...What a weekend! Oh, and school started too...

So I had a very random, very fun weekend. I didn't do too much on Saturday afternoon other than some lesson planning additonal "teacherish" things, but come Saturday night, I had a jam-packed weekend! It started with dinner at Mamba Point - a restaurant that is frequented by a number of ex-pats, Lebanese business people, and wealthy Sierra Leoneans. I went with Hanneke, my new housemate, and we met a few new friends from different NGOs. After dinner, we went out on the town with one of Hanneke's colleagues, Sylvanus, and his friend Mamood. First, we crashed the after-party of a Lebanese wedding at Atlantic, a club on Lumley beach. Then we headed to "Buggy's" which was, well, a little sketchy. And finally, to finish off the night in grand style, we went to "Padi's" (which means "Friend" in Krio) where they played "African Queen" towards the end of the night. It was a riot. Not only did the evening include much dancing (and incidentally, much more sweating) but also, music blasted at piercing levels from the back of a jeep, a shirtless Lebanese man (what do you do when your shirt is drenched with sweat? Take it off and let it fly out the sunroof, of course!), and a lot of Coca-Cola. Definitely a crazy-I-can't-believe-we're-out-in-Freetown kind of a night. On Sunday morning Hanneke and I dragged ourselves out of bed and made it to church. The church we went to is near to my school and is called St. Augustine's. Apparently, it is less formal than most other churches in Sierra Leone...hmmm....as it turned out, it was "Anglican Sunday" (as opposed to "Methodist Sunday" which is next week) so I fit right in. There was a point in the 45-minute sermon where it was difficult to keep my eyes open, but we made it through...two hours later. After church I went home to have some lunch, try to figure out some plans with Adama and Aroun (which never panned out - bah!) and take a bit of a nap. When Hanneke came home from lunch, we packed up our things and headed to the beach. I'm not sure which was a crazier experience, the beach, or our night on the town. The beach trip included, officially meeting the couple whose wedding we had crashed the night before, driving down Lumley beach road in a red convertible (Hanneke was driving...), hanging out with Justin, Mamood, Sylvanus...and some other people who I can't remember the names of, a lot of trying to make myself understood in Krio, and now, Arabic, and of course swimming in the ocean! Phew! Amid all of that activity I didn't get a chance to get nervous about school starting on Monday. As for my first day teaching...it was a breeze! I suppose it would be when you only have three students. Actually, I had three students for home room, and then 1 student for Literature and 2 more for Social Studies. We had a blast...although, tomorrow we'll need to get down to some actual teachin'...I'm looking forward to it. Oh, and I'm still alive. Please continue to not freak out (even though my stories are a little dodgy at times...) Missing you, and missing being understoond (plus, missing being funny...*sigh* Have to work on becoming funny in Krio...nar so?)