Training don don!

So I can't believe it, but we are finally finished. We had Monday and Tuesday this week to teach something, and then had to give our final exams for the summer school students on Wednesday. I just reviewed and we played games to take up the time. Teaching is really stressful and oftentimes uncomfortable. I hated not really being prepared and still having to stand in front of 50+ children trying to entertain them enough for them to not find talking more interesting than paying attention. I'm basically glad I won't be teaching Junior Secondary School. Hopefully I get the older kids that I'm wanting, and I think I will.

On Thursday after the exam was over, we had to do a life skills class. One of the three teachers in my room was sick, so me and the other teacher had to pull the class off just the two of us. We had planned this thief and cop skit we were going to act out to be able to talk about decision making. E went into the class and acted like I was sick like the other guy and she was just going to teach them a boring english lesson. I burst into the classroom wearing sunglasses that made me look like a menacing criminal, brandishing my pocket knife at a room of at least 30 children. I said it was a cutlass and that I wasn't afraid to use it and yelled “this is a robbery, I'm taking hostages!” I pulled a few students forcefully up front and told them I'd kill them if they tried to leave! I figured I might as well take the chance in Africa to threaten students with a knife because I could never ever do it in the states. They all laughed and had fun. The skit was entertaining, but probably not all that educational. The students had to bargain with me to get the hostages out without people dying and too much money being lost, because if most of the money was stolen, the school was going to close. Two students ended up getting killed and I got away with 2.5 million leones.

Yesterday, Friday, was the awards ceremony at the school. So like with any meeting in Sierra Leone there were many speeches and belabored activities. The Islamic missionary guy talked, the principal talked, our acting country director talked, and then we all passed out awards to the top three students in our respective classes. It was cool to give them recognition, and I'm sure all these students will succeed. A really smart girl in JSS 3 named Augusta gave the vote of thanks for the student body. I talked to her a bit afterwards. She wants to be a journalist and goes to a girls boarding school in Freetown. She likes to read, write poetry, and all sorts of other impressive smart things.

Last night we had guys night at this bar called Obama's. It was pretty fun but felt a little bit like hazing. We joined back up with the girls later and all had a big la-di-da with Salone 3 at the nice night club.

I went for a run this morning, and now I'm getting ready to go to town to buy everything I need to get for site. I've bought a mattress, a kerosene stove, and need to get a bunch of other stuff. After this we have the host family recognition meal thing. I'll be packing everything up today, PC will be picking the stuff up tomorrow, and I'll leave Bo on Monday. We'll spend a few days in Freetown being taken around by our LCFs (the language/culture/tech trainers that we have had for the past 10 weeks). There will probably be more la-di-daing, but now on the beach! Swearing in is on Wednesday, and we are all really excited to be done with all of this and sitting on our verandas at site.