Walking to Class

I'm still in Kombo having Jola class.  We've had some issues with the internet, but I think it's up and running for a while at least.  Nothing too much going on here so I figured I'd do an in-depth blog on something I do every day- walking from the house to the office.
Class "starts" at 9 every day, which means that class may start between 9:30 and 10 but at least before lunch.  The 3 of us in my class always get there around 9 and hang out around the office until class time comes. 
I leave the house about 15 minutes before class "starts" so that I am there by a little after 9.  I usually walk with Melissa- the other new trainee in my Jola class.  We say bye to the guard on the way out of the compound and usually walk about 30 yards out of our way to a shop on our road that sells bread.  It costs about 20 cents for a loaf and Melissa and I split one.  It's enough for each of us for breakfast and some days I have some for a snack or part of lunch later.  Then we walk back down the road- it's just a sand road past several other compounds and cross behind a war memorial cemetary.  It has really nice grass (the 2nd nicest grass in the whole country I've heard- 2nd only to the president's house).  We go past the cemetary and walk on- behind the store that buys its inventory at a Wal-Mart in Virginia and has it shipped here periodically, behind the Lebonese restaurant, past a big trash pile, past lots of bougenvalia (sp?), and finally we get to our big road crossing.  This is where things start to be paved (for at least most of the way).
We cross the road and walk behind a bank- it's a big modern building and we cut down towards the main road beside the bank.  Past the bank it starts to be more crowded and urban.  Between here and the US Embassy, there are several hardware stores, a couple western style grocery stores, a couple people who set up shop by the road every day selling brooms & buckets, a couple of stationary stores, several ladies who set up stands selling sandwiches (sandwiches are more of a breakfast food here; by about 1pm there really aren't sandwiches anywhere to be found), taxis everywhere- really lots of stuff happening.  We walk past the US Embassy on our way.  They have these barricades set up so that if you walk between the barricades and the fence, which is really the place you would want to be seeing as it is a bit further away from the cars on the road, men with automatic rifles tell you to go to the other side of the barricade.  People learn quickly to walk on the car-side of the barricade.  Past the embassy there is only a set of houses, a furniture store and a drug store, plus a wall and some guards, between us and the office.  We wave hi to the guards on the way in. We've been coming in every day for long enough they don't ID check us anymore.  Sometimes we get lucky and one of the guards even greets us in Jola.  Then all that's left to do is wait for class.