More anecdotes, in order of increasing ridiculousness

1. Did you know? You can get sick from driving with the window open. But only the windows behind the front seats, the front seats are magically alright. At least, this is what Basotho believe. Something about tuberculosis, or something. It's not true at all. So, when it comes to the open-closed position of the windows of kombis (the 15+ person taxis, more often packed to 25 people smashed against each other), I am in an ongoing war with the Basotho. It's Africa, it's summer, it's really hot. If I'm fortunate enough to get a seat with a window, I open it. Inevitably, someone leans across me to close it. I get annoyed that they didn't ask me first, so 5 minutes later, I open it again. Horrified, they shield their baby's face as if the plague is blowing in from outside. I feel sorry for them, and close it until just a crack is open, and I go back to sweating.

2.  As an intro to our recent unit on reproduction in Form A Science class, we had a period of students asking questions about sex else. Some of the highlights:

- "Why do I have wet dreams?"
- "Why does my penis hurt after sex?"
- "Do condoms really give you AIDS?" I'm thrilled I had the chance to clear up that one.

And then my favorite two... I like to consider them side by side for comparison. Think about whether students in your 8th grade class said these things out loud.

- From a loud, long-winded, but pretty funny guy: "Sir, how come sometimes, sir, ehhh, what I want to say is... Sir, sometimes, when I want a girl to have sex with me, she tells me she can't, sir, because she's having a, a, a period, sir?"
- From a nerdy, overweight, extremely quiet girl: "What does sex feel like?" (I did not answer this one).
It was somewhat touching that the girl felt comfortable enough with her classmates to be so open about her innocence, after all the gory questions before her. This was a really entertaining day.

3. I have been paying a lady from the neighborhood to do my laundry for me. The price is great, and besides, I don't really understand how to get all the soap out without running water. I'm happy to let someone who could use the money more than I can, and who understands the soap-water dynamics, do it for me. Problem is, I didn't find out until after the fact that it's extremely offensive to give her my underwear to wash. Yeah. So, now I do that part myself.

4. And finally, the story that prompted me to write this blog post: Today, some girls from my class came to me for help with math. Very nice kids, kind of giggly. We finished up and as they were leaving, a girl was trying to say to me "Sweet dreams" (not sure why, since it was 3:45pm, but nevertheless). She accidentally said "Have a wet dream." I called her out on it, and as the girls walked away with their heads hung in embarassment, we all laughed uproariously. I did not stop laughing for about 20 minutes.

Weird to think I just mentioned wet dreams twice in one post, but maybe that's just how it goes sometimes when you write a blog about teaching 8th grade.