Good things to come :)

I’m currently sitting at Central Café, which is my favorite café/hotel in Gondar, mainly because it has cheap and fantastic coffee plus there is free Internet.  I’m 2 macchiatos (heaven in a cup) in and have quite the caffeine buzz going. I’ve been here working for the past 2 hours, and needed a break, so here I am writing a blog instead!

This weekend was great. I was planning on laying low Friday night which did not happen… I ended up going out with some friends, and a few beers turned into a few more and before I knew it, it was 3 am before I finally arrived home. It was just like college in America again, except waking up and being in Ethiopia isn’t quite as good as waking up in the states. It was nothing that some Fish Goulash, 2 orange sodas and a 4 hour nap couldn’t fix though, and now I’m good as new. I figured that all of my friends are out celebrating Halloween, so I’ll celebrate as well, just without the costumes!

Saturday night I hung out with a friend, drank coffee and watched some scary movies in honor of the 31^st of October. And now, here I am, getting ready for tomorrow which just so happens to be my first day of class! 

Words cannot describe how excited/nervous/anxious/apprehensive I am to get into the classroom tomorrow. I am teaching two sections of Spoken English I. Some of the units are Greetings and partings, Introductions, Invitations, Advice, Expressing Opinion, Preference, etc. So, pretty basic stuff but I am anxious to see the level of English that my students will actually have. Communication may be tough, but I WILL make these students better speakers. All of my students are 2^nd years and are going to school to be teachers. My job is to improve their English so that when they are teaching 1^st-4^th graders, they will be able to sufficiently teach them.

The level of impact I am able to create is quite amazing when I actually think about it. I have 2 sections of 40 teacher trainees. Those 40 students will turn around and instruct a classroom from anywhere from 40-60 students in their classrooms just their first year, and the years to come after that. The impact raises exponentially which is why I feel so grateful to be here and a part of IFESH. No doubt in my mind there will be serious obstacles but not anything I’m not ready to take on headfirst. I’m sitting here in the café making an attendance roster, a daily planning guide, writing objectives, creating assignments, figuring out the grading breakdown…this is the real deal. I’m one of the lucky ones who knows that my passion is teaching, but how crazy is it that my first official classroom is in Ethiopia!?  I’m pretty dang blessed to be living out this adventure, that’s for sure. Good things are to come for this lady. 

I can’t help but think of this quote today as I get ready tomorrow, it’s one of my favorites ...

“I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate. It is, above all to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.”

Here’s to the first day of class in my first classroom that I can call my own. After tomorrow, I’ll officially be Ms. Rath! 

<3