Tuesday was the first really rainy day I have had here, but also the day I had arranged to walk around West Point with Macintosh. We didn't let the rain stop us... even though we got completely drenched! He showed me where some of the girls lived, and a few joined in on our walk. I met a few parents, and he checked in on a couple girls that haven't been around in a while. I was so thankful to have his guidance through the streets and around the shacks as I certainly would have been lost many times!
The rain continued this week and Wednesday right when school was letting out it began to fall. One of the volunteers and I decided to walk through it anyways to get something to eat. We went into a place where a Lebanese man asked if we were Americans after greeting us. He brought us a towel and insisted we dry off a bit. We then each ordered a chicken shawarma but he was unhappy with that choice. He came back and questioned it saying "that's a Lebanese food, you have chicken sandwich." He continued on questioning why were wanted to order that until I told him we liked Lebanese food and then he finally gave up his quest to change our mind and shook his head as he walked away. As we paid my friend had a larger bill to cover to main portion and I had smaller bills to get the rest. We exchanged that we would settle it up later and this man was yet again unhappy with us. He said "no I will figure out the difference and you pay her now." He got out the calculator and made sure that I paid her back in front of him. Goodness, he was certainly the oddest restaurant manager I have ever met!
On Friday I worked with the oldest girls. I began talking to them about stress, which was a very foreign word to them and hard to portray what I meant. We then moved into talking about relaxation, which went a bit better. I got them all up and went through some stretching which clearly they had never done before but were really enjoying and definitely feeling! I tried to lead them through progressive muscle relaxation and a breathing exercise. Well.... they didn't quite go over as well I had hoped. They didn't quite understand that their eyes were to be closed during the whole thing and not just when I told them to close them! We then talked about being healthy with food and drink choices, bathing, etc. That whole conversation went over very well! And somehow the day ended up with them wanting to learn Swahili so I taught them a song and they ate it up singing it many times at the top of their lungs. Of course this gave me a great big smile! :)
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