My Head Space

Hiya! sorry for not posting regularly these days...Ive been getting distracted by language study (woohoo! miracles do happen :)

As of this week I have upped the ante (sp?!) on my language 'regime' having realised I only have 1 month left to get to the stage of cummunicating by myself.

My repertoire now includes chatting to our night guards, daily lessons with 2 language teachers, one day a week driving/village visits - observing and listening AND as of Tuesday - a “rent a friend”. Saj- is a beautiful lady, early 20’s, 3 kids, doesn’t speak English, has spent her whole life in a little village about 20 min drive outta Mangochi. She seems really nice and the plan is for me to go there every Tuesday (just the avo's to start with) and just hang out and try and chat- doing whatever she and her sisters are doing- which on Tuesday was destringing pumpkin leaves and shelling beans for their dinner. 2 guys took me out to introduce me so it was all a bit- unnatural...but I hope as I head out there regularly by myself I’ll blend in as well as a white chick with a car in a small African village can...

So, whats on my mind this morning?
- Zimbabwe's elections are tomorrow and Im praying for a miracle. This link: http://www.sokwanele.com/map/all_breaches is really interesting- but abit depressing. A summary guide on how to rig an election...ya know- i always thought that dictators just didn't count the votes- or didn't allow the votes- but I was so naive!! there is a whole plethora of ingenious ways of swaying votes, deciding who does and doesn't vote, intimidation, payoffs etc that would result in a much more ego boosting positive indication in the dictators favour than just not counting the vote at all. Everybody likes to feel popular.

- Our own politics are abit interesting- apparently the current president created his own party AFTER he was elected (ignoring the constitution), hasn't allowed parliament to sit for at least 6 months now and gave away all the countries reserve maize to a relative (Mugabe is his father in law) - and I just read this morning that the previous president (currently facing serious corruption charges) has got the all clear to run for president again in the elections next year. yay.

- What else- can green curry paste be swapped in for red curry paste in a recipe? surely...

- I need to do some more languge prep. We are going through wordless kids books and, in 30 min blocks we are constrained to only using Ciyawo, and I have to describe everything I see on the page, with Swa- helping. Its great- I can say stuff! Im also getting her to record stories about her day/life and I tell her what I think its about-then we listen to it together and she fills in the gaps- then I can listen when she's not there and here a 'normal' monologue- already knowing what its about. very cool.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love Fridays? Im not sure if its Fridays themselves, or the anticipation of the weekend. no can't be the latter cos the weekends aren't that different out here- just time to catch up on everythig that didn't happen through the week :)
Its 8am. gotta run.
ps got a phone call from Oz yesterday- thankyou thankyou thankyou! floating on cloud 9.