First month at site!

The First Month at Site!

Written on 10/1/2014

I have officially been at site for one month! *Applause*

Its been so wonderful having some time to relax and get to know Mahanoro. For the first time in a long time, I have had the chance to really take it a day at a time. It was a lot of making sure I left the house and doing my best to improve my language skills every day.

My favorite part of this past month of no obligations has been having the time to just meander through Mahanoro and get to know the streets and the people. In America, it was so uncommon for me to have the opportunity to just walk around aimlessly without worrying about getting back in time to finish homework or get to work on time.

The other day, I left the house to get sponges to wash my dishes and I took the long way and just enjoyed soaking up the sun. It reminded me of "Dolce Far Neinte" from Eat Pray Love. The sweetness of doing nothing.

That being said...I am extremely excited for the next months to come because I start working at the school on October 6th!

I'll be teaching 6eme (the equivalent of 6th grade)! It will be the students first experience with English, which will be fun and exciting but, of course, not without its challenges. The other day I was working on a lesson plan for teaching the verb to be...which doesn't exist in the Malagasy language. But luckily being an American gives me an edge of quirkiness that will hopefully keep students interested. From my experience practicing teaching in training, I know 6eme can be quite maditra (naughty) and I've been told by many that I'll need to be a strict teacher to keep them in line! Hopefully I can find a happy medium between being strict and having a fun class! I know I've had teachers who found a way to make it work, and I'm hoping I can have the same fun, respectful, and engaging environment in my classroom.

My site mate is also returning to site soon and we will (hopefully) start our community center in Mahanoro this month! I am excited to see what will become of this project and excited to get the community involved in making it happen! Its been so nice to get to know everyone and I've been talking up the community center a lot to all the people that have wanted to learn English and everyone seems interested in getting involved.

And when Novemeber roles around I'm already working on planning a little vacation with my stage mates to Andasibe (a National Park) and then I have In-Service Training for two weeks at the end of November. Just in time for all of us to be together for Thanksgiving!

It should be an exciting month of actives and work, but hopefully I'll still be able to get my days of sweet nothingness in!