General Updates

Rainy season is beginng to taper off here with less and less day-lng downpours and even a few sunny days a week. Those of you who may be envious of my experiences of the African sun may be forgiven for your foolishness. Even with SPF 30 on, it literally hurts my skin to stand in the sun for more than a minute. The malaria medicine I'm on is the main culprit of this, but honestly, being so near the equator doesn't help either. I love and miss the rain.
Tutoring is progressing well. I feel that I am getting a hang of where my students are at in their levels of reading and math and am thinking of good ways to challenge them. Though maybe not always in math. some of the older kids are doing math that I routinely failed at in high school and I realize that I need to brush up my toes a bit if I'm actually to be any help in that area. Dang math... can't ever get away from it!
Our team has been exploring a bit in our off time- the other night (before getting almost real ice cream from an expensive Lebanese restaurant) we stepped into a suburban supermarket that we had seen many times but not be in yet. It was America. Through and through. They had everything that you have at your local grocery store from Dr. Pepper to Peanut Butter M&Ms, Dove Soap, everything. And when you work out the conversion (say Le5000 for M&Ms = $1.25) prices are pretty good. But when you work out the prices according to everything else here, it's really expensive. That same small bag of M&Ms cost nearly 3/4s of a lunch for me and half a dinner. It's a bit sobering to think that "the good American stuff" isn't pricy according to home standards but it's far out of the reach of the majority of the population... and yet there are still plenty of supermarkets to supply the fabulously rich here in Sierra Leone. As much as I enjoyed that little taste from home in the supermarket, the more and more I realized how great the gap is between rich and poor here.


Also, a little note. I got a package from my mother today! Full of goodness and wonderful things from home- my parents are the best :-). But I was quizzed by the postal officals about it's contents and luckily I knew- they seemed like they would become very perturbed if I didn't. I thought it would be good to make a note that if you send me a package, don't send any surprises. Let me know what's in it so that I can tell them correctly and I don't get it taken away or fined or arrested or anything.