Another blog?! So soon?!?!?

Please, don't get used to this.

This one will be shorter though, which I am SO happy about.

The celebration of the Birth of Baha’u’llah was fun. Shadon, Colleen, and I made 200 goody bags for everyone. Then the youth and some students spent a few hours arranging flowers and getting things set up, and then, of course, when the evening festivities actually began, mass chaos exploded. Nothing bad happened, but everyone was confused as to where the food should go, who to give it to, where to stand, etc. The youth basically stood back and waited patiently before moving cuz we kept getting told to do different things and we thought it’d be safer to stand back till the smoke cleared. After the devotions, the girl ran and got dressed up, and I mean totally formal. It was like Prom, but with way less guys.

However, some of the girl’s dressed up as guys. One group looked like a boy band…

When the youth finally got to eat, we sat outside with everyone else for maybe 2 minutes and then ate in the kitchen because we were attacked by bugs.  Huge black ones that just kinda land on you and slither through your hair, which reminds me, some girls found a snake by the dorms and killed it.

The rain season has come.

The junior youth are also planning a fundraiser and are hosting a cinema. We put up fliers the other day, and then it started to rain!!!!! Colleen and I ran around like starved little fish! I poured a couple drops of water onto the head of a boy and he filled a water bottle and soaked me…which didn’t really do anything seeing as how I was already soaked…but that’s ok.

Also, I have been going to basketball practice lately and I really want to coach them…but I think they’d hate me cuz I wouldn’t be easy…meh. Anyway. It felt so good to be playing again and I was helping some girls with shooting. Of course, one girl had to have an asthma attack the first time I went. They are so great at welcoming newcomers. Honestly.

They had a tournament on Saturday and I had asked if I could go, and I was told to ask the coach the morning of. So, I got up at 05:45, got ready, went to the Dining Hall and asked if I could go and he said there was no room. NO!!!!!

But at least I get to sleep more and eat pancakes!

So I thought.

30 minutes later there’s a knock on my door and Sanka and Chai are standing there and tell me to go. I was confused, but they said there was room and we had to hurry.

I was stoked.

And it was a great day to go cuz it wasn’t insanely windy so my eyes didn’t go blind from dirt flying into them and…

Both the junior team and senior team won the CHAMPIONSHIP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can I get a Hoo! HOO! Can I get a Hoo Hah! HOO HAH! Can I get a Banani! BANANIIIII BANANI!!!!! ZE!

It was awesome! The only downside was that I got sunburned even though I put sunblock on twice! And not only did my face burn….but my EYEBALLS burned!!!!! Mah! Killer. It looked like I had cried for a week straight. Ugh. And my sunglasses were in my bag and I totally forgot. Oh joy.

The new youth came today. Her name is Sharghi. Guess where she is from?

No, not Oregon. But she is from AMERICA!!! Seriously. North America has invaded Banani. When Mei and Shalom leave this month, goodbye diversity of countries. We represent Canada and America here. We told the school to stop accepting people from there and get some diversity in here…..

We also finished the new books and got them into the library! Woo! I think we have 20 ish more to go….but we finished what we were given.

Oh, Krista and I went to the art cabinet in the gym to get supplies to decorate for Sports Awards Night…well. That was disgusting. There were dead spiders, spider webs, spider eggs, and lot’s of iffy looking things. There was some paint in the waaaaaay back that we couldn’t get to, so we tried to lasso, but that didn’t work. Then I found a pole on some exercise equipment I’d been playing on and took it off and used it to get the can. SUCCESS! We were thinking one of these days we’d give that cabinet some TLC.

It’s exam time here at Banani, and it has never been so quiet. I mean, these are the do or die exams so I understand. Man, I wish it was exam time all year round! Haha!

To all my friends who are in school right now, I hope everything is going great and you’re acing your exams!

Well, graduation is next week so we are setting up for that. They dance at their grad. So cool! Some girls have tried to teach me traditional dance. I have a ways to go, but I think with practice I will get it! 

My friends, the girls here can DANCE!!!! Grade 10 has some insane dancers! It’s crazy.

Oh Geez!!! I saw a chameleon yesterday!!! And it changed colors! I was quite happy about that.
Well, I think that’s all. If not, I know where to come.

LYLT (love you long time)

Ringworm!!!

Ha! That's a disgusting title. But, it's pretty much gone now. Yay!

Anyway, I have once agian fallen behind in journaling, and I hate catch up. Whatever.

So Wednesday is my day off, and I planned at the start to have the same day off as Shalom, and I figured that she has lived here her whole life and could show me around...and help me not get ripped off by the buses, which she has been a saint at.
Well, this doesn't always work out and I go on little adventures anyway. Last Wednesday, the primary school's principle had a a daughter in the hospital, so she and I went to go visit her. However, she said I couldn't enter the hospital because I would contract diseases cuz I'm white.

Uh, come again? That sounded really strange to me, and I said I 'd be fine, but she insisted.

Well, we bought an orange for the girl and then walked to the hospital. She called the mom and asked her to come out and get it, so that she didn't have to leave me, but the mother didn't want to leave her daughter. Understandable.

But she didn't know what to do with the orange and I told her to give it to the mom later that day, but she wanted to give it to her then. I told her there was no way she was going to leave me alone, in front of a hospital, in a place I've never been before, in Africa.

However, I knew her well enough to know that this is EXACTLY what she would do, but instead of leaving me alone, she calls over two schoolgirl's (one of which I'd seen before cuz she comes to the devotionals at the institute) and bascially tells them to babysit me and to not let any men talk to me. Haha! The looks on the their faces were priceless...but I felt so stupid. It's better than being alone though.

She said she'd be very quick to drop off the orange and left. Five minutes later, the girls said they had to go cuz their class was starting and I said that was fine. I sat down under a tree, and then a woman came up to me and started talking to me. Finally, about 30 ish minutes later she comes back out.
Now, I would like to say that during this whole experience, I never once felt scared or in danger. The people here are very friendly, but I was so annoyed that she left me outside of a random hospital cuz I'd "contract diseases cuz I'm white." Mah! However, it's a good experience cuz she won't be with us next year...so I gotta get used to being on my own.

I love her so much, but seriously....really? Really?

Also, the girl is doing very well now. It must have been that orange...

And then this past Wednesday, Shalom, Colleen, and I went to Lusaka and one of my goals was to find a dress for the Birth of Baha'u'llah.

So, we arrive in Lusaka and we ask Shalom where some good places are to get dresses. I mean, we don't know our way around Lusaka and she does, so, hey, she should know some places.
Well, unfortunately, she had to drop off papers for school and couldn't come with us, so she named some stores. By the way, I feel really bad for her cuz she has been running around trying to get all of that situated.
She told us to go to a store called Games at Manda Hill, the mall, and I that I would find something there. I have never been to Games, but it sounded a little....strange to me. And Colleen was really confused cuz she said the last time she was there, there were no clothes at all.
So we get to Manda Hill and we go to Games. I didn't even have to walk in to know there was absolutely nothing even remotely resembling clothes in the store. Mah!
So we walked around the mall which is being built, so there's only a few shops, and we went to every store and there was nothing. Well, ok. There was one store with dresses, but they seemed a little...well, like they were missing A LOT of material.

I gave up on the dress after a while and just got a dressy shirt to go with one of my skirts. Then Colleen and I called Shalom and said we'd meet her at the bus station and she told us to go ahead without her if we found a full bus.

We ended up getting a full bus and we scadaddled out of Lusaka, and didn't see her till the next day. Don't worry. She has made the trip plenty of times on her own, so we knew she'd be fine.

When I got back, all the girl's asked what my dress looked like and I told them I hadn't gotten one cuz I only went to Manda Hill. They started naming off all these places I could have gone to that were near Manda Hill, but I had no idea how to get to them.

 Sometimes I think Shalom forgets the other youth servers here aren't natives...but then again, I think she leaves us on our own so we get used to the place when she is gone. Ha! Tough love, right?

The other day some girls were asking me about the hospital accident and one of them asked me why I thought I'd get diseases. I was a bit confused and she told me that she had been told I didn't want to go in cuz I would get sick.

What?! Please! I told them that I had been told not go in because of that reason. Psh.

Anyway, we recieved a ton of boxes full of new books for the library from previous youth, and now we are going through them and entering them into the system, labeling them, and shelving them. It's tiresome, but the books look really good and the student's are really excited.

Ok.....I am so EXTREMELY HAPPY!!!! There is this one girl, Sanka, who I have wanted to be friends with since...well basically since I got here and I have not had the guts to talk to her, but FINALLY!!! last week in the library we started talking when she checked out a book and now I visit her and some other girls in their dorm rooms. I really REALLY want to be the senior dorm mom next year cuz I love those girls and then I could talk to Sanka every day!!!! I would be so happy.

By the way, I feel like some of the girls think I'm a freak cuz I say I love them a lot, and when I say it, I'm really excited about it. I'm just overwhelmed with love for all of them though! For real, I have never been so....drawn to people before. Some of them are starting to respond with the same enthusiasm though, so that's good. But maybe I'll mellow down...
It also rained Tuesday night. Not hard, but there was so much lightening and the thunder! Oh man, the thunder. So glorious. Colleen and I stood in the rain for twenty minutes until we were soaking. It was amazing.

A new youth, Nura, came last week and I felt really bad for her cuz she only got two days to rest until she was put into a dorm. The loudest dorm too. But I really like her so far and she has great ideas...and she plays guitar. What more could you want?

A few weeks ago, Colleen and I were talking with Peter (Peta the Playa) and we kinda sorta started harassing him and interrogating him about his life, and we think we made him mad, but he still insists he wasn't, so we made him a "we're sorry card" with two girls crying and standing in a puddle of tears on the front. He loved it, but he said he wasn't ever mad at us, he was just really tired. Yeah, likely story. But we're still the best of friends. All the girls think we're in love with him cuz we talk to him all the time, which, we do love Peta. SO MUCH! But we aren't IN love with Peta and they don't seem to understand you can be friends with guys and not like them like that. Oh well. He's sooo funny though! He teaches the little boys over by the institute how to do somersaults. Now, the somersaults here are nothing like the somersaults back home. The somersaults here are flips, and trickly little twist flip things. Peta hurt his wrist doing one. Oh Peta.

He was also teaching me how to walk like a gangsta, which I pretty much figured out if you walk like your leg is injured and throw your arms wide and just look ridiculous, you've got it down.

So you may be wondering why he was teaching me this, and it's because I wanted to be totally prepared for my rap off. I wrote my rap, had a costume, kinda, and so I just need the G walk.

My rap off was yesterday. Let me tell you, I was so nervous!!! I don't know if you guys have guessed, but I am no rapper. Ohhhhh no. So when we went to do junior youth group yesterday, he comes up and says, "Let's do it. I'm in a rapping mood now." I refused. I had just gotten there! I needed to collect myself and not puke!!! SO we waited until we had studied the book, and then after that he said he didn't want to do it, and that we should do it today. Ha! There was no way he was backing out. He has talent. I don't. He could win even if he didn't try and I just wanted to get it over with. So we did it. I went first, cuz I'm a stud, and then he went. I couldn't understand much about what he was saying though because it was a mix of Bemba, Nyanja, and English. At the end, I would say it was a tie. I think I held my own against that 15 year old!!
Oh, and he and his friends do that "man hug" where they grab hands and then shoulder bump. Colleen and I call it the Brotherhood Hug a.k.a the BHH! Humphrey, the guy I battled, and I have started doing that and I think it's the funniest thing in the world. He also taught me how to do a flip into the pool!

By the way, just now I asked Nura if "funniest" is a word and she said, "Well, yeah. Funniest Home Videos. " We started laughing cuz of course if it's on TV it MUST be true...right?

There's also this man at the institute, Mr. Chibwe, who we bother almost everyday about books that we want and he asked us if we would type up Ruhi translations. A little intimidating, and I really don't feel like screwing up Ruhi, but we have spare time so we agreed. However, we need to ask the principle if we can do things the institute has asked of us, so I talked to the principle and she said he needs to formally ask her and then the vice president said we should learn how to say "no." This really irritated me cuz we have a lot of spare time here and it wouldn't kill us to help them out. I guess in the past the institute has taken advantage of the youth and had them to a ton of work, so now the school wants everything to go through them so we don't get tired out....but for real. We don't do a crazy amount of stuff everyday. We could definitely manage it. Ugh. Sometimes the rules at this school really bother me. I already got in trouble cuz I'm too felxible with the rules for my grade 8's....sorry if you freaking feed them sugary foods for evening snack, and then half an hour later they're expected to be in bed! Please. I would hate that and that's not healthy. So I don't really care if they go to bed 10  minutes after they're supposed to. MOTHER!

Whew. Sorry. I just have some issues and I feel like when I talk to the administration, they don't really listen.
Ok, so back to what I am actually doing here at the school. There is still so much drama in my dorm. Seriously. World War 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8....have happened. It's absolutely ridiculous. Someone even threatened someone else's life and there are fights over the pettiest things EVER!!! Once, some of the grade 9's thought one of my girls rolled her eyes at them, so naturally, they bring over their ENTIRE dorm and surround her outside of my dorm. I was beyond pissed and I told them to get out of my area. They wouldn't budge, so I put my girl back in my dorm and shut the door. I repeated to the grade 9's that they needed to leave immediately or I'd give them a consequence. Finally, one girl had the most BRILLIANT idea of leaving my dorm and going back to theirs. Gee. WHAT an idea!
I think they could see how plainly pissed I was that they were bullying my girls again, and left. I talked to the girl in my dorm about the issue, and then I went and spoke with the Grade 9's about what they thought and basically what had happened was this:

2 of my grade 8's were talking with a grade 9 and joking, and then the grade 9 got mad about something and the next day, my grade 8's were walking past them and one said a joke and the other girl laughed and rolled her eyes at the joke. The grade 9's thought she was rolling her eyes at them, specifically at the girl she had been joking with the previous day, and figured coming up to her like a pack of savage, hungry wolves, was the way to solve it.

Well, I told them that was completely inappropriate and uncalled for. It's an issue between TWO girls...not 20. I was trying so hard to keep cool when I just wanted to explode. At first Iw as being slightly rude, so I just took a few deep breaths and explained why I had been upset that they all charged over there. One girl said that grade 9's stick together (which is a complete and utter lie if they actually thought about how many times they go against each other) and I told her that HItler and the Nazi's stuck together and killed 6 million jew. Was that ok? (this was probably a little uncalled for, but I was trying to get my point across) and the girl said they didn't kill anybody. I told her that wasn't the point, the fact that all ganged up on her was uncalled for and I asked if she thought the girl who apparently was offended was a coward? No. Is she unable to stand up for herself? No. Is she unable to handle her own problems? No. Well, then why did all of you come over to talk to one of my girls when it has nothing to do with you? The girl with the issue didn't even say anything and I told them they were doing her a disservice by fighting her own battles and they were limiting her growth. Then I left before I said anything mean again.

I cannot tell you how mad  was at them. Shalom came over to help us sort it out and as all this was going on, a semi physical fight was going on in the grade 9's dorm (yeah, they really stick together, eh?). I mean, it was just shoving and it ended pretty quickly thanks to Krista's quick "cut the crap" attitude. Everything was crazy that night. There was a full moon, and we blamed everything on that. Logical? Yes.

There is also just a lot of attitude adn one girl is mad at me cuz of a comment I put in her room. The dorm mom's check the rooms for cleanliness everyday and leave comments on the comment sheet in each room. Well, a girl gave me a list of guys the girls liked so I could put those as comments (I get bored with saying "Great" and " Please sweep" so I do random comments) and one girl was following me around and it was Shadon's day off so I had to check her dorm as well, and I put ice cream flavors in those rooms cuz I didn't know the guys they liked, but one girl was in her room and told me a guys name to put on her sheet, so I did and the girl who was following me flipped out. I mean....absolutely went ballistic and was yelling at me that it was unfair that the other girl got to pick a name and she didn't and she just went off on me! I told her she could change it if she wanted, and that I wouldn't mind or she could cross it off, but she just kept yelling at me, right in my ear, and throwing a fit. She would not calm down so I said she can change it, leave it, or cross it off, but I'm not discussing it further with her and walked off.

She hasn't talked to me for two weeks. However, this doesn't really bother me though, cuz she is the one who is angry and I know it's taking a lot of energy for her cuz she just always has to ignore me, or walk by in a huff and blah blah blah. I just ignore it and I am definitely over it. Yes, I will be a terrible mother, but I'm not wasting my time with attitude.

Anyway, I had a meeting with my girls last night and I had made up a list of consequences...and they didn't really complain about any of them. On the contrary, they seemed rather pleased with them. I also told them I wouldn't tolerate any backbiting/gossiping or attitude at all (last week we had a talk on backbiting and one girl said since they were girls they wouldn't completely stop cuz it was hard. We never said it would be easy, all we asked is that they strive to better themselves). I wasn't mean  when I was explaining all this, but I wanted them to know that I was done with their crap basically (I didn't say that) and that I knew they were much better than that and I was going to hold them to a higher standard.

When I've been with these girls individually, they are so sweet and fun, but get them together and they send the Roman army running. It's ridiculous. I know they are capable of excelling, and I am not accepting ANYTHING less than excellence. They seemed ok with all this and happy about it, which shows me that they really do want to be better people. Ah, man. Seriously. It's so sad to see perfectly capable/compassionate/ friendly people lower their standards so much. I'm glad they're willing to try and change the overall attitude in the dorm.

So, even with all these difficulties, I love my girls. So much. And I'm finally getting to know more of the girls from other grades and I love them as well. I knw it may sound like it's just frustrating, but I have so much fun with them, except when I rap for them cuz that's kinda embarrassing. Sometimes I think about how I'll feel when I leave and I want to cry. My heart pretty much falls out of me. I'll hate leaving. I don't know why I keep thinking about it when I have 8 more months here, but I am going to miss these girls and the culture so much. Everything about this place pulls me to it. I try not to think about it, but some girls have told me that they may not come back next year and I almost started crying right there. Almost. I think half of them are lying, but there are a couple who are serious.

Ugh. It just kills me. Don't get me wrong, I am excited to see my friends and family again, especially JET!!! (who I miss tons and tons and can't wait to see him again!) but I think I will be homesick when I go back to America. A friend recently went to visit my family and he said that I would spend the rest of my life trying to find a way to come back here. I have no doubt in my mind about that.