Hello all. Finally a few pictures. The first picture is my house. I really like it, though I must admit it's pretty big for just one person. As you can see it's a nice, solid structure. Those Catholic missions like to build stuff out of stone, which is pretty cool. To the right of the house you can make out a big concrete tank which holds my water supply and that for the other houses around. It catches rainwater from the roof of the big house in the background as well as getting fed from a spring on top of the mountain. The brick part of the house is the walled in courtyard, which is really big and probably my favorite feature of the house. It's a good place to sit outside while cooking or looking at the stars or something. Also great for parties.

The other picture is of the valley I live in. My house is to the left of the tree with the purple flowers. This picture was taken during the dry season so there's nothing in the fields there except for some banana trees. During the rains there's a lot of corn, tomatoes, cabbage, and a bunch of other things going there. The picture is taken along the road that goes to the school so every day I walk across that valley. It's quite a nice commute.

The last few weeks have been pretty good. St. Patrick's Day was every bit as much fun as that holiday should be. We even avoided a fight to the death between the volunteer with Irish Catholic roots (Clare, named for the county in Ireland) and the one with Irish Protestant roots (me). Guinness truly heals all wounds. The week at school has been ok, except my kids have gotten a little lazy and bombed a test I gave them. I'm going to have to push them to get their act together. The national exams are are a really big deal here and they're a long way from ready. Who would have thought that 14-year-old girls would be short-sighted?

I had a dinner at a neighbors place last night with a bunch of the teachers. It was to celebrate the one month anniversary of the birth of their latest daughter, which is traditional to do. It was a nice time, but the best part was how the new baby's older sister, Sharon, who's three, finally overcame here fear of the scary bearded white guy. All it took was having a little neighbor boy come by who was obviously terrified of me. Sharon decided to show him how afraid she wasn't by coming up and climbing on my lap. I think after that she realized I wasn't so bad, despite white skin and a hairy face. So there you go, a little understanding spread by the Peace Corps, with quite a bit of help from some desire to show off.

The only other thing that's been going on has been heavy pressure from my headmistress, my students, and other teachers to apply for a one year extension. I was surprised to find that a big part of me really wanted to stay an extra year, but I decided not to, so I'll be back at the end of November as planned.

That's all for now. Have a good Easter everyone.

Life is Seldom Dull in Africa...

It's been quite a week. The worst thing is that Matthew, who was my best friend among the teachers at my school, has abruptly resigned and left after a row with the administration. I don't want to point fingers other than to say there is a lot of blame to go around in the conflict. I think it's really unfortunate because Matthew was very dedicated to the kids. He's planning on going back to school in August, so I wish him the best and hope it works out.

In a kind of bittersweet moment I witnessed very pointedly one of the big differences between African and American life. One of my students was gone for a few days this week. Kids can't really get away with skipping class at a boarding school like this, so you always notice when their gone. She left because her younger sister died. The first thing you notice here is that no one thinks it unusual that a 15-year-old girl would lose her little sister. Just because it's not uncommon doesn't mean they are jaded to such losses though. Far from it. In fact, when the girl arrived back at the school on Thursday, word quickly made it to her class that she was back and about 50 girls ran out of the class and surrounded her with choruses of "pole" and "karibu," meaning we're sorry for your loss and welcome back. It was such a huge outpouring of sympathy and genuine joy to have their friend back with them. So this girl for the next half hour was in the middle of this mob of other girls in a situation that I think most Americans would find unbearable, but she was obviously greatly comforted and moved by the whole thing. Life here is such a constant mixture of joy and sadness. No wonder my first year in this country was constant emotional turmoil.

Another event this week was I attended the A-level graduation at Kifungilo Secondary School, another Catholic girls' school in the area that is one of the top 20 schools in the country. Another teacher and I walked there. By road, this journey would have been more than 25 miles, but we went over one hill, across a valley, then straight up a huge and ridiculously steep mountain, on the top of which was the school. The walk was no more than three miles but took about two hours. This was a steep mountain. The school sat atop the mountain and had amazing views. I was amazed that we had just pushed straight up it. Fortunately we managed to get a lift by road much of the way back because I think the slope would have been fairly dangerous going down. It was also nice to see this really great school that was beautifully built. It almost looked like a German hamlet complete with stone-paved streets. My goal if to outperform Kifungilo in this year's exams. Right now they're number 2 in the region and we're number 3. Unfortunately we have a way to go, but I have confidence in my girls.

I'm sorry, but after more than a half hour of trying, it seems this internet connection is too slow to upload pictures.

Fashion note: my Form 2s, who now seem to see themselves as my little sisters trying to help a hopeless older brother, tell me that they love my hair but my beard has to go. Not to worry, I won't let my students ruin my dashing hippie Peace Corps volunteer good looks. The beard stays.