This week I realized that I’m stressed. I didn’t realize I was stressed until I saw the symptoms. I was becoming very easily frustrated with my colleagues because of the language barrier. Also, I find myself clinching my teeth all the time… When I’m thinking really hard or even in my sleep. I think I’m stressed because I am realizing now how long 2 years is. But at the same time I’m stressing out a little bit about what I am going to do when I return to the States, in terms of my career/grad school. Not to worry, I just need to exercise more to relieve some of this stress I think. I am also a little stressed about teaching. I start teaching tomorrow so hopefully that stress will be gone soon. On another note, I really love all my neighbors and the other teachers. My neighbors threw a welcome party for me! They made chicken, sausage, regular papa, and brie papa. They thought it was a nice surprise that they waited until the last minute that the party was going to be at my house. I had to quickly make my house look presentable… Basotho are extremely clean people. They sweep and clean their houses everyday and like to keep things in order. The party was very nice though, all my neighbors are very nice people and I know they will look out for me. To my dismay I have started finding spiders all over my house. Spiders were seriously my only fear in coming to Africa, and they have been my biggest struggle thus far. I was the only person who had a spider problem during training. In my little one room house I would find and kill anywhere from 2-5 spiders of all shapes and sizes every night. I don’t find that many here, but I have started finding them. I’m just waiting until summer arrives when they will really start coming out. I will really freak out when I find a thatch spider one day. They are giant spiders about the size of baseballs (including the legs) but they won’t hurt you… but that doesn’t mean I won’t cry when I see one. Thursday night I could hear a mouse scurry across my ceiling. I have a huge gap between my drop tile ceiling and the tin roof, plenty of room for a family of mice. But I haven’t heard it since so I’m hoping I was hearing things. I made banana bread yesterday and it came out perfect! Love banana bread! Spiders and baking…. Story of my life.