Ana

I met up with Ana again on the way to school. I met her last Thursday, the day I go in a bit earlier than usual to teach my grade 12 class. Ana is a beautiful little girl, about 4, with big brown eyes. She walks alone to school every day. We have a mutual fear, of the dog who lives a few houses away and who likes to run after little girls and women on bikes. I showed Ana the big rock I was clutching in my hand and got off my bike and we walked together past the house. Today, the dog wasn't around, but we'll be ready for him every Thursday.

It has been a quiet week. As I mentioned in last week's blog, we weren't supposed to have any school as the teachers were all going to SAWA, the youth military training camp. All of our students were told this on the last day of school last week, (Wednesday). Then on Thursday, things were changed, and they decided not to send the teachers to SAWA. We were told this by countless people, students and teachers, so we planned to show up for school as usual. Well either the message didn't get out or for some other reason on Saturday my classes were empty. They slowly got fuller over the course of the week, but I was still teaching fewer than 20 students at a time, which was a very nice change from 60! I got to know some of my students better and was able to give them more attention. We'll see on Saturday whether more are back. We have also heard that the police are going into some of the schools and checking id cards to see whether some people are avoiding their mandatory military service. For this reason, some students may be staying home.

Friday Maya had everyone over to watch Harry Potter on our friend Morven's laptop. She has a gang of really nice friends. While they watched, Kim and I had our Arabic lesson with our young teacher, one of our students at school. After this, an impromptu game of volleyball began, which turned into a game where if you miss the ball you crouch in the centre and get balls thrown at you. This was followed by a game of kick the can. I think our male Arabic tutor was having a pretty good time playing with ten or so beautiful girls...

Saturday, with no students, Kim and I went home early and spent some time with our kids, which for a Saturday, is a special treat for us. We ended the day with a cycle to the Serena hotel, outside of town on the road to Asmara. Our friend Morven joined us. It was a beautiful ride through the countryside but not a peaceful one. A row of six "tsadas" (white people) on bikes attracts a lot of attention. There were constant cries of "tilian" (Italian) and "tsadas" as we rode by. I felt like I was in a parade. The meal was incredible: the best pizza I've had in Eritrea. Now that we have bikes enough for all of us, hopefully we'll get in more of these evening bike rides as a family, and hopefully with time the locals will get used to seeing us ride by.

Next week promises to be fun. It's International Women's Day on Wednesday. We have the day off of school and our school will be in a procession down to the stadium where doubtlessly there will be a zillion speaches. I've planned a whole week of activities around the event, including a poster and writing contest, a song, and best of all, we have the field on Tuesday!!! Usually the girls only get to use the field at recess. Only the boys have "sport" or gym class. But Tuesday the field is ours. The other girls' English teacher and I will have special fun relays and the girls can play soccer and volleyball as well. They're pretty excited about it.

That's all for now,

Barb