I Can't Believe A Year Went By So Fast!

So it was 12 months ago I left for Nam. I remember sitting in Maria and Mom’s hanging out with good friends and thinking “what the hell and I getting myself into?”. I can say I am so glad I got on that plane to staging. Things have turned out so perfect. I know I have said this, but I really can’t imagine my life any different/better right now.

Here’s an update on what’s going on in my life right now...
Camp GLOW...
This is the camp I am a co-chair on this project. We spent this past week in Windhoek getting quotes, doing inventory, selecting the 80 learners and 25 facilitators that are coming and just figuring some things out that we needed to . I am really excited about the camp and it should be a good time. I am also working as a co-chair on another camp called EWA, it happens in Kavango and Caprivi, and it is almost exactly the same as GLOW the only thing is we take 80 learners from only Kavango and Caprivi. These will all take place over the next 5 months so I am going to be ready for a vacation come July but...

KAYEC
... my work with my host organization is crazy busy also. Come July I will be working 3 weekends a month doing things for my kids until September! My kids will get to go to a sports tournament in Windhoek, a bunch of leadership trainings, and the same camp they went to last year on the river, and a new camp out in Buffalo Game Park. These will all have themes( team building and environmental education) and fun games we play. It should be a good time. I am hoping to also hike Fish River Canyon with some of the kids from Windhoek, Reoboth, Otjiwarongo and Ondangwa (you have to be in the program for 3 years and my kids are not there yet so I am hoping to tag along with those that have). This weekend all the Youth Officers (my job) got together in Rundu to discuss the next year. There are a lot of good things going on with the program and it should be really great for the kids. Over the past year I have made some mistakes and learned from the program so I hope this year will go smoother and better for the kids. Today I am making a large jeopardy board for our Tuesday “Power Hour Study Time”! We will meet every Tuesday and study select topics. If you have any other fun games that I can make into studying with out studying I would love some input. I was starting to feel overwhelmed with all these tasks in my head so I made a yearly calendar and let me say I will be ready for a LONG HOLIDAY come December. I think I am going to go hide on a beach in Mozambique somewhere and read a lot of books and relax!

Personal
As you could have probably guessed I don’t have much personal time. Today I am going home and cleaning my house on my half day (not fun, but I worked all weekend so I don’t have a choice!) I am still pretty lame when it comes to doing exciting things on my own (not much has changed since I lived in the States!)I am just taking advantage of every free day of nothing that I get. I really miss those weeks of having nothing to do. Everything else is great. The new group comes next Sunday or Saturday. There are going to be 30 of them!! There are going to be a handful coming my side I think.I am helping with one of the weeks, the site announcement week! Oceano one of our grocery stores has changed its name to Woreman Brocks. It has not been raining that much, today is overcast so thats nice and not so hot! The river is still pretty high and we still have a few more months to go hopefully the flooding won’t be too bad this year.I got a couch for my house!! Its nice, small, but nice! I am getting a girl from Windhoek, Melanie to help me with my job. She is coming March 1st so that should be good. She is super sweet and she might stay with me for a month until she can find a place to rent. Tomatoes are $17 per bag!!! I think OK foods just bumped all their prices up. Kathy and I made these mint chocolate chip cookies ... YUM I might need another few bags of those chocolate chips when they come out again!

I think that’s all the happenings...as you can tell my life is very exciting these days!
EWA