Highlight of the month

So, today I had my highlight of the month, and possibly even of the year...there is of course no surprise that it is Sunday and good things always seem to happen on Sunday!
My morning was part one. In my fantastic french class one of the women read her first word on her own. We had been working with syllables (Ba, Bo, Mi, Di...may seem incredibly simple to all of you reading this but imagine you have never seen the letter B before in your life...who was it that decided that a stick with two half circles on it would make the sound we'd need to to say bumblebee?) I realized we had learned all the syllables to be able to read the french word for Saturday so I wrote it on the board and asked one of the women to read it. Very slowly, with no help, she pieced together the syllables and yelled with joy when she realized she had just read a word.
Part two came in the afternoon class. It was our first day trying a split class with literate and illiterate people. It was a plan meant to help everyone advance at their own pace but I was a little worried about the "social repurcussions" of it. The first part went very well, working with the literate men. I thought it was the class I would enjoy the most but I had much more fun in the second class; they were much more lively since everything is done orally and it sometimes feels like they're just making a much greater effort.
At the end of the second class, one of the men, Robby, called me over and said he had been trying to write with a pen now instead of a pencil but that it was really hard. So I looked at how he was holding his pen (a bit smooshed and akwardly), and placed it in a bit of a better place, and he wrote perfectly! He let out a long "Womii" (literaly translates as "man", used here as an exclamation) and called everyone over to show his pretty handwriting, saying "Look look, it was that easy, just holding the pen...". Incredulity is the word that comes to mind.
My usual Sunday night study circle was unfortunately cancelled due to absence of our hostess but I had already picked up two of the girls so we got hamburgers (French Guiana style) and went down to the river and got a chance to know each other. It was so nice to hear these young girls talk about their dreams and objectives. All I could do was tlel them how impressed I was with their purposefulness and pray that their hopes become reality.

Lesson Learned:
Life is full of choices. The right ones are usually the hardest to make but also the ones that feel better in the long run...yes, yes, I know, it's been said, but hey, we all have to learn our lessons!