May 2, 2007 (written by Janeen)
Well it has been a while since I have written a blog! Our computers at school are finally virus free and all the software works. Yippee! Jason had to download something off the internet in order to fix the problem. He finished fixing everything just after we got back from vacation. I just realized that the last blog I wrote was a bit of a sad one. I was having a hard time getting back into the swing of things. I have good news to report that I am doing much better. I taught some good lessons and am enjoying my students again. We have already given the first exam for the second quarter. For my form A students it was a reading comprehension exam and for form B it was a composition. I am finished grading the form A students’ exams and am going to start the form B students’ exams today. I also gave them 3 choices for topics so at least I won’t have to read 100 of the same paper!

It is starting to get pretty cold here. In fact the other day it was snowing. It wasn’t cold enough for it to stay on the ground, but it was definitely snowing! I’ve heard the winter here is harder to bear because there is no escape from the cold. You go from a cold building to another cold building. At home you only have to brave the cold when you leave a building! Jason and I have a coal stove that we are going to test out. Our other option is our standing gas heater (I’m told that only heats a small radius). The days are not unbearable. I’ve been wearing layers, and shedding some throughout the day. The evenings are the challenge, which is why we will probably start going to bed at like 7!

Before I blab on too much, I need to share an experience that really touched me this week. Yesterday we were traveling on a bus back home from town and this frail man got on just before the bus left the rank. He had sores on his face and his entire face was sunken in so much that I could see all the facial bones. Jason noticed him right away and pointed him out to me. I realize we were speculating, but he had the signs of a person with AIDS. It really hit me hard to see a person in this condition because it made the disease real. Because there are no signs when a person is HIV positive, the reality of the disease has not really affected me. As of now, we have not been to any funerals and most of the funerals we have heard about have been from car accidents. Seeing him made me realize that about 25% (or more) of people in this country will die in that way. The only thing they can do is go on ARVs which only allows them to live longer. The HIV will eventually progress into AIDS and they will die. I guess there is some hope though. Magic Johnson is still living a healthy life. Though he is not living in a country where opportunistic diseases are rampant (TB, etc). Grandpa Durkee just sent me an article with an interesting statistic- There is an 85% fatality rate of people with both HIV and TB. Anyway, it hit me this week. I am going to continue to have conversations with my students about it. I also had an idea of creating a lesson plan book with ready made lessons that integrate HIV/AIDS education into English. The thought is that the students need to talk about it enough that they feel comfortable talking about it. The language needs to become regular so that there is not so much shock factor and if or when the disease affects them (I don’t think there is anyone not affected by the disease), they will be prepared.

Once again, it has been almost 6 month since we have been here and we still miss you all like crazy! All these births and weddings are making us miss you even more! We send our love and wish we could be there with you sharing your memories!

May 2, 2007 (written by Jason)

Hello to all my huge fans out there. I know we have not been blogging as much as I said we would but you have to understand that life here moves at a totally different pace than back home. Our lives are really a number of boring routines that you would have a hard time reading if we were to just write the same things over and over again. It is like when we get together with PCV’s, we know that certain things will dominate conversation; e.g. Politics, Corporal Punishment in the classroom, and who is “hooking up” with whom around the Peace Corps circles. But I digress, as some memorable stuff is going on.

So it took me about 6 months but for the first time I actually was thronged by a group of kids at school. Many of you back home know that kids and I just get each other but for some reason or another I was keeping my distance from kids and what not. Today though after reading an entire Newsweek magazine waiting for class to start, I asked myself a simple question; “How badly do these kids need an adult to just recognize them?”

This was spurred on by one little boy Neo, who is in standard 1. He is this cute little independent man but whenever I am outside, he is right there beside me grabbing my hand and leaning against me. This led me to my experiment. So today at lunch, I took the kids out to the play area (a big grass lot) and played helicopter and airplane. I had to quit after about 30 kids though because by then, I had the entire 1, 2, and 3 classes mobbing me wanting me to swing them around. The truly sad part was after we quit, the students just wanted to be near me. Students were holding my hands, touching my clothes, just wanting to be near an adult who took interest in them. It was exhausting but fun and exhilarating as well.

Otherwise, things are going along as normal. School is fine. We would love to hear from anyone out there. We miss you all. Take care!
Jason