One month

As of yesterday, I've officially been in country for 1 month. Life here is starting to feel pretty normal, and I often find myself saying things as if I've been here for years: "Oh yeah, that's common for rainy season" or "We haven't been able to find that kind of cheese at the market for a long time" or "You'll get used to them stopping by and hanging out on your porch."

I started teaching this week. I only officially have one class that includes a couple of middle schoolers doing typing and a high school senior who wants to learn some programming. All three of them are really well-behaved, so sometimes I almost forget that there are two boys sitting in the corner typing away. The programming has been fun so far, and I think it'll be a good challenge for me to try to adapt the "curriculum" to the one student since he has an interest in a program that requires knowledge of Python (not the snake, the programming language). Speaking of snakes, I saw my first one yesterday, already killed by some of the other missionaries. Although at times I think it'd be fun to spot one live, I think for now, seeing it not so alive was a good way to be introduced. :)

I also got to do some substitute teaching for a teacher who was out sick for half the week. He normally teaches just about every class other than English and electives for the high school, so we split his classes among a few of the rest of us. I got to cover physics and algebra 2, and for some reason, I really enjoyed myself. I think part of it is that the students are really easy to work with -- most of the time they sit attentively taking notes, participating when I ask questions, asking me questions if they don't understand. I also got to lead chapel on Thursday with my guitar, which was also a lot of fun. It showed me I could use a little work on some of my guitar skills, but the kids chose some fun songs (Prince of Peace, All in All, Shout to the Lord, Hungry, etc) and did a good job singing along. We also spent some time talking about various things we've all been reading in the bible lately. One girl brought up the story of Ruth and her courage in following her mother-in-law and the true God; another boy talked about the prayer that Paul says in Philippians, that their "...love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight..." Sometimes I wish we did more of that sort of thing spontaneously because a lot of times people see things in a way that I probably never would reading through the same passage.

On Tuesday, the Landuma village nearby had the Abram Cup soccer final, so a group of adults and high school students drove over to watch. We got rained on again, but well... that's pretty common for rainy season. ;) I spent much of the time there amusing the kids with my digital camera -- they love to be able to see themselves in the viewer after the picture's taken. You can see some of the pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/kelseyAfrica. Afterwards, they gave us a round of speeches about the history of the school, the origins of the Abram Cup tournament, and a bunch of thank yous for coming, followed by another delicious meal. Sometimes I think that people in the US should learn from the Guineans on how to really show hospitality.

The Sheffield family gave me a ride out to another Landuma village with them on Sunday for the Landuma church service. I'm starting to get to the point where their songs stick in my head, even if I can't really understand what I'm singing. It's still cool to me to be able to worship God simultaneously in different languages. I think I usually take it for granted that God is omni-lingual, but it's actually really impressive, especially considering the fact that I still learn new English words every time I play Boggle, and that's supposed to be the language I know!

Thank you for your continued prayers while I'm here. For those of you hanging out where the leaves are multi-colored, enjoy them for me! :)