I do this because 1) the girls can't come to the night class and also in the afternoons in the adjacent classroom simultaneously as my classroom there's a women's only literacy class, and noone wants any guys to come at this time).
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Update, apparently Islan came looking for me. It's 530, decided my lesson was crap so I'm redoing it, now focused on ¨¨myself/yourself‌ and, by myself yourself¨‌, but watch out, 'themselves' and 'by themselves' is tricky! But I saw a girl that I knew, when I walked outside the door to look and see who was there. The girl is the good friend of Islan But you can never be sure, 4 year olds look alike. I went back inside. Then I heard, Islan! Islan! So, I came back. But Islan had already walked too far up the hill to hear both of us as we tried to get her attention. So I stood there and watched her as she walked up the giant hill, feeling quite tired.The next blog post I do I think I will focus on : Spending a day in my shoes.‌ It will be fun! Im happy because after tomorrow is .. pizza night! And an especially good thing is that I found the Sandwich Gouda cheese here in Nkob! That is amazing! It's expensive, 15 D's, but OK. The man had a stack of 7 or 8 of them. So I can use some of the cheese tomorrow and I won't miss a day of my grilled cheeses that I make with my panini/wafflero.

Lastly, I might have 2 different women's English classes now. One is the normal one, girls from school. But the other is the women's literacy group, that got up from what they were doing and came to the other side to sit and listen to me teach. There was one girl that answered everything, Fatima, and she surprised me when she came up and spoke with the most fluency of anyone in Nkob. Not thinking or translating or anything. She said her problem is she knows English but just needs to expand her vocabulary.

I might find find a book for her to practice with, since that's the surest way to gain vocab skills.

It really pays to look at the books PC game me for teaching English thoroughly. Because at the back I found a section called: If you are not sure which is right. And it's brilliant. It saved my lesson tonite! The book has 130 lessons, a lot, and I can't do them all. But this has a multiple choice sentence, and if you don't know the answer then it tells you: ¨Missed it? Then look up chapter 72.¨ And they are grouped together, so tonite I will pick a section, put up the multipe choices for each question, then the sections they get right I will skip and the chapters they still need I will do. It can all still go horribly wrong, but at least this way I have a system.