Back in the city!

Hey everyone! I’m back in Nampula doing some shopping and going to the bank. I’ve had an exciting past month and a half since I last posted. I went to visit Ilha de Mozambique twice, just for the day both times. It’s really pretty, and I got to go swimming! I also went to another city, Namialo, to watch our soccer team play. (We tied 0-0.) There is another game tomorrow, so hopefully we’ll win!
Big news: Winter is here! It’s been getting cooler and cooler during the past month, and this week I’ve been chilly walking to school in the morning with long pants and a sweater. It still gets pretty hot in the afternoon, but it gets in the lower 60s at night.
I’ve got my English club started! It’s been going really well, the teacher I’m working with is really enthusiastic about it, and the students really like it too. The first week we did introductions, the second week we talked about malaria, the third week was Mozambican culture, and the past two weeks we’ve done story telling. Next week the topic will be HIV/Aids, and then after that we’ll start rehearsing for an English Theater production. We’ll be doing a 10-15 minute play related to HIV/AIDS to perform in a competition with theater groups that other volunteers have.
The second trimester at school is going really well. I’m more organized, and I’ve been planning better. The scores on the first test were really good for the students who usually come to class, but absenteeism is a big problem, so there were still a lot of students who failed. We’ve also been assigned by our director to do observations of other teachers, so it’s been interesting to see some other lessons. For the most part, the lessons seem pretty good. Some other teachers whose lessons I wasn’t assigned to watch invited me to come anyway, so in the next few weeks I’ll be seeing a lot of disciplines. I’m interested to see what the students are learning in other subjects.
After hearing some other volunteers stories about their colleagues and schools, I think I got pretty lucky when Peace Corps placed us. At the end of the 1st trimester we had to do the grade sheets for the students. Not on teacher asked me to change any of the grades, and my director didn’t ask me to raise the average or anything. Stories from other volunteers include teachers going around with lists of names making sure that these students passed, sometimes asking teachers to change the grades, and sometimes just taking the grade sheets and changing the grades themselves. I really like my colleagues I have a lot of fun hanging out with them during the breaks. At first I really didn’t like that the school is a 15 minute walk from the village, but it’s actually really nice walking home with other teachers and talking to them.
Well that’s all for now! I’m don’t have any plans to travel in the near future, so I don’t know when I’ll be posting again.