Oh what a night..

Yes, there was an earthquake last night and YES I felt it! The village is okay and there was not much damage, but I think a few of the building cracked.  I have never experienced an earthquake before and it was honestly kind of fun, for about 5 seconds. The first one lasted for what seemed like a minute and the aftershocks have been happening frequently since then. Overall everything is fine and I am just hoping they are over with!
These last few days have been quite a learning experience. Wednesday was my first day officially teaching and it was nothing like I expected. I'm not sure what I thought I was in for, but the second I walked into the classroom in the Jalae village, I melted into a puddle of mush. The kids are the cutest, dirtiest, most lovable things you have ever seen. They look up to you like a God and immediately cling onto you like you are their long lost mother. We sang songs about bananas and camels, and and played with plastic fruit to teach them colors. Since they were only about 4-5 years old it is hard to say if they understand anything you are teaching, but they repeat everything you say with a huge smile on their face and you know they are just happy you are there. Since then I have taught a few more childcare age classes and a few English summer camp classes with kids in roughly 6-8th grade. I am finding it a bit harder to teach the older kids because they are a little more set on their ways, so when you try to get them to do something they are not comfortable with kind of look at you like a stupid "falong" (westerner).  Either way it is incredibly rewarding and I am sure I have not even scratched the surface yet.
I still find myself spacing off and wondering how the hell I got here. I have been through so much change in the last week, half the time I don't realize what I'm doing until I've already done it. Such as, singing songs about peeling bananas and Fred the moose. I mean, we all know I am too cool for school so I know you can only imagine how much I have already changed since I've been here. The other night we were having movie night and I volunteered to use my laptop to plug into the TV. The computer froze up so when I went to unplug it from the wall I was electrocuted pretty hard. Everything was fine with myself and my computer but my finger was dark red and very hot for the next couple hours. I am quickly realizing that things that I normally freak out about at home are no big thing here. Does that say something about me? Am I seriously that overly dramatic? Because being here has definitely made me feel like I should have joined the drama club in high school. :) All things aside, these experiences are all making me grow in to a better, more relaxed and enjoyable person and I just KNOW I will be way more fun to be around when I get back. I have been taking a lot of pictures and FINALLY figured out how to upload them to PhotoBucket so you will soon have some proof that I am indeed living the middle of nowhere and you can see some of the sweetest faces you will ever see in your life. xo