Day 18: Corn Rows and Salsa

June 18, 2009

Thursday

“Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong. Do everything in love.”

1 Corinthians 16: 13-14

Another half day at Kechene. I taught KG2 English then Grade 1 Ethics where I talked about the Good Samaritan and the 10 Lepers. The kids gave me back the math problem worksheets I had made them so I graded them and put a sticker on each one and gave them back. The kids were thrilled. I ended up making another batch of worksheets and handing them out to almost the entire Grade 1 class.

When I left there I caught a bus from Piazza over to Asco, to the Mother Theresa Orphanage where Blair and Allison work. I hung out with them and we visited the 4^th grade class at the orphanage during art class. Some of the girls asked me if they could do my hair like theirs (meaning cornrows) and I told them they were more than welcome to try. So now I have cornrows on the top of my head and everyone says they look good, especially the Ethiopians I know such as Asni and Hanna. I think they’re fun so I’ll keep them in for a while. It hurt a little when they were actually braiding my hair, but now they don’t hurt at all.

This evening we went salsa dancing again and it was so much fun! It was our group (minus Kate and the younger girls) plus the Gladney girls, plus some of the girls from Destiny where Brittany works, and then some Young Life people Rachel, Allison, and Blair had met when they visited a Young Life meeting earlier this week. I danced these two line dances they have, one which is very similar to the Electric Slide, a few dances with JT, and then a bunch of dances with other girls in our group. Most of the time when us girls were dancing together I’m pretty sure we were not doing anything remotely close to what actual salsa dancing looks like, but we had fun with it. Near the end of the night, they played one song that sounded more like a hip-hop song than a salsa song, and since most of the other dancers had already left and it was just our group, a bunch of us jumped on the dance floor and started dancing "American style". At one point we made a circle on the floor (because we were the only ones on it) and people would step out into the middle to “show off”. It was all very silly and extremely fun.