Spring Break Retreat

Spring break in the compound: brings new meaning to the term “stay-cation.” This year for spring break, I decided to stay here to save money and relax (and have the house to myself, aside from the maids. Yeah, it’s a rough life…). Most of my friends went to exciting places like Qatar, Sri Lanka, Rome, and Greece. It would have been great fun to join them. But my English teacher friend and I both decided to stay here, along with the Spanish teacher and his wife, our current director, the new director for next year, and the financial director. And even though we had to stay on the compound most of the time (we managed to go to the grocery store and to another teacher’s house off-campus for dinner), we had fun.

Those of us staying here traded off some dinners so no one had to cook for themselves every night. Us gals made build-your-own pizzas one night, the directors each made a pasta dinner, the financial director made chili, and I made enchiladas tonight. Amazing how much more I like cooking when I’m relaxed on vacation! The new director also hosted a “Second breakfast tea party” one morning with doughnuts and tea (yes, there’s a bakery here where we can get doughnuts! And yes, men can host tea parties).

Since I was staying, I volunteered to take care of my coworkers’ pets. I’ll be sure to include some pics of my furry friends for the week. Dusty the dog is fun. I take her out to the basketball court, block up the exits, and let her run free while I jog around the court or read a book in the sunshine. She also likes to cuddle and get tummy rubs. The neighbor boys (there are a couple local families that happen to live within our compound) always begged me to “bring dog” to play, so a couple times I let Dusty loose in the soccer or b-ball court and let the kids play fetch with her. Many people here are afraid of dogs, so it was fun to see the boys gently pet her and enjoy playing with her. The cats Creamy, Alice, are Little Chicken were also fun to cuddle and play with. I love the names my coworkers come up with for cats! I had to rescue a Justin Bieber Christmas tree ornament from Little Chicken a few times, and discovered that Creamy likes getting brushed, while Alice likes to play with the cat brush. I also got a pic of Alice’s wild sibling up in a tree.

I don’t know much of the local language, and the maids don’t know much English, but I got to “talk” some to our main maid this week since I was home all day. We practiced vocabulary in each other’s language using objects in the room, photos from my book about Oregon, and photos of our families. She showed me photos on her phone of her daughters and her daughter’s artwork. Later, I was making lunch, so I made enough for her (the people here are famous for their hospitality, so I’d have felt awkward eating in front of her). Even though we couldn’t hold much of a conversation, it was really neat to eat with her.

The English teacher and I hosted a party for our girl students. Only two girls came, but they’re quiet in my classes at least, so it was really nice to get to know them more. Both of them have mothers who work to help the situation of women in need here. Some of the stories they told about the women they’ve helped were incredible.

So while I don’t have exotic photos this time like I did on my trip to Uganda last fall, I did get to relax, get to know a few of my coworkers more, have fun with the locals, and catch up on personal stuff like taxes and registering for a grad class to keep up my teaching license. I’m so glad I stayed. I might stay again on future vacations, if only I didn’t have a long list of places I dream of seeing and people to visit around the world! We’ll see what happens!