Miss you know...

Hello Friends and Family,

This has been a week - I feel like I say that every week and I am starting to enjoy the craziness of life here. Last weekend I wrote on Saturday so you already know last friday night - Saturday we just hung out at home and relaxed until one of the sisters called us and we went over to her house across the street and played scrabble. It was a lot of fun other than the fact that I lost by one point. I was super mad to because I put down a word everyone else said wasn't a word - and they didn't have the challenge thing - but IT WAS A WORD! AHh! Hahah... (I'm a jamnick - what do you expect me not to be competative?!?)

Sunday was a good day I went for a walk on the sea wall - the tide was slowly starting to come in and I went down and stood by the water. It was a really weird feeling because It feels like the ocean is going to fall in on you. I picked up some sea shells and a coconut shell which I cleaned (Very well) and made a table decoration with. I have become the new Martha Stewart of our house. You have a small budget so you have to be creative!!

This week was full of work and then home - we didn't do anything extraordinary this week. Work was really good this week - and yet again really stressful. I found a really interesting dynamic this week with my girls. My girls will give me trouble all of the time - they constantly are testing the waters. However someone else gave me trouble this week and my girls could tell that I was pretty upset and all of a sudden it was like I had 14 little body guards. For them its okay for them to hassle me - but No one else can mess with "their miss". Since they are all pretty violent in their speech I heard a few of them say how they were going to "cuff" the person who made me upset. That no one was going to disrespect me. I found it actually pretty comforting that although they will try and give me problems when it comes to the end of the day they have my back. Going along with that as I have said before respect here is really huge in this culture and one of the boys who normally gives me trouble came up to me this week and I asked him nicely to please leave. At that point he looked at me and said "you know Miss - I will do it for you, because miss you've earned my respect". Then later that week he was about to get into a fight and I grabbed him by the arm and he looked at me and came with me away from the situation. If they respect you - they will listen to you - it just takes a while to get there.
This morning I got onto the bus and I had forgot to eat breakfast and one of my girls came back to the bus with an orange and as we were waiting for the bus to "full up" I asked her where she got it and how much - and she said Miss 2 for 100 - so I gave her the 100 and asked her to buy me two. When she came back some other students were with her and they gave me a hard time about something and then all of a sudden the bus drive (who knows me by now) started to give me a hard time and they told him to shut up - I wasn't his Miss. It was funny because some of the girls with me weren't even students I teach. Many incidents all in one week - but its been very rewarding.

Other than that the only other thing I have been thinking about is how there are parts of us that will never change. I know that part of me will never stop fighting for what's right and that may mean that I get frustrated at certain people. I talked to my uncle Warren a few weeks ago for about 3 minutes and in that time I remember him saying: "Well that doesn't suprise me that you have a problem with ___ because you're always fighting when it comes to that". That has stuck with me over and over for the past few months. I will always fight for equality. Now I have been very very laid back and not said anything much since being here because one I don't understand the culture and two I don't want to create waves before I analyze all areas of things - but this week was one of the first times where it was hard for me not to fight back. And then I realized that that is part of who I am and when you realize who you are and how no one can change that about you - you have to realize how to keep yourself in check but also be true to who you are. Here I might not be able to competely speak up and voice myself but I can live by example - and eventually find a way to fight for equality that is appropriate. I feel like becoming self aware is almost impossible not to do in a new situation.

Anyway, my week has been crazy and I'm out of internet time already. I'm sending lots of prayers and love,

Ashley Ann