of English class and where I live

This week has been pretty easy going... Boring if you will :) But I guess everyone needs a week like this every so often to counterbalance the craziness that is the rest of our lives. So pretty much every day has gone like this: wake up, stay in bed until five minutes before breakfast, frantically get dressed, run downstairs, eat, come back to the room, shower, check my email, teach English math and English, back to the room, check email (read, sleep, chill), conversational English, dinner, kids kids kids, back to room, email, sleep. Exciting eh? But again, it has been a nice break.

My mom wanted to see where I live and stuff so that's what these pictures are. The big cafeteria is where we eat meals, the kids eat meals, have kids worship, have caregivers worship, vespers, and church. It's pretty all purpose. There is a pretty view of the left wing of the orphanage from the door to the cafe and a shot from the door to our apartment. Banni is staying with us right now and we teach conversational English from that (really uncomfortable) couch. Our bathroom isn't terribly big but it doesn't have to be. The sink is cut out from the shot but it's really just a sink by a toilet and nothing really special :) It's all really basic... but it's becoming like home.

I've been teaching my grade one kids how to better recognize words they can't put a picture to (like where, what, this, it, is, etc.). I had a fun breakthrough when I put all these hard words on the board and got them to come up and circle the word I was saying. But then I started to trick them by saying other words in the Dick and Jane book. They thought that was hilarious and we made a fun game out of it. [Please don't say I'd made a good teacher though! I don't think I could do this day in and day out... No offense to teachers but I can't think of ways to DAILY explain these small and basic things. It really is not for me.]

While I've had quite the uneventful week, the Waid's have their hands full with staffing changes. I don't know why but three people quit this week and two new girls have come to help. It's sad for many people here, especially because two that quit were SO good in the nursery. They were the ones in the last post changing a diaper with two babies with bottles on each knee. I haven't really gotten to know the new girls yet but they seem nice. I've learned that Bengali's are very sensitive people who get their feelings hurt pretty easily (wow, a country of ME lol) and when you have almost 20 caregivers (aka 20 women) working in one orphanage stupid fights are bound to happen. But seeing a country of ME has made me try to be rational and give people the benefit of a doubt--well at least that is what I'm working towards :)

I'm also realizing that the life-changing experience I hoped to have over here won't come overnight. I feel like I keep waking up, hoping that God has changed me into the person He (and I) wants me to be. Sadly that's not the case. But I hope that daily, through all the craziness here, I can get just a tad bit closer to that person.. We'll see after the year's over I guess.

I've also had to learn that I can't change Bangladesh. I can only leave my small mark on some wonderful children here, hoping that even after I'm gone they will be okay. I'm starting to see it too--when they run up and in broken English tell me that so-and-so is crying because another kid hit them or took their toy. That wouldn't have happened a month ago. I just hope that learning English will really help them make a good life for themselves! Again... only time will tell right?

but that's all for now.. I'm sure art tomorrow will be the highlight of the week :) Should be fun!
ami tomake bhalobashi