In Your Time

It’s is an interesting thing when getting used to not having anything of your own, but being completely independent at the same time.  I’ve gotten used to the fact that most of my stuff will get used if it is left in the open,  sometimes even if it’s not, that I don’t really have my own place and am completely reliant on others to be feed.  I’ve also gotten used to the fact that my times seems not to be my own.  I can make my own decisions of course, but a lot of times I get dragged into one thing or another and my day ends up being completely different than I anticipated.  This may sound horrible, but it is actually quite enjoyable (most of the time).  For someone that always had a plan for her day, it took a little getting used to but, it is also a very freeing feeling.  While I get dragged to lots of things, not always knowing why I’m there or when they will end, I also have complete freedom for my day.  If I really wanted to spend all day sitting on top of Cap de Naz, I could.  It also means I am lucky enough to have the freedom to do something, even if it comes up last minute.   I can’t imagine when in my life i’ll ever have this freedom of time again.  I’m sure after 2 years I’ll be happy to get back to a more structured life, mainly for eating reasons, but it’s an amazing thing to have this kind of freedom.   For example of how my days never end up how I imagine, I’ll tell you about yesterday.

I am now teaching excel to the local teachers every Tuesday and Thursday. It just started and is going quite well, as I have the perfect group of “student.”  So yesterday, I had a fairly lazy morning with my only real plan being to teach excel at 12:30.  I was pretty excited because the last few days I had been relatively busy and was looking forward to biking to sindia (my nearest town with ice cream bars).  As 12 arrived I went to the school, but the electricity has still not come on for the day, so we wouldn’t be able to have the class.  I hate to say I was kind of excited because that means I was even closer to ice cream, and still nervous about teaching these classes with my pitiful French.  Upon arriving to the school and speaking with the teachers, I discovered a famous lutteur (wrestler), Tyson 2,  was coming to talk to the students during the academic competition they were having that afternoon.  I decided to stay because 1) I didn’t want to pass up the chance to meet a lutteur who my family talks about all the time and 2) I had yet to see a genie d’herbe (the academic competition) which happen every week and are also a big deal. 

Tyson 2 at a fight

So I proceeded to meet the famous lutteur and his entourage, I actually knew one of them because he is a lutteur from popenguine.  I also may be going to see his fight this coming week if I can figure it out and get some other pcvs to come with.   I also got to see the genie d’herbe, which was a lot of fun.  I will probably be helping them with questions and we’ll have an American day.   In all it was an unexpected I’m so happy the internet was out so I could participate.  Now you are probably thinking, what a nice activity and it sounds like Kelsey can still bike to ice cream.  Oh contraire!  The secretary then asked me to meet her uncle who would like to take a computer class, since apparently that’s my new calling.  Knowing I had the free time went and ended up staying all the way through lunch and I will be teaching computer classes Tuesday and Thursday night now.   I’m excited to have another activity, and like most volunteers, I jump at the chance to meet a new person or agree to another engagement.  It’s great because during these two years I am going to able to do a lot of different thing, most of them I’m sure I can’t even imagine.