The first few days of Rising Star

So I am sharing my computer with several people and so sometimes it is difficult to get a chance to get on.  I have arrived in the village and begun what I came here to do.  They put is into groups here and each day we rotate what we do with our group.  My group was assigned to education first.  We tutored 3-6th graders with their reading.  We also helped a 5th grade class with a math program on the computer.  I felt right at home helping the students work on their reading.  For one 40 mintue session I even got to go into a classroom and work with a larger group of students.  Although that too, felt like home, I think I preferred to work with them one on one as they all needed so much help with reading the stories we were given to read with them.  I only wished that I could do more for them.  At times I felt so helpless because I wanted to be able to help them more.  We help them with their English because they will do better once they leave the school if they are bilingual so I guess I am getting some good ESL experience in.

Eating lunch

     At lunch time they all go into this big room and sit in circles where their house mom has food for them.  They eat with their right hand and do not touch the food with their left.  I decided to try and eat like them and forgo the fork.  It was funny because the little girls I was sitting by laughed at me when I did not do it right.  They finally helped me figure out the right way to do it. :) 

Tossing bricks

The size of the four brick piles we tossed to the second story

  

 Yesterday I was on the construction crew.  We all made a big assembly line up this building and started tossing bricks from person to person.  We tossed bricks up to the second floor for 6 hours.  We only really took a lunch break and that was all.  I came back covered in dirt so much so that I looked as if I had a farmer's tan.  Someone else took a picture of that one or else I would post it.  I learned how much machinery does for us in America.    I have all sort of scrapes and my arms feel as if they got a real work out!
      Other than that I have learned to use a squat toliet and to take a bucket shower.  Neither are really as bad as I thought it would be.  It is definetly hot here, but I am surviving it better than I thought.