happy thanksgiv... tabaski!

Hooraaaay Tabaski! I don't know why it's not a more universal holiday. I mean, it's based on the story where Abraham takes Isaac up to the mountain to sacrifice him, and God provides a goat instead at the last minute, so you celebrate by killing a goat and partying and eating a ton. I'm pretty sure the story's the same in Judaism and Christianity as well as Islam, so I wish everyone would get on board and sacrifice some goats.
I think I particularly appreciated Tabaski because it fell the day after Thanksgiving this year, and I didn't do much to celebrate Thanksgiving. I was in Ouaga last weekend for a meeting, and I didn't want to leave village two weekends in a row, so I hung out at home and ate American care-package food (instant mashed potatoes: very home-y.) So yesterday made up for the lack of family time- I was able to celebrate Tabaski with a few different families. And I probably ate two entire chickens over the course of the day.

Life here is pretty routine these days. I gave my second test in each of my classes, so only one more this trimester. Which... is kind of crazy. I have less than a month left of teaching this trimester, and the next two trimesters are shorter than this one. My Peace Corps boss, Seb, is coming to visit me at site this week, so this weekend is mostly cleaning and getting my house fixed up. Because, as you might expect, it's kind of a disaster.
I also have been realizing I need to get my butt moving on secondary projects. My director wants me to lead sports clubs, and that'll probably get started soon, and I have been tutoring English two hours a week, but I want to get going on teaching life skills lessons at my school. I think this week would be a good time to get started, since World AIDS Day is... Tuesday? And my school will have activities for that. Honestly, I've been feeling pretty inadequate as a volunteer lately. I've been at site for about three months now and I'm pretty much adjusted, so I've kind of been coasting, with my job as a teacher as my justification for not doing other things. But now: action time! Life skills! English club! Building a library! (Okay, we'll see about that one.) Girls' club! Math club! I'm going to do it all. Because I'm Motivated.