Hamba kakuhle iKindle.

     This means Goodbye Kindle in Xhosa.  Tyler sat on my Kindle and killed it, but luckily Mom gave me Steve Berry's The Jefferson Key to read, so I guess I will let it slide this time. ;]  Today in Xhosa class we learned how to say the months of the year.  Culturally, the Xhosa people named months after starts, trees, flowers, and other things in nature.  Unfortunately, nobody (even Xhosa people) really know all the names of the months.  I think the length of months may be different which would make it very difficult.  Due to this issue, the Xhosa people have created words that sound similar to the English months.  Here they are: uJanyuwari, uFebruwari, uMatshi, uEpreli, uMeyi, uJuni (I will tell you about June in a sec), uJulayi, uAgasti, uSeptemba, uOktobha, uNovemba, and uDisemba.  June is a special month to the Xhosa people.  The Xhosa word for the month of June is iSilimela.  This month is named after a star and is the only real Xhosa month that our professor told us.  This month is special because this is pretty much the "Man month".  This is the month where men walk around asking other men how long they have been men.  The length of time that a person has been a man depends on how long ago he got circumcised.  In the Xhosa culture, boys do not get circumcised until they are like 18 years old.  That has to be pretty painful, but I will stop the explanation there so Mom doesn't get too embarrassed by me. 
     So I have to address this strange hairstyle that is ALL OVER the place.  This hairstyle is the mullet.  I literally see 4-8 mullets every single day.  I don't understand.  Another thing that has been confusing me is that some of the guys here are walking riding around on fake horses.  The kind of fake horses that little kids play with.  Once again, I just don't understand.  I was so tempted the other day because of these two things.  I saw a guy with a mullet riding one of the fake horses and wanted so bad to get a picture with him, but then I decided to be shy and not do that.  I also don't know if this is a normal thing so I don't want to insult anyone by asking. 
     While Tyler was in class today, I was doing laundry.  The lady who owned the laundry place asked me where I was from in the States and we just started talkin.  I believe we talked for about an hour and a half before Tyler came in from class.  She was really nice.  She was telling me about how she had been to Washington D.C. and about how much traffic it was there which was really nice.  I enjoyed talking to someone about something that reminds me of home.  We literally ended up talking about everything.  We talked about religion, Lyndoch (the school I am working at), the weather, her family, everything.  It was kinda crazy, but very fun.  Now I am going to force Tyler to write about his class today.  He isn't having as much fun in his class as I am in mine. =]
     The first thing the teacher said when we walked in was that it was going to be boring... And it was.. We went over a lot of the basic things and I found out that I am going to have to learn about 30 different formula's just in the first two chapters... Doesn't feel too exciting... Oh well that's a business major... And the power went out today as I was watching the Carolina game.
     I forgot about that!  The power went out in the first five minutes of the game!  He was not a happy camper.  One of the articles we had to read for our LSCE course talked about the differences in the poverty schools compared to the wealthier schools.  In the article we read, it says that however much the student pays for school is the same amount that the government puts into that child's education.  I don't know if I mentioned this earlier, but the kids at Lyndoch pay R10 a month to go to school (I originally thought it was 70, but Tyler said it was 10).  If the article is correct, then the government puts about $1.30 per month for each student.  That is terrible.  I was wondering why the students didn't even have paper to write on.  I figured that taxes helped pay for those kind of things, but I guess not.  Tyler did the math, sales tax is about 14%.  I don't know what they are doing with that money, but hopefully they are figuring out a budget so that these kids can get a proper education!  The kids who are richer have such a huge advantage because they actually get supplies. 
     We get to walk to the train station tomorrow.  I am honestly not looking forward to that, but we gotta do what we gotta do.  That's about it.  Hamba kakuhle. =]