After my last private class of the day I went straight to Pizza Hut and purchased a medium sized pizza with pineapple, mushrooms and corn. That´s right. Corn. I think it´s a Brazilian thing (?), but I´ve gotten really into it, thanks to only really eating pizza around Brazilians. Ha! Then, I went to a corner store and bought an orange Fanta and a dark chocolate ice cream bar.
To study - to really study and thesis and get work done - one must always be surrounded by yummy food. That´s something I´ve learned in my 20 years of formal education. ;o)
But before I began what turned out to be an all-nighter thesising pizza party, I had a very important Skype call to take. I walked in the door at 8:27. The Skype tone was ringing at 8:30. Talk about timeing!
My Skype call was with the director of the volunteer program I had written a week ago, and was to tell me more about the program and see if I was still interested. And after hearing more about it, I couldn´t properly express to the lady just how interested I was!
Basically, the program places English speakers with girls from Afghanistan through Skype, to have two, one hour English classes per week! The girls are all in high school or university and have studied English on their own, but have not gotten to have formal instruction in the language, but are extremely motivated to learn all that they can. They connect to Skype through a community center, which they have to have signed permission from their fathers to go to, as Afghan women are not traditionally allowed out of their homes for any reason. In fact, it is so against their culture thta they literally risk their lives to go to this center, to study, and to learn English, as men have been known to injure and sometimes kill girls who try to assert some sort of independence.
The program director went over some cultural differences with me, telling me that talking about things like dating or going out for a drink were against their religion, and so such topic should really be avoided. She went on to caution me about other cultural differences, and explained that the girls could get in a lot of trouble with their families if they were asked to talk about or write about many of these things.
The whole conversation, concept and opportunity was so enthralling and exciting that I felt like I was on a call in regards to a super secret covert mission!
At the end of the call, the director said she was very happy to have me on board as one of the 25 (only 25!) volunteers and would be pairing me up with an Afghan girl in the coming weeks to begin! YAY!!! I am way excited to have found such a wonderful sounded volunteer job and hope that I am really able to make a difference in the life of the girl with whom I am paired!
XOXO
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