I’ve had two surprise inspections by my headmistress, which went well with the exception of her taking my lesson plan off me to mark despite me needing it to teach the assessed lesson and her beating several students during the lesson! I haven’t started teaching any ICT (computers) yet because it’s not been organised or timetabled.
My pay has not been approved by the Ministry because 10hrs of my teaching is extra curricular.
In my last teaching week I turned up at school at 8am to discover that I was going to be on a 3 day computer hardware maintenance course starting that moment, which was very constructive given that a) I’d had no warning, b)it was in French, c) I had students to teach and d) I had exams to write. The exams have been a mixed experience with 75% of the 2hr exams I’ve supervised taking all students 15-45minutes to complete. When the exams aren’t a joke, the students have no watches or wall clocks so can’t manage their time. The headmistress just says “It is no problem, there is a bell at the end of the exam”. And the teachers spend half of their supervision time correcting errors on the exam papers.
It’s been a fairly smooth term though with my inspections getting a ‘very good’ and an ‘excellent’. However, I have got into trouble for going into school on my day off wearing shorts and sandals, for not visiting the school with Angie and for turning up ‘late’ after they changed the exam timetable at the last minute without telling anyone. And they are genuinely horrified that I don’t have any faith – they don’t really care which faith I have, so long as I have a faith. My hippie temporary secondment Programme Manager has told me she thinks my experience of Zaza and Save - first with the priests unhappy with my atheism and trying to convert me, and now the nuns – is fate and that I must have some unconscious religious personal issue to resolve! Wacko. I have been teaching the English club English carols in an attempt to redeem myself, which strangely enough has been quite good fun!
Last week I discovered that the government has changed the school year quite dramatically. They delayed the start of university until January because they didn’t have any money left in this year’s budget so now they’ve had to change the school year so it fits in with university! So now instead of being September – June, this one is going to run until September and thereafter January – September. Which in some ways is good news for me because I’ll have 5 ½ months holiday next year and I don’t start back until January 19th!
We’ve been away quite a bit and had people over several times. Last weekend we went to the north west and a town called Ruhengeri, nestled in the volcanoes. Incredible, especially in the morning when you can see the volcanoes in their full glory and the mist is hovering in the valleys. Angie went up to see the mountain gorillas while a few friends and I went walking around the lakes which border Uganda for the day. It was a great weekend, marred only by picking up an e-mail saying that my MSc essay online submission hadn’t worked – still waiting to find out if there are any consequences to late submission…
This weekend we gave up waiting for VSO to lift the ban on us going into Nyungwe Forest (Burundi rebel groups are supposed to be launching their attacks on Burundi from camps in the forest and there’s a lot of military action down there) and went anyway. Another beautiful place with stunning views over mountains of forest canopies. However, during a 5 hour knackering walk up and down umpteen mountain sides , we saw no primates until we returned to the road ironically and we got absolutely drenched in a thunder storm and spent 2 ½ hours travelling home on a taxi bus, soaked and freezing. Needless to say we are now both suffering although since recently finding a supplier of fresh milk in the village we do now have the comfort of gorgeous hot chocolate!
One of the new additions to the house – Scamper the kitten - is providing both entertainment and irritation. For the first week she was adorable. This past week she has been variating from being adorable (usually when asleep) to largely irritating (when awake). She is mental, rushing around, fighting with everything, climbing everything including our legs, rolling around in her fantasy world, chasing her tail and shadows, harassing the chickens.
The two nameless chickens are frequently irritating too – their wings haven’t been clipped so they can propel themselves a good height into the air, they are eating my plants, they haven’t laid any eggs yet and we haven’t finished building their run outside so they are running around the courtyard and sneaking into the kitchen causing havoc. Scamper and the chickens are still weighing each other up and vying for superiority, a process which is quite entertaining to watch. For as long as it doesn’t involve any casualties!
Anyway, next weekend we’re off to Kibuye on Lake Kivu and after that Angie’s heading home and I’m off to Kampala in Uganda to find a bank that accepts credit or switch cards so I can withdraw some money for travelling over the holidays! For now I’m going to continue to mark exam papers, blow my nose and laugh in a totally unpolitically correct way at the students’ answers.
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