Kante is good! He speaks English like he WANTS.

That is written in chalk on the wall in my 12th grade classroom. I don't know who Kante is, but I can tell you that none of my 12th graders are good at speaking English. They also don't try very hard in class. Which is why they are being punished. I canceled their Tuesday review class and told them that I would start it up again when I'm convinced that they are spending at least as much time studying their lessons at home as I spend planning them at my house. Seems to me that since I already speak English I shouldn't be spending more time on it than them...if that doesn't work after a month I'm just going to restart the classes though (don't tell them!) It's no use continuing to punish the good students just because 75% of the class is a bunch of lazy jerks.

The good news about school is that everything else is going along swimmingly. My Terminale kids have been amazing lately - they didn't cheat too much on the final exams and have been coming to review class. Plus, last week I invited the top 10 students from each class to come to my house to read Newsweek magazines and to practice speaking English and both sessions went well! I'm going to continue that, plus add 3 "office hours" at my house on Saturdays for the students who aren't in the Top 10 but still want to have extra practice. I've been really busy!!! It's fantastic, though, because the Bacc (which will determine whether they get to go to University or not) is June 9-13th, so we don't have that much time to prepare and we are still trying to catch up from the crappy English classes they received the last 2 years!

Other good things have been happening at site too - first, I have a new PCV neighbor!! He's not actually that close to me, but all the new people are at their sites and that's good for morale. I'm hoping to invite 2 new PCVs to come check out this farm I went to the other day. They are agfo and business volunteers and the farm owner is trying to break into the agro-tourism industry. I'm not sure how big the demand is in Timbi Madina for a chicken farm with attached restaurant, but we'll see!! For now he has 3,500 chickens in 3 different houses and is waiting on 3 incubators from the US. It was pretty cool to go see his farm, it seems like a real operation (as opposed to the normal chickens I see eating garbage and running around people's yards...) The guy, Dr. Barry (he has a PhD from somewhere here in W. Africa), just got back from spending 6 months in the US working on a farm in upstate NY with a woman from USAID who sponsored his visa. He picked me up in his car (yay!!) and took me out to his farm, blasting Willie Nelson tunes the whole way. Apparently he saw him in concert over the summer in the States. Anyway, I checked out the farm and the solar drying area where he does something with fish and then he gifted me 30 eggs!! That's a big deal and probably the nicest present I've been given, it's worth about $5!!

And my house is officially mouse-proofed, which I'm incredibly grateful for. Plus the missionaries gave me cushions for my couch - they don't completely fit but work perfectly. My electricity is still coming in at between 20 and 60 volts. Camilo commented that I "don't have electricity, just night-lights" and I think that sums up the situation pretty well.

So site is great. Still no word on what my third year options are, but I'll keep you all posted.