Adventures Abroad: Island Time

Hey All,

Sorry for the long absent, I am still here in Comoros, Time has managed to slip away, so now let me catch you all up with what has happened these past 2 months.

When I last wrote, I was just beginning the 2^nd trimester and mainly working on just teaching with my kids, well here we are about a week out from the trimester ending, and quite a bit has occurred since the last post.

So, January brought little teaching, and an unplanned trip to South Africa. Although, the school year started at the beginning of January, due to strikes from both the teachers and students I ended up getting in about 1 day of teaching for each class. Near the end of the month I had to leave for South Africa for two weeks, due to dental problems. Even though being there I was limited to many things, even what I could eat for a few days, I still managed to enjoy some time visiting around Pretoria, as well as meeting fellow volunteers from different posts all over Africa (Tanzania, Rwanda, South Africa, and Malawi). While none of us were there for anything exciting and fun, it was a good to share stories, and experiences we all have had during our time in service. After two weeks, it was time to return to Comoros, and begin teaching again.

It was good to be able to come back home start teaching again, and this time I expanded my teaching to adding a class with the Governors’ office of Grande Comore on top of teaching at the Middle school in my village. Not only have I started working on that, but have started planning with my school to build a library, and hopefully soon our plans will go into action and the building will commence. Once it does I will be sending everyone updates on how the project is going. Another project I am keeping busy is working with a local Association for Women’s Development on planning both a club for girls, both from my village and theirs, and a camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World). My experience with them has been great, even if sometimes things get lost in translation. My final project that recently began in my village was an English Club, where I work with some other members of the village to teach the community English.

While these projects have keep me quite busy, I have managed to do some exploring around the island, and visit with both local friends and fellow PCVs. Within the past week some of my fellow PCVs and I organized a trip to Karthala Volcano (one of the largest active volcanoes in the world). It was quite an experience, though a challenge for sure. But after 6 hours we arrived to the top and enjoyed the view. Besides that, trip things have been mellow. On my days in village I do work, and take walks around visiting people and practicing my Shingazidja. Things have started to settle down and become routinized.

However, I do have some exciting things coming up within the next few weeks. Firstly, starting with our school break, where I will be going to Uganda/Rwanda for a mini vacation. After returning from that vacation hopefully I will be busy with the library and finalizing the lesson plans for the Girls of Hambou Club. But for now, things are going well, and I am enjoying my time here. I am looking forward to see what the last trimester of school holds.