First Week at Work

First day of school.

I am within cell phone reception for the next 24 hours (until about 7 am Sunday Morning on the West Coast). Please give me a call.

Also, I finally added a section of stuff I need sent. THANKS!!

Not not what I expected, but not not what I expected. I was up earlier than usual, which is nice because it means that my internal clock is finally tuning in with the daylight hours here. Morning light comes around 5 am right now. I rolled out of bed around 6:20, did my grooming and ate some breakfast then read Dante’s Club (some very entertaining fictional history if you’re interested, Pa, you would especially like it) for 20 minutes or so to burn time before I walked over to school around 7:35 am.

School here begins with morning assembly at 7:45 where students get daily announcements, recite prayers and sing the national anthem, etc. When I arrived at school there were three teachers present. After morning assembly there were still only three teachers, plus me. The principal came by to say that we were to have a staff meeting after morning break, which was about three hours away, and asked the teachers to give the students something to keep them occupied so they wouldn’t disrupt our pending staff meeting. I’m still learning to cope with things not really starting when I expect, so I had to go home to get a book instead of having one with me. I read and a couple more teachers made their way in.

The staff meeting started half an hour late. I received a warm introduction from the principal and we proceeded to go through announcements and finally assigned classes. This process took a while as we are short a language teacher so the principal was trying to find a way to cover the classes until a teacher can be hired while also trying not to overload the other teachers. After that was resolved other assignments were dealt out. Forgetting Peace Corps’ advice, I am now a class teacher (I deal with semi-major discipline and listen to their complaints) for the Form A (8th grade) students, and am, in some capacity or another, a facilitator of ‘ball sports.’ I’ll also be teaching Form A maths and science as well as Form B maths. Each of these subjects has 6 periods a week, for a total of 18 hours. Most teachers are in the low 20’s, so by comparison I have a little lighter load. We’ll see what happens.

After some other discussion about study hours before or after school and on Saturdays, the three hour meeting wrapped up and students were sent home early. Tuesday we scheme with the region, which is to say that we will plan out what we will teach when for the rest of the quarter. Hopefully I’ll get introduced to my classes. Wednesday I’m gunning for my first day of class instruction. We’ll see how things go.

Four Days Down

So I have a full four days of school under my belt at this point, and am feeling pretty good. A lot of things have happened, so I’m just going to do some bullet points to fill you in.

- Form A is maybe at a similar level of English as I am at Sesotho. It is teaching ESL math and science. Also, they don’t have TV, or media of any sort. This means that most of my examples are not useful and require so much new vocabulary that it would muddy the concept I am trying to convey. They did not know what glasses were (or spectacles in their British English). I tried to explain X-Rays and ultrasounds. I don’t know if they explanation of X-Rays being, “Like a kind of light that you cannot see” was comprehended by anybody. Echolocation may have been similarly poorly received. It will be a while before they get used to my English, and for me to stay only on the points they need to know and not go off on the tangents that I think are interesting. Stability and equilibrium are part of the curriculum. I think Lyaponov might be a little bit above them.

- Yesterday after school there was a ruckus. It was not biscuit riot, but it was a serious commotion. School was over and I could here a lot of yelling and cheering and jeering, but none of the students were visible. Soon nearly all of the boys in the school burst out of a classroom. The younger ones ran away while the older ones were chanting a bit. Factions broke off and there seemed to be some posturing for authority while they students with less political pull were trying to get face time with the leaders of the pack. “’M’e, what is happening?” I asked another teacher. “They are choosing sports committees.” “Oh,” I said, as if that cleared everything up. After a male teacher went and talked with the older boys, making it very clear that they were not to ‘beat’ (haze) the Form A’s, they went off on a bootcamp-like jog, chanting and clopping along like a heard of gazelles in perfect unison, in their school uniforms (grey wool pants, white button-up shirts and blue sweaters). By this point I was in my home. Then the girls went by. Oh boy, there was similar earth shaking clopping, but this time it was accompanied by some shrill ‘lalalallalalalalalalallalala’. It was a sound to behold, and if I hadn’t witnessed they jogging by in their dresses I don’t know what I would have done. Locked myself up waiting for the pale horse, with the name ‘Death’ written on him. It was not first day of athletics like I have ever experienced.

- The rules of arithmetic are not ingrained. Apparently I have to teach them.

- We schemed with science and math teachers from around the region on Tuesday. There is a chance that I was married during a break. At the very least I am supposed to pick up this other female teacher a laptop when I am in South Africa. I can’t afford the amassing harem on a Peace Corps salary. I may need to pick up a wedding ring somewhere and fabricate a wife. Any advice on this fictional character put in the Comments section would be greatly appreciated.

- A 25 minute walk to get spotty cell reception, and a max of 3 days of cell companies holding text messages before deleting them, means that I will not be in phone contact except when traveling. I will probably be in a town with reception 2-3 times a month. I will do my best to post that information on my blog as soon as I get into town and let you know when I’m available. Mail will also be especially slow getting to me, but please send it. It makes me happy.

- Mike and I have had dinner every night so far. It has been cute. Last night we even watched a movie and waited out a rain storm. It was cute.

- Another volunteer got back to his site today. His name is Erik and he is doing Community Health and Development. A temporary tripod is in place (this is an inside reference, sorry to everybody else).

- Absent from my bed is any padding between the fabric and springs. I have begun to sleep on the floor. I wish my Thermarest had not been pilfered.

- Trying to explain airplanes, without pilots, that land on boats has been entirely ineffective. I guess it doesn’t mean much to people who haven’t been on planes or boats.

That is all I can think of for now. I put a few items in a new section named “PLEASE SEND ME THESE THINGS!!” on the right side of the page. Planet Earth would honestly blow some of these kids’ minds. Also a headlamp.

I miss and love you guys, thanks for staying up to date on my life.