This month is “man”instry month. Notice it’s not called “women”istry month (someone tried to call it that, but it just sounds completely absurd so I doubt it will happen again). It’s “man”istry month because it’s for the men. So all the men get to go off somewhere to work and do whatever they want without ladies around to bother them and all 28 women get stuck living in one house together. At first, this was exactly how I looked at it. Negatively. But it’s actually been pretty fun.
I mean, I go to bed every night listening to people talking ridiculously loud and wake up every morning to the exact same thing. But once I learned to more or less accept the loudness, I’ve quite enjoyed my time without the guys.
This month our female squad is split into a few different ministries. The majority of us go to care points everyday to help teach preschool and play with the kids. Then three people are working on the curriculum for all the preschool teachers in the area and the last week we are here they are going to go to the care points and explain the new curriculum to them. Three people are working on administration which is basically helping the curriculum people make all the things they need for the teachers. Lastly, three people were supposed to do sorting and organizing of all the donated clothes and things. I was in that group.
But thus far, we have not been needed, so the first day I went to a care point to help teach preschool. That was an adventure. Fortunately, the official language of Swaziland is English so they learn English is school. Unfortunately, they are in preschool so they all write their “d” backwards and their “7” upside down and they don’t really listen all that well. So, after a day of getting climbed on and being extremely exhausted, I decided to tag along with the admin people.
This week we have done a lot of tracing and cutting of shapes and making dominos and dice. One of the missionaries has a big wooden box full of blocks, dice, and other various activities that are all a part of the preschool curriculum, all of which need to be remade by us for 12 separate classrooms. Hence, all the tracing and cutting of shapes. I love work like this. I’m not sure why, but I find it oddly entertaining especially when I have wonderful people to talk to.
Who knows what I’ll end up doing these next few weeks, but I’m sure it will be wonderful. Also, I only need about $40 to be fully funded!
