Weekly Update: 3.19.11

• St. Pattycure!  I have awesome green + gold French tip nails right now... hilarious, tacky, and oh so festive!
• New pork restaurant, discovered this week.  It's a little expensive, but the meat is delicious, they have yet to give me organs or fat chunks or skin with hair still on it, and it's protein!  I took it home last week and made a spicy pork and "cheese" sandwich... sooo good.  Next week, I'm thinking of trying for chili.
• New clothes.  I got a new sleeveless modelle made (lightbulb tissu... it's fantastic), and a sundress.  Both are really cute... I'll try to upload a picture of one soon.
• Teaching Kids to Study.  I noticed during a recent teachers' meeting that about 75% of the 3eme students (the oldest we have in our school, 10th-ish grade) are failing.  That's not good.  Part of the problem is lack of understanding, but another part is a lack of studying effectively.  So I'm teaching each 3eme class how to study: good study environments, how to find the time, and different methods that actually work like flashcards and quizzing eachother.  I'm not sure it'll work, but I figure it's worth a try... if they care, they can take what I teach them and try it out for themselves.  I also always offer to help in English, because that's one of the problem subjects.  Anyway, so I did the first one this week, and despite being intimidated by how big they were (most are 18ish, but some are older than I am and like 7 ft. tall), it went really well!  They thought I was hilarious, and even if they don't study, they can't say they didn't have any way to practice their English lessons.
• Girls club!  Had my second girls' club, and it was awesome!  I already wrote about it in the last post, but I'm really excited about the next couple of lessons -- yay sex ed!  In another woman-related victory, the secretary of the school came to me with her boy troubles, which was really flattering.  Plus, I can actually help her out on the issue, which is even better.
• Weekend in Cotonou.  First in 3 weeks... Lord, how I missed free internet.  Check out new pictures on my Facebook account.
• Thanks for packages!  I was blown away -- I got like 5, plus lots and lots of fun letters to respond to.  Thanks so much, everyone!  Every letter/package/Valentine's day card makes my week. :)