Today is Sunday

The past few days have been relatively quiet around here. I enjoyed my Friday off, watching Rio Bravo, that Emily was thoughtful enough to have sent. Angie Dickinson is so cute in that movie. It had to be one of her first. I got my room clean, and then settled down to read for a while. I also did both sets of Cindy’s yoga and an extra mile on the treadmill AND lifted some weights. I felt very virtuous.

Saturday is a work day, which still seems weird, but it is a busy one for me – kind of like Monday would be in the United States. The only difference is that I don’t have enough time off to get into “lazy” mode, so I am ready to go on Saturday, except for that 6:30 a.m. thing.

I decided today to float the idea of having a valedictorian for our classes. Each class is eight weeks long, and during those eight weeks, the students study 11 topics. Prior to each topic, they take a test to see what they know about it, and after they complete the topic, they take a post-test, to measure how much they have learned. I think we should reward the person with the highest post-test scores (all 11 together) and also the person who has shown the most improvement over all the topics. Then we could mention each at the graduation ceremony. Let’s see what happens with that idea.

The big event today was that the boys came to my room to help me fix the windows. I have two little windows that look out over the gravel yard and the bomb shelter. Between the shelter and my windows is a little path that sometimes people (and since few women are at this camp, they are probably men) walk down. Before I got here, someone hung a teeny tiny tapestry of sorts over each window, securing the tapestries to the window frame with push pins. After I got here, I added another curtain – a fitted sheet that partially blocked the windows as well. Those things kind of worked, but Max sent me some plastic window covering that fuzzes up the view so that no one would be able to look in at inopportune times (as if anyone would) and see anything. The problem is that my desk is in front of the windows, and I can’t reach the tops of the windows to take down the tapestries nor put them back up. The logistics of the matter, however, became trivial when one of the tapestries fell down, exposing who-knows-what to the outside world.

So today, I asked Esman and Sadiq if they would mind helping me move the desk, apply the plastic, and replace the tapestries. They were more than happy to oblige. After the desk was moved, Sadiq took down the other tapestry and I cleaned the windows as the plastic covering instructions directed. That was when I saw that the outside of the windows was so dirty that no one would have been able to see in anyway. But we plugged away, trying to follow the instructions, and finally making up our own instructions, so that at the end of the task, the plastic was covering the dirty windows, the tapestries were covering the plastic, and the lovely sheet returned home to the screws that stick out of the wall on either side of the windows. It doesn’t look any different, but I feel better.

I went to church tonight, thanks to Skype and Russ Schupp. It feels so good to hear Alex speaking, and it was quite funny, but this week, I had thought of the verse that was on the lectionary today – the one about how it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get to heaven. For some reason, I was happy not to be rich.

I think the chefs (cooks) have changed at the kitchen, because all of a sudden, dinner isn’t as good as it has been. So I was grateful that Emily sent me peanut butter crackers. I had three of those and a cookie from last night for dinner, along with my water and a sprinkling of Jameson. And speaking of Emily, she is at the Chiefs game in Tampa Bay. I hope things turn out well, for her, but I think she will just be frustrated.

Good night to all, and have a wonderful week ahead. October is half over. That means I am one month from home! I think that’s great news!