This past weekend was the end of Ramdan celebration so we had a 3 day weekend which was great. My family made tons of food and killed another chicken although everyone still only got one small piece of the chicken. I expected that everyone would be able to have as much as they wanted but I guess since I have such a big family it’s not economical. The holiday is basically as big as xmas for muslims since it occurs about once a year. It is also an interesting holiday since it depends on the change of the moon.
For this reason we were not sure when the holiday would be until the day before.

Just when I thought I was receiving the most possible attention from my community something happends that tells me they can do more. A few days ago I was peacefully walking to school and I hear someone running up behind me. It turned out to be one of the students from the classes that I am not teaching but goes to my school. She offered to carry my bags and when I refused said that she would be punished if she didn’t carry them for me so I had to let her. She then walked beside me asking me questions until we got to school.

I found out this past week that my family doesn’t have that many clocks in the house and that is why they are always asking me what time it is. My brother woke up late one morning and came running into my room to ask what time it was. I was puzzled because I didn’t know that he didn’t have a watch. I found out that the sun wakes he up everyday and on that particular day it was cloudy and so he didn’t get up on time.

This past week I was riding on a dala dala and then I found out that you can bring your animals on them too. This one guy put his 2 goats behind the backseat where there is only like one foot of width. When he went to get the goats off the minivan one of them got caught between the bumper so it was quite a sight. I had always heard of people carrying chickens on the buses in Mexico but I never saw anything like that there. Here it is quite obvious that you can transport your animals on public transportation.

I had a language test last week and I found out that I am now at the intermediate middle level which is where the PC wants us to be at at the end! I was really excited with the news although I don’t know if I am that fluent. I do know, however, that there are 4 words for rice. There is a word for the rice before it is harvested, a word for when it is harvested, a word for when it is cooked and a word for when you add spices too it. They are mchele, wali, piliau (respectivedly) and I can’t remember the other one. They only have two words for good but many for bad. Interesting.

I will be leaving for my volunteer shadow visit and visit to Dar es Salaam this weekend so I am not for sure if I will get around to writing. Badaye!