Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Discoramas and Chickens


Since I am basically on break from school I figured I would use some of my new found free time to update you all on what is going on over here. Currently, my school is in full swing of ‘sport’ effectively ending school until end of term exams. Last week and this week have been spent training for the upcoming ‘disco rama’ which will take place this Friday and Saturday. We were supposed to have classes in the morning and then training in the afternoon, but as soon as training was announced everyone left. Sure a handful of kids will show up on any given morning, but since there are not enough kids to hold class, they are just put to work building our stage for the rama. I mean I wouldn’t come to school either if I had to go tote water and stones for the stage, so I can’t really blame the kids. Also the stage for the rama isn’t completed and we’re supposed to be dancing on it in two days, so I’m curious to see how that will work out. Regardless of the ineffectiveness that sport has induced on my school, I’m still pumped to see the final product. I am a teacher in red house, so I have been attending the red house practices for the rama and the kids are spending a lot of time getting ready for this performance. I wish they would spend half as much time studying, but I mean what’s more fun, reading about the Euglena or breaking it down with your friends? I really hope that my house wins the rama, or at least does well. One of the teachers brought his friend from Makeni to train the kids, so this is serious stuff. Everything here is so competitive though, I know the kids will be really disappointed if they don’t win.
               
I went to Makeni yesterday to prepare for the sport which meant buying a crapton of red things, since I do not own anything of that color. But now that situation is remedied. I will be bluffing hard core with red sunglasses, jewelry, headbands, sandals and clothes. I’m going to look ridiculous and I can’t wait. I guess I will never get away from red, despite the protests from my hair which clashes wonderfully with that color. Once a Redwing, always a Redwing. 

Oh my goodness yesterday going to Makeni I had one of the most uncomfortable yet hilarious transportation situations. As you may or may not know, I am more than a little afraid of birds. Especially chickens. This stems from an incident I had with a certain parrot that escaped from its cage while I was house sitting and in my attempts to get it back in its home it bit me a few times. Not fun. Anyways, yesterday I was sitting in the back of a poda poda (a large Scooby Doo esque van) and everything was fine. Then a guy with a chicken gets in and sits behind me, with the chicken touching me. Now, being in transport with animals is not an unusual thing. I have traveled accompanied by goats, sheep and chickens aplenty, but normally they have the decency to give me my space. I had adjusted myself so the chicken wasn’t touching me when the apprentice puts a bag of three ducks right at my feet. In a poda poda it is not like I can switch my seat or put my feet up, there is just no space, so the only thing left for me to do was to ‘bear’ as they call it here, which means to just deal with it. Even though I thought I was doing an excellent job masking my discomfort after the second bump where I jerked my foot away from a duck bill, the lady next to me started cracking up and telling everyone in the poda that the white woman was afraid of the ducks. Awesome. When we got to Panlap, which is a town just a few miles outside of Makeni the dude with the chicken got out and I breathed a little easier. That is until another dude with THREE chickens got in and promptly set them down right next to the ducks. Like was there any other place in that huge van that those chickens could have gone? Did they need to be right next to me? I seriously contemplated hopping out and walking the rest of the way, but I didn’t because I have made it through a lot worse things in things in this country. If I can bathe in a community latrine I am not going to let six feathered creatures get the best of me. As soon as we reached Makeni though I was out of that poda ridiculously fast. This experience just went to show me that some things about me will never change, especially my unfounded fear of anything with a beak.

Well that about sums it up, I promise to take lots of pictures at the rama and sport and to eventually get them up online so you all can see. Hopefully, Mighty Red House will be victorious!

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