A life update, 7 months in

Hi all!

Here I am, 7 months into my Peace Corps journey. When did that happen?! Here are some general life updates:

• I have picked out a bicycle! I'm buying it second hand, so I selected the one I wanted and it's getting tuned up at the moment. Hopefully by next weekend, I'll be a proud owner of a bike!! I can't wait.
• I'm going to Ruacana Falls over Easter with a big group of other volunteers and am excited to camp together and see the beautiful waterfalls! It's very close (only about an hour) from my site.
• My leave forms for upcoming travel were just approved and I am officially going to hike Fish River Canyon (the world's second-largest canyon) in southern Namibia during the first week of May. I'm so pumped!
• I may have recently been talked into running a marathon in October. Still not fully decided, but it's a possibility!
• It's been determined that the propane gas locker behind my house is some sort of breeding ground or something for tree snakes. We (the royal "we") killed another one in the same place during tea time on Monday! My mentor teacher, Itumba's, advice to always do a once-over before stepping foot outside proved to be very sage advice on Monday!
• I hosted 8 other volunteers a few weekends ago for a Mexican night and it was fantastic. We made homemade corn tortillas (thank you, mom, for the maseca!) for our feast-- chicken and beef tacos, homemade chips and salsa, guacamole, orange rice, pinto beans, margaritas, etc etc. It was a ton of fun and incredibly delicious. Thanks to my C&D coworkers for the beef taco seasoning and to my mom (again!) for the salsa verde. We all enjoyed thoroughly!
• I impromptu decided to meet up with another group of volunteers last weekend (after picking out my bike) and had a great time at a lodge/resort and then decided to stay the night with all of them and enjoyed catching up and being among other Americans. Very fun! 
• Teaching is going well. The kids understand my classroom rules and are starting to behave much, much better. They also are understanding my English a lot more, so that's great too! I'm much less stressed about lesson planning and marking [grading in British English] now, as it takes me a lot less time than it used to. 
• The kids LOVE the stickers that they get on their quizzes, so thank you to my mom, my friends who sent the care package, and to the Mullin-Henrys for all of the stickers! You should see proud smile that the kids get on their faces when they get back a quiz paper with a sticker :) 
• I'm going to be traveling down to Windhoek a lot in the upcoming months for the two committees that I'm on-- Volunteer Support Network (VSN) and GAIN/GLOW, a gender equality and youth empowerment committee (we also will lead a 1-week camp for kids in August). Looking at the calendar ahead, I'm going to be busy this northern-hemisphere-spring! 
• My foster family in the visit is great and I really enjoy being able to go there on the weekends. My host niece, who is 3, has started to think that I'm her new mom... I'm not mad about it because she is adorable! 
• I just found out that there is a local source of limes (year-round) from one woman in my visit. I am so pumped. Mexican night round two is going to be off the charts!
• I'm feeling very settled into the routine here and am doing well. Although there are certainly days where I laugh and think to myself "why the hell was this my dream to come here again?" (usually on days where either there are creepy-crawlies everywhere or the kids are terrible), most of the days here are great. I've said it before and I'll say it again-- I feel so lucky to have gotten placed at the school where I am. My colleagues are all such wonderful human beings and I'm so blessed (#blessed) to have all of them in my life.
• The wifi at school was fixed. All praise Tate Kalunga (the big man upstairs)-- being connected again has been wonderful! 
• Check out my instagram or facebook for a funny food adventure this week: https://www.instagram.com/p/BCsQgHSxavc/ and https://www.instagram.com/p/BCsROATxagx/

I think that's all for now! Sorry I overuse parentheses so much in my writing. I'll work on it. If you have any requests for blog posts, please let me know! My current plan for my next post a a "daily life/routine" post, but if there's anything else you'd rather (or also) learn about, do tell! Hugs and good vibes to all of you wonderful people who are "that side" of the world!