greetings from Sokone

Late evening: a cool 68degrees, perfect sleeping weather
Late afternoon: a warm and dry 94degrees, perfect for the beach...
but I'm stuck at work.

I dread the few days a week that it makes it's way to 100+degrees by 5pm.

Work is interesting, if not any less frustrating. Rather than having too little to do, it seems that the list keeps on getting longer - is this what a REAL job feels like? There is never enough time? The sensation of being swamped is so foreign to me after 4 months of counting the hours until I could stop staring at passing donkey carts to go home and watch soap operas.

This past week has not been extremely productive although my boss keeps on finding more things for me to get done before April. I will be back to giving English study sessions for middle school students, two days a week, with new computer classes the other days... anybody have any good resources (free, online) for teaching beginner computer classes... I can only guess that the first place to start is turn on / turn off?

My work colleagues want me to start helping them learn the ins and outs of microsoft word and excel... but who's to say that I even know what I am doing?
It's frustrating because they don't want to make any mistakes, but that's the only way to learn. Most times they ask me to do something, I just rely on trial-and-error until it looks right.

During Easter Break (mid-April), we are mounting three large contests for Sokone - a) a diction competition for middle schoolers, b) a poetry competition for high schoolers, and c) a young creators competition for artisans (leatherworkers, blacksmiths, carpenters, etc) aged 17 and younger.
Mamadou, my boss, keeps on mentioning how we wants me to take over the organisation, but so far, he has been doing all of the legwork... how is little old me supposed to meet with the mayor and the president of the chamber of commerce? I much prefer tagging along.

Thank you to everyone who donated clothes, school supplies, cribbage winnings, etc. The clothes have been much appreciated! School supplies and cribbage winnings - my bags were quite packed coming back, so not everything made it on the plane. Anything left behind will be donated to local organisations. As for monetary donations - my bargaining skills leave much to be desired, and so I am waiting for when I am in Dakar again to drag a Senegalese friend to the market... I just don't want to buy only 200 notebooks when I could've gotten 400 had I been better at Wolof...

Internet's finicky, as always. But work has Skype, so let me know if you ever want to arrange a Skype-date. Just email (elke.schmidt@gmail.com). I have two Skype adresses, but I use (elkejean).

A few interesting notes about my return to Sokone:
1) First afternoon back, host brother comments - you grew wider, didn't you?
2) Now, the marriage proposals are fewer and farther between, but now they think that I am here to stay!!!
3) Hanging out with Peace Corps people quite a bit, so who knows where they will convince me to go next.