“Do not depend on the hope of results, you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite of what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. You gradually struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationships that saves everything” Thomas Merton

This week I began my English classes. I teach a class for adults, high schoolers, youth and in the elementary classroom. That is a total of 7-8 hours of teaching English per week. I am hopeful that I will build strong relationships through offering this service for the community.

Also I have organized two general community meetings for this week. I am going to meet with the people of my satellite communities, introduce myself, administer a survey and begin building relationships with community leaders and organized groups. Hopefully they go well.

There is a half eaten chicken walking around the house today. He got attacked this morning when he tried to eat out of the dogs bowl. He has exposed flesh on his left side, his head, and his left wing is a bone. It’s a little crazy that he is still walking around the house, and that this is indeed part of my life.

80 degrees here. 80 degrees is a glorious temperature. I am infinitely grateful for the rain (even if no one can hear anything over the pounding of the rain on the tin roofs). Infinitely grateful.

Now for some great quotes from a book I am reading about cross cultural adjustment.

“I don’t really know what happens next-one so seldom does” – E.M. Foster

“ I should say, looking back calmly upon the matter, that 75% of West African insects sting, 5% bite, and the rest are either prematurely or temporarily parasitic on the human race. And undoubtably one of the worst things you can do in West Africa is to take any notice of an insect. If you see a thing that looks like a cross between a flying lobster and a figure of Abraxes on a Gnostic gem, do not pay it the least attention, never mind where it is; just keep quiet and hope it will go away-for that’s your best change; you have none in a stand up firght with a good, thorough going African insect.” –Mary Kingsley

“It is so very HOT I do not know how to write it large enough” – Emily Eden

“It was not like other bad roads which incommode you with continuous and petty malice. Look how far you can go, they seem to say, as you crawl painfully along them, and still be called a road. You hate them the more bitterly for the knowledge that they will keep certain bounds. They will madden you with minor obstacles, but in the end they will let you through.

But with the road to _________ it was not like this. It had no quarrel with us. It took no count of us at all. It did not fight a sly, delaying action, raising our hopes only to dash them, but always keeping them alive. It did not set out to tantalize us or gall us. It seemed, rather, preoccupied with its own troubles. It had never wished to be a road, and now it cursed itself for not refusing its function before it was too late. It lashed itself into a fury of self-reproach. It writhed in anguish. It was certainly a tormented thing. “ – Peter Flemming

And Happy 1 Month in Site to me! Sending loves,

Chelsea