Holidays

Today is Hero's Day- a national holiday. So the streets are a little bit less crowded. But the class I teach is for working students, so today we have class (they have class on weekends and holidays). Today was the start of our second module. I have a week off until I have to teach (yay!) so I'm busy trying to get my research permit in order, submitting a few last grants, and finishing my grading from my class.

We went and saw a really lovely house that we are thinking of moving into. It's a little more than we would like to spend, but it's less expensive than our current house, and has a really lovely garden with rose bushes and other flowers.

Last Saturday was also a holiday. I walked to school for my class early and the streets were practically empty. It was the first time I had seen that and it felt wonderful.  The streets here are as crowded as they are in times square, so to have an entire sidewalk to myself (sans staring) was nice.  On the last Saturday of the month, everyone has to go outside and do community service (like cutting the grass with their machetes) from 8-11am. Luckily, teachers and students are excused.

I've given up trying to blend in. I had initially tried to dress more modestly (pants every day or long skirts), but now on hot days I've started to wear my knee length skirts and shorts. I figure I get stared at no matter how I dress so I might as well be comfortable.

I had a great last class on Saturday. We did an exercise that involved math (gasp!) and was fairly complicated- each question required multiple steps to solve the problem. I organized the class a little differently this time and really tried to walk them through all the questions one at a time. Anyway, it worked and they all (mostly) finished! I was so relieved! The other two labs had only been so-so successes so I was glad that they had a good lab that both the students and I felt good about for the final class.