Do you see a wedding ring on my finger?

“Are you married?” Is a question I am prompted with here almost daily - since my training site is so small, you would think word would travel, butalas I am wrong to assume such things. Marriage is another part of this culture that is so different than what I am used to in the states. Romantic relationships are NOT, I repeat, NOT to be publically displayed. Also, pre-marital and extra-martial affairs are so taboo for woman but it is such a common place for men to do both those things. The only comparison I can make that my American friends and family could understand is imaginethe United States in the 1950s.

In other news, I started teaching last week and I am coming down to the end of week two. Every morning (there’s a halo hanging from the corner of my girlfriends four post bed) it is a struggle to get up and out the door to class. However, onceI’m there I feel right at home - which is a weird feeling. I was very unsure, and honesty still am, about so many things - but if nothing else, I know I belong in the career of teaching. It is just too much fun. While I have a lot of improvements to make, and a long ways to come, I am too excited totransform into the teacher I really think im supposed to be.

There are so many small moments that get me out of bed and those are the ones I live for. When I’m missing home, and to be honest there is never a time that I am not, I think of the faces I’m starting to recognize and the calls of “teacher teacher, are you fine?!” As I walk down the street - it’s too good not to love, even if everyday is a newchallenge different from the one before and different from the one yet to come.

Thanks for giving me a soapbox and I hope you enjoyed reading! More to come.

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