D+1 or D-Day?

is tues. june 26.
despite less then five hours of sleep i was up a few minutes past seven. my body is not quite sure what time it is.
i go to take a shower. the spider is on the shower curtain to greet me.
i step outside and ask one of the men to tell me if this is poisonous or not. he shrugs, mumbles that it is not, brushes it with his hand and steps on it with his bare foot. hum...
the shower cleared some of the fog from my mind.
i had a simple breakfast of oatmeal and bread with salami. i ate with laurence who is the man of the house. his wife, christine, is the one i had connected with and planned my trip with. he was kind and welcoming. he answered my questions and made me feel at home.
after breakfast i met some of the seemingly innummerable men and few women who were around the house. shadrack (sp?) lives on the property in one of the houses with his wife and four kids. the kids are adorable. i played soccer with them (7, 5, 3, 2) this afternoon. shadrack takes care of the grounds and the generators. his wife helps in the kitchen. there is big ester and little ester who also work in the kitchen and around the house when guests are staying here.
rufus, clarence (his assistant), and a few other reap people came around this morning. i ate a small mango (which they call a plum) from the tree from just outside my building.
i found that i have internet access at the house but it is slow. however, it is wireless. funny how everyone here has a cell phone (there are no landlines) and a computer (at least the reap people do), but there is not electricity or other simple amenities.
rufus, clarence and i were driven to the isaac a. david memorial school at about 09:30. on the way the road was filled with yellow taxis and a few others cars and trucks. many people milled about on the side of the road. they seemed to be either sitting and staring or hawking some good out of their wheelbarrow.
we passed many schools - all of which had students in uniform. the isaac david school (named after a former supreme court justice in liberia) was thronging with students in blue and white.
they all greated me with large pearly-white smiles and touches. after meeting the prinicpal of the school and meeting harvey and jenna (the two americans who are joining me in the work here; harvey just finished his junior year in school; jenna just finished her freshman year in college) i went into the ninth grade classroom and started to teach math.
the students are in their last week of classes. but the sixth and ninth grade have their national exams starting next week. we started to cram for the test.
the room was simple with old wooden desks, a chalkboard and a table against the wall. the eraser was a piece of clothe wrapped around a bunch of thin plastic strips or a wadded up piece of paper. the walls were made of cinderblock and the roof was tin. i went through part of a practice exam that i was given by the teacher. most students had simple notebooks and pens. they were responsive and respectful. like my ninth graders, some were on top of the game and knew what i was talking about and others struggled to keep up. i showed them some short-cuts to doing the problems without needing to do all the problems.
i got back to the house close to three and ate some corn and home-made french fries. and a banana. from the table, i stumbled back to my room and collapsed on my bed. i slept for two hours.
when i woke, i played soccer in the sand with shadrack's kids. we laughed and laughed. after much fun, i finally had to call it quits because i was being bitten so many times by red ants. i have bites all over my feet and on my arms and chest. how did they get so high?
this evening i had my first truly african meal. i had rice from china and a casava leaf dish with chicken. casava is a root that is eaten often here. the leaf is put in a large (two foot tall) wooden mortar and pestle. some pepper is added. it was different but quite good. it reminded my of an indian dish (pallock paneer (?) but without the paneer).
now i am sitting in front of clarence's (thanks clarence) laptop sweating and typing.
it is ten thirty. i am ready for bed.
i hope all that are reading this are well.
God is exceedingly kind to me and i am very grateful to be here. it is so different, but so much the same. students are students are students, no matter where you are. same with humans. though these people seem to smile more than most (esp. more than brits.)
ah, i forgot to mention, most of the day today did not have rain. we had a few good rains but most was dry (it is difficult to use that word when the humidity is so high and i am always wet with perspiration) and cloudy.
thanks for yours prayers.
last thing - for a long time tonight the generator was not on so i went around with my headlamp. i saw another huge spider outside my room. like a dog or cat, its eyes glowed in the light of my headlamp...