Lots of new posts

The following posts are certified, unedited thoughts written on the day of the title given to each post. My meeting finished a little early so I have some time on the Internet, but it is expensive so I will continue to write at home and bring stuff up on disk.

February 20

Its going on a month worth of writing that I am going to post today. I spent the weekend with three PCVs which was a much needed opportunity to talk with other teachers who are dealing with the same stuff. It looks like I might trade my 3 sections of grade 8 physical science for 2 sections of grade 10 physical science. That would reduce my load of periods from 39 to 34 per cycle, but it would add the stress of my kids being tested in six months. The teacher who has the grade 10 right now is pretty and his specialty is Life Science so he isn't particularly comfortable with Physical Science. It will be a lot of work to get the grade 10 kids ready for the exam but I like the grade 10 syllabus a lot more than the grade 8 syllabus. Once they get to grade 10 they actually do a few things quantitatively and it feels like real chemistry and real physics instead of a completely conceptual version. The math will be a problem I'm sure, but the grade 10 kids have been studying hard so far this year. They seem to be taking things pretty seriously such that I think they will respond pretty well to me giving them a lot of work.

The real story is about how the under 13 track meet had some impressive performances. In the 1500 the winning boy ran 5:00 (1:16 - 400, 2:38 - 800) on a sand track without shoes. I was in charge of discus so I missed some of the sprints, but luckily no one got killed by a disc although we had one really close call. Remember this is a sand track so forget about a discus cage. I was surprised that there was a curb around the infield of the track. My favorite race of the day was the 800. A girl from my school ran the first lap in 80 seconds in a distant fourth place, and then my instincts took over. I could tell she was in good position because the front three had come through in 76, I sprinted across the infield and told my girl to pass the two that had fallen back from the leader at the 600 meter point, which she did, then coming onto the homestretch I yelled for her again and she finished very strong pulling away from third into a solid second place in 2:52. She was exhausted, but we got a good picture after the race. This girl is one that always smiles at me when I walk from my house, past the girls hostel, to the classrooms. The boys 800 was almost a repeat except that the boy from my school started well back in the pack, moved up on his first trip up the homestretch, I told him to pass two boys on the backstretch then he finished well in third place. The same boy that won the 1500 won the 800 in 2:26. On a sand track. No shoes.

The races were on Saturday but the other PCVs were staying Saturday night so I decided I would stay also. The teachers that drove us to the track meet thought that I would be able to find a hike home, and they were eager to get back to watch a soccer match so they left me behind to go the coaches meeting and hang out with my friends. It was great to see the others and hear about their schools and other PCVs around Namibia. Then Sunday morning came, no hike, afternoon, no hike, ask everyone in town that has a car if they are driving anywhere, no hike. When the teachers left me behind they told me if I couldn't find a hike I should just call and someone would come collect me because its not that far, but I couldn't get a hold of anyone on the phone. I tried several numbers but couldn't get through, this is normal for the phones here. Finally I talked to a teacher who informed me that none of the ones who have cars were around so I should just stay the night and get a hike on Monday. Whatever, I was fine with relaxing and missing a day of school, but after some tacos and a pizza another guy came along that offered to drive me home, for a small fee. I was tempted to say no thanks, but my bed is more comfortable than the floor and I wasn't planning to stay one night so I didn't bring any clothes. Two nights was going to be pushing it even though I washed my shirt. I made it back home at about 8:30 after nearly hitting several cattle and enjoying a fantastic sunset.

February 17

This morning brought some unexpected excitement. When I got to the staff room this morning at my usual 6:45 I found out that the deputy prime minister of Namibia was visiting the school today. It wasn't unexpected that I didn't know about something until the day of the event but the magnitude was a little surprising. The deputy prime minister visited the school recently when she was the minister of health but this visit was to meet with the community leaders about some serious money coming to the area from Germany. In the Namibian cabinet you have the president, the prime minister and then the deputy prime minister. This lady is at the level of the Secretary of State in America and she was all way out in my little nook of the middle of nowhere. From what I learned later the community leaders are supposed to propose projects to use the money on, but after driving here the deputy prime minister was placing a high priority on paving the main road through town. Needless to say her brand new vehicle rides smoother than the older trucks and cars I ride in.

This afternoon I was planning to go to town to do some shopping and see the others that are around Grootfontein. I thought that I had a ride but then one of the teachers that was going to go backed out at the last second so there wasn't enough people to make the trip cost effective and there wasn't another hike out of town. The real letdown is not being able to get online and post all of these accumulated thoughts on my blog. You'll notice the trend that there aren't many cars in town and not many going anywhere on any given day. So here I am spending another Friday night watching a movie with the kids at the school. Next weekend is an out weekend for the kids to go to their homes so I am hoping to get out of town for Friday night and hang out with some of the PCVs in the area.

One of the interesting aspects of life at the school is that the kids compete a lot as classes. Let me clarify a little. The same group of kids rotate together to all of their classes so 9A (my register class) has all of their classes together everyday. There has been talk of class choir competitions and the boys of 9A have played a couple soccer matches against the boys of 9D. They even wager a few dollars on the match to make it interesting but between those two classes they have split two matches so it is a wash. I am trying to use their competitive spirit to my advantage by having behavior thermometers on the wall of my classroom. I can't remember if I've written about these before so I apologize if I am being redundant. I adapted the idea from training, but I am proud of how it is going so far. I marked off a vertical column of paper from 1 to 100 for each of the seven classes I have. When the class behaves well (on time, speaking English, raising hands quietly, etc.) I cover up part of the thermometer with colored paper. If a class reaches 100 during a 7 day cycle then I promised them a fun day. I have been emphasizing how the kids need to work together to earn points and help each other learn. You can probably discern that the high failure rate really bothers me and I see one solution is the kids working together to do better. When kids are falling asleep in class I usually don't wake them up myself. Instead I talk to the others about how they all want to pass grade 10 and I ask them if they want their friends to pass grade 10 with them. If they don't want their friends to fail then they should wake each other up, take responsibility for themselves and for each other. When the kids live away from their parents it seems like some of that accountability has to come from some positive peer pressure. I am also going to use the competitive spirit in a reading competition. We are going to start that this week once I make a little book report form. Believe it or not I asked the grade 9 and 10 English teachers and neither of them had a book report form that I could use for the library so I will make my own.

The other really exciting thing that happened this week was that I set a new high score on snake. I know I've written about my disdain for the computers only being used for the games, but its still a nice diversion from time to time. I didn't just set a new high score though. I more than tripled my best from 320 to over 1000 points. This is the best version of snake I have ever played because there is a computer controlled snake that you have to race to eat the apples and race to get to the exit of the level. You have to plan ahead to be near the exit when the last apple is eaten and you lost point when the AI snake eats an apple to you have to be aggressive. Luckily the AI is very predictable and can be trapped or let to go fetch the last apple that is far from the exit. The other trick to this version of snake is that the usual red apples randomly turn yellow and are worth 4 points instead of one. If you ever play snake race on Openlab3 remember that the first two levels are about surviving, scoring points in optional. Then once you get to the easier levels you don't want to exit on the first set of apples because once you're snake is really long you can trap the AI snake and eat all of the second batch of apples and score a lot of points.

February 16

I have been trying to find time to write all week and finally now at 9pm I have the library to myself to get some thoughts from my head into this computer. I'm never comfortable writing when other people are around because although I try to avoid anything too personal about people here my opinions come out pretty clearly from time to time and it seems that this blog has to be my safe place to talk about what is going on around here.

This week I am feeling like I am getting a handle on everything better. We had a little Valentines Day celebration that wasn't much but the kids learned about the holiday and didn't have to go to evening studies. Including this Valentines in Namibia my last few have been rather odd, last year I was dancing the rumba with a bunch of old folks and two years ago I sprained my ankle playing basketball with the Brian McFarland. Oh, basketball how I miss you. We have a hoop but it is laying down in one of the primary classrooms because I haven't got them to set it in the ground yet. I have a nice Infusion basketball in the library waiting to be used but not yet. This week we had a visit from Raleigh International, which is a youth organization that will be building us a playground during the holiday in April. They were here yesterday to look around and do some initial planning then we will work out the details in March and they will have a group of 15 volunteers aged 18-25 from all over the world here to build the playground in three weeks in April. I will be gone for Peace Corps business during the first half of their time but I am looking forward to working with them and hosting them in my new home. Its a great deal for the school, we pay for one third of the cost of materials and they secure the rest of the materials and do all of the work, bring their own camping equipment and take care of their food while they are here. I am really excited for the kids to have this playground because there is really nothing to do except play soccer which is almost enough for most of the kids.

This week also kicked off our Drama and Debating Society that I am supervising with another teacher. The kids that came to our meetings this week seem really committed and had very good ideas about the sorts of topics we should address with dramas and debates. If we're lucky I'll be able to video some of the activities the club does on my digital camera and send them back to the States eventually. The 25 or so kids in the club are some of the smartest in the school so I have high hopes for them. Our first debate will be on corporal punishment, which was banned in the Namibian Constitution when it was written in 1990 and interestingly, some of the teachers and some of the learners think corporal punishment should be reinstated. Before you cry foul consider that if you support corporal punishment by parents, these kids live in a hostel away from their parents except for one weekend a month, so who acts as their parents? I hope we will be able to teach the kids about how to debate so that this issue is addressed well because I am interested to hear the arguments from both sides.

Speaking of debate, what is the latest with Bush's domestic spying stuff? I am still horribly deprived of news but I catch bits here and there. Also, when are Israeli elections going to be held and will the new prime minister be hawkish enough to push for a real showdown with Iran or a committed diplomat that might help get the world out of this mess. In my package from Peace Corps I got the January editions of Newsweek which included a lengthy look at the life of Ariel Sharon. I didn't know he was so closely linked to the massacres in the camps in Lebanon but I still think he was good for the region as prime minister. The most interesting thing though is wondering if he was only trying to buy time and appease the world by pulling out of less significant territories without ever planning to allow for a viable Palestinian state? We'll never know, but I tend to think you're doing something right when the extremists on both sides of the argument are trying to kill you.

This weekend I am going to a nearby village for the district athletics competition for the under 13 and under 11 kids. I am excited because I just found out that at least 3 other PCVs will be there that I haven't seen since swearing in at the first of the year. Without a cell phone I haven't even been able to SMS like most of the PCVs around the country. Yesterday, a temporary teacher at the school brought me his old antenna that he doesn't use anymore so now I need to find a phone and I might have cell phone service soon. Even then it is only likely to work in the evenings and mornings, but that is when I'm not at work so it is fine.

I must admit that the highlight of this week was reading the first Harry Potter book. I started it Monday evening and finished Wednesday evening, but now I don't have the second book because a girl borrowed it from the library and didn't return it. She doesn't go to school here anymore but the kids know her and will hopefully retrieve the book during the next out weekend. There are several books that were never returned from last year so I am cracking down of the library. We are hunting kids down for the books and blacklisting those who have lost books until they pay $5, which is kind of a joke because its not even close to replacement value but the kids don't have that kind of money and $5 is enough to make it hurt a little.

February 11

Well, I thought I would make it back to town this weekend but it didn't work out. I decided to try to go up on Saturday morning to meet the other PCVs for a few hours but I couldn't get a ride. I started asking around Friday night and went out around 7am Saturday morning but I couldn't get a hike. The combie (van) that normally goes to town didn't because there was no one else that wanted to go. Oh well, thats the way things go.

Instead of spending the day on the road and in town I have been relaxing, reading and watching the TU victory in the Liberty Bowl. I got to read the media cover to cover first which was wonderful, then I watched a truly phenomenal college football game. You can't deny that Smith is a big time quarterback and the combination of Adams and Tennial is going to be amazing next year. I especially enjoyed the label on the cassette, TU 31 - Felony State 24. A little part of you has to feel bad for Pinegar ending a great career with 4 straight losses and about a dozen interceptions, but seriously now, its Fresno.

For those of you who didn't hear, Egypt beat Ivory Coast last night to win their 5th Africa Nations Cup. The story of the game was the uncanny ability of Drogba to not score for Ivory Coast. The Chelsea striker had a point blank opportunity in the second half as well as a few other chances, and he his penalty kick was saved. I watched the soccer match instead of showing a video for the kids, they were a little perturbed but they'll get over it. Spending leisure time with other teachers has been helping me get more information about what is going on around here and getting to know the male teachers better via soccer.

The real excitement last night though didn't happen until after the soccer match. I was walking through the school with two other teachers at around 9:15 when we came across 6 of the kids who were out of the hostel after the doors are locked at 9pm. 3 boys and 3 girls not in their respective blocks after hours so we spent the next two hours getting written statements from them about what happened and making arrangments to call their parents today. I of course just observed all of these proceedings happening in Otjiherero, but it was interesting nonetheless. I don't think much will actually happen to any of these for one offense, but they could pretty easily be kicked out of the hostel which would basically force them to find another school to go to. It was a pretty big deal.

So, I feel like I've written a lot of straight information about what I've been doing but it has all been very rushed. In a way the form of my writing has said more than the content. There is definitely a feeling of 'hit the ground running' with my teaching and activities. Yet, at the same time all wisdom says don't rock the boat, at the beginning at least. Somehow I've been trying to do everything from the beginning while I assess the situation here and try to figure out what I'm aiming for over the course of my whole assignment. The 2006 posting of teachers' duties includes all of the new teachers but it still has the old PCV instead of my name. That is how I feel right now, I'm just trying to do what he did, maintain order and consistency for now and then weave in my own ideas as we go. There is a feeling of urgency about the academic performance of the school though. One month is gone, and the entire syllabus must be completed for the grade 10 in the first two terms. They reserve the first month of the third term to review for the exams then the grade 10 does all of their testing in September and October. Last year 21% of the grade 10 learners at Coblenz passed their exams compared to almost 50% nationally. I won't even talk about how I feel about the low standards for passing, that is a whole nother rant. Statistics can be manipulated but that fact is that a higher percentage of people in this area are infected with HIV than pass the grade 10 exams. The disturbing thing is that everyone knows both of these are a problem and they know ways to fix the problem but nothing seems to happen. This week a regional administrator visited the school to talk with the grade 10 teachers and learners. The positive thing is that they are working to implement some more controls at the regional level and test the kids some before the big test, but even then the feedback he had for the school was that he was impressed how the kids were in uniform and behaved well (while they were with a visitor, the principal and 8 teachers). But really, when 4 of 5 kids don't pass, that is a serious problem. It sounds terrible and maybe I am more heartless than I thought, but I am quietly advocating a triage approach. Two out of five don't have a chance of passing, they have been automatically promoted through the lower grades per the government policy and are too far behind to catch them up in 6 months. One of five can pass with normal classwork but the other two, the middle two have a chance. They won't pass by much and they won't get into a good school for grade 11 but at least they can pass. One sentence on the rant, passing means 6 Ds out of 9 subjects when a D is a 50%. Even if no one can do math, surely than can pass English (they have to pass English), Otjiherero, Agriculture, History, Geography, and then something between Physical Science, Life Science and Business Management.

Admittedly, the situation looks bad, but it won't take much to improve. Last year we dropped 81 places relative to other schools in Namibia, we're pretty close to rock bottom now. You can tell that I'm optimistic despite the numbers. With about 50 kids in grade 10 right now I refuse to believe that there are only 10 smart enough to pass 6 of 9 subjects. The challenge is to focus on what we have to work with and forget that the deck is stacked against us. None of the classes have enough desks and chairs for everyone to sit. The kids barely have any paper to write on. Lab equipment is a luxury and no one seems to know where the grade 9 physical science textbooks are. Even then, when I told the kids I could inflate a balloon without blowing more air into it they were engaged, I could see it in their eyes. They still don't really understand pressure, they couldn't do any calculations with pressure and I wasn't able to demonstrate that you actually can inflate a balloon without blowing more air into it, but we made some progress.

February 9

Computers can be really frustrating. I have been having the worst time with compatibility issues between the linux computers in the library and the windows machines everywhere else. Yesterday I tried to copy the text of all my emails into a text document on a floppy so I could read everything later but now I can't get the floppy to work on the linux machine. This week, though, has gone well. First I got mail on Monday for the first time since I have been at site. Then, I was able to watch the Super Bowl on Monday afternoon, yes a replay on ESPN. The real reason the week has gone well though is that teaching went better this week. This is our second time through the timetable and the grade 8 learners are understanding me better. I try to give a lot of visual cues to help them figure out what I am saying and one way or another I think we are communicating a little more effectively this week. I kind of feel like I'm killing time with the grade 8 because I want them to get used to my voice before we do anything too important and because we don't have paper. The kids are supposed to have a writing book for each of their 9 subjects, and in the past the government has supplied most of these books. This year we got a few books, but not nearly enough. Today we bought about 500 more but that is still just a drop in the bucket. Next week we'll be able to start doing more homework since we'll have paper, but even then I have been asking around for over a week now trying to locate the grade 9 physical science textbooks. So far I have been writing a lot of things on the board and going pretty slow, but we need those books so I can assign more homework.

Right now I am watching the Conference USA championship game between TU and Central Florida on video thanks to Brad. Its about 9:30 at night which is my bedtime these days but I want to finish the first half before I go to bed. I know we have to find a way to live without Mills, but how good is Tarrion Adams and I haven't heard any talk about Tennial lately? We have 4 returning players on the O-line and some good tailbacks coming back, but who is Mr. Smith going to throw the ball to besides the leathel screen pass to Adams?

Now I have to say something about the Super Bowl. First off, what was with the technical problems? Did they ever have a sideline report? They tried to go to Michelle Tafoya early on and had troubles, but seriously its the Super Bowl. You have to give props to Hines Ward making the big catches at the critical times all through the game for the Steelers. Seattle had some chances but their big talking tight end kept having the ball in and out of his hands except for the gimme touchdown that I could have caught. The strangest thing about the Super Bowl is that people all over the world were watching the game but no one is Coblenz even knew it was happening until I brought it up. At the same time none of you know anything about how Ivory Coast and Egypt are playing in the final of the Africa Cup of Nations tomorrow evening, but everyone here has been following the tournament for a month.

February 3

Still no internet, I sent out a message last weekend to try to get some information but nothing seems to be happening. I full week of teaching is complete. We went through days 3-7 of the timetable this week and everything is in order. I gave a quiz to the grade 9 classes today on states of matter, changing states, diffusion and pressure. Some of them seem to be getting it pretty well but some of the learners' English is so bad that I don't know how much I will be able to do for them. We had a big faculty meeting this week about the poor performance of the school on the grade 10 exams. The sad thing is that everyone knows the problem is mostly English, and everyone knows the kinds of things that should be done to rectify the situation but no one seems to have the will to make it happen. The teachers did speak English during break today though. That is the first time I have been able to understand a conversation in the staff room. Last night I was trying to think of more ways to encourage everyone to practice English and I'm thinking about playing Win Mr. Blackburn's Money. Instead of Ben Stein trivia though I would play any takers in Boggle or Scrabble. I need to test this out before I start offering money, but I think it sounds like fun. I can make Boggle easy enough that we might be able to have some trial games before I put my money on the line. Also I think it would be fun to start a betting pool on the crossword puzzle that is in the Namibian (newspaper) every Friday. I don' t know if anyone will get into this idea and I would probably have to give some big odds to join the pool myself, but who knows? Maybe some games and some money will help people practice English more and learn more words. So, the week of teaching went pretty well. The grade 8 kids have a hard time understanding me, but I think that will get better with time. I haven't been feeling great all week, so by the end of the week I decided not to push ahead into a new unit. In my cloud of frustration after the faculty meeting I decided I would quiz the grade 9 and read a story to the rest of the classes on Friday. I ended up getting a very positive response from the kids, although they asked me to read slower than the snails pace I started at. Every class enjoyed the stories and seemed excited about the prospect of hearing more stories in the library in the future. Now I just need to get other teachers to take turns with reading and eventually get some of the older kids to read as well.

I am doing well overall. I have a bad day every week when it seems like nothing will ever get accomplished but then I get back to being an optimist. Some of the learners are so far behind that they will probably fail no matter how much I try to do for them and some of the teachers seem to have their priorities skewed. However, everyone here has been wonderful and a lot of the kids show tons of potential to do really well. I attended a joke of a subject meeting where I was asked to set the agenda for the meeting. A high point of this week was on Wednesday I got two different girls (grade 4 & 7) to read stories to me.

This weeked I am staying in Coblenz, cooking chili and cornbread in honor of the Super Bowl and grading/lesson planning. I'm hoping to finish John Milton's Paradise Lost and I'm going to spend some quality time with Cora jamming on some Waterdeep songs. I am getting the hang of playing by ear, but its tough. I learned to play My Baby Keeps Me Sane Sometimes (my favorite Waterdeep song), I'm Still Here, and Nickel Creek's When You Come Back Down.

February 4

Last night I watched Rush Hour with the kids. They like action movies that are entertaining even if you can't understand the dialogue. No one seems to care if they miss the first half of the movie as long as there is some good action happening. It was disappointing to be the only one laughing while Jackie Chan was singing War, but I guess only Tulsa folks can imagine D2 and Marcel.

Is anybody going to TU basketball games these days? I figure someone has to go and win the contests now, but watch out, if they're still doing Ford Shoot to Drive when I get back I'm going to hit that half court shot.

Does everybody have their Super Bowl picks? I have to go with the Steelers even though they are the 6 seed. Seattle has been solid but there is something special about Big Ben and the Bus retiring in his hometown. I want to see the Steelers down by 4 driving at the end of the game. Goaline stand coming to fourth down from the 2 yard line and Bettis scoring the winning touchdown to end the game. Why not have a perfect storybook ending. The real question though is will Peyton Manning be another Dan Marino or John Elway?

This morning I had my first experience watching a goat be slaughtered. I took lots of pictures to document the whole smelly experience. The one thing I can't describe are the variety of smells of the goat and of kids living in a hostel where they don't bathe enough and don't wash their clothes often enough.

January 22

So I thought I would be reborn into the world of cell phones by now, but there has been a bit of a hitch. During our shopping day in Windhoek I got the impression that Peace Corps was ready to spring for antennas and phones for the PCVs that live outside of normal coverage areas, so I decided not to buy a cell phone out of my pocket. Purchasing the whole setup brings a good discount so why not let Peace Corps supply me with a phone to go with the antenna left by the PCV I am replacing right? Turns out that its good I didn't buy a phone because the antenna that was on my house when I visited in November has been removed by someone. I have a hard time believing anything can disappear in such a small community but the antenna is AWOL. I'm glad I didn't have my expectations up when I arrived. In the meantime, my supervisor at the Peace Corps has this issue on a front burner and might have antennas and phones within a week or so.

I wrote the last post so quickly I can barely remember what I told you about. Maybe I'll start with what my schedule looks like for this year. First then I will try to explain how the timetable (schedule) at school works. We have a 7 day cycle with 7 periods per day. That means that we'll start with day 1 on Monday then the second Monday will be day 6, the third will be day 4, etc. Each grade is divide into classes, so there is grade 8 A, B & C and grade 9 A, B, C & D. Each section has a schedule that they follow for each day 1-7. For the most part each section has the same classes but there is some variance, for example all of the kids that take accounting are in 9A and the rest have agriculture instead. So each cycle has 49 periods divided among all the subjects. 6 periods of English & Math; 5 periods of Physical Science, Life Science, Otjiherero, Business Management, & Agriculture/Accounting; 4 periods of History & Geography; 1 Period of Life Skills, Music, Religion, & Physical Ed. I will see each section for Physical Science 5 days out of 7 during every cycle. Peace Corps policy is that we teach 70% of the periods so that we have time to work on other projects: libraries, clubs, etc. Seven sections of physical science and grade 9 life skills gives me 39 periods which is a little higher than I hoped for, but having 2 preps makes my schedule pretty manageable. Life Skills is not an examination subject so I can anything I want with it. We will spend time talking about goals, AIDS, and practicing English. Since I only have 1 class of Life Skills per cycle there won't be much preparation to do for it, and if worse comes to worse they can have study time if I don't have something else for that class.

The school day starts at 7AM and each period is 45 minutes long. We have three periods then a 30 minute break for breakfast at 9:15, 2 more periods, a 15 minute break, and 2 more periods before we break for lunch at 1PM. You've already noticed that there is not time built in for the kids to switch classrooms, so who knows how much time will be lost moving around. Actual teaching time is going to be less than 40 minutes per period. I'm going to have review problems for them to do at the beginning of every period to try to get them in their seats as quick as possible. Note: review is called revision here so I will probably alternate terms indiscriminately. We'll start with basic math review and then move towards revising science problems but they are so weak in math that we'll be doing a lot of multiplication and division, highest common factor/lowest common multiple sort of stuff.

The periods are short but the kids do have assigned study time. My lunch break will be an hour, then I'll open the library at 2PM. Then at 3PM the kids have afternoon studies, which is mandatory study time that is not quite compulsory. This month we will be using afternoon study time to train the kids for athletics (track & field). There is also supposed to be evening studies around 7PM but I don't think that applies to the younger students and I doubt how much work will get done. These times pretty much define office hours for me to be available for tutoring, but there are other activities that will need some time in there somewhere. I am obliged to help with Windows of Hope, which is HIV/AIDS eduction for grades 4 & 5 and I have been asked to develop a program to help the grade 9 & 10 with English. A lot of the English club will be voluntary effort and probably be during library time but there will be some evening activities as well. One of the challenges for me is that 600 kids are living in the hostel here with very little to do after school. I have to balance my time preparing lessons and relaxing with being with the kids as a positive influence for them. The other activity I want to explore is the Nam Science week that includes a science fair sometime towards the end of June.

My free time has been quickly taken up with cooking, cleaning, reading, and playing guitar. I try to bake something on the weekends

to enjoy through the week and make a couple meals during the week so that with sandwiches and leftovers I don't spend too much time preparing food. This week I'm aiming for some good tacos and maybe chocolate chip cookies, corn bread and chili. Its not exactly cold enough for chili but its still football season in the States and with the Super Bowl coming up, chili seems appropriate. The weather has been wonderful since it has been raining so much. My clock thermometer has shown between 75 and 85 pretty much all the time day or night. I can't complain. Everyone talks about the heat being awful but only in November and December, so it should be nice for a good while now. The PCVs farther south have to deal with more heat than I do.

I appreciate all of the mail I have received and am anxiously expecting. Packages take a long time to get here, and unless you really want to surprise me let me know when you send a package so that I can start looking for it after a month or so. My mail goes to the school's po box and it collected at least every week and brought to the office. Need ideas for packages? Other PCVs have suggested cheese packets from boxed Macaroni and Cheese, a unique guitar pick, pictures, and I can't think of anything else right now. I can find most everything I need locally and with the cost of shipping it just doesn't make sense to not buy stuff here that I can. My watch broke while I was in Otijimbingwe so I got a new Casio watch this weekend, two sets of guitar strings, and groceries for the week. I am very glad to have packed my tuner, but I didn't bring a capo.

As far as helping with the library or anything else at the school, I don't want to jump the gun but I'll tell you my current assessment of what the library needs. We have lots of very simple books but not much that will help kids develop past the very basics. I have found a few volumes by Beverly Cleary, Matt Christopher (one of my childhood favorites), Babysitter's Club, Boxcar Children, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys. The sort of series of books that are still pretty simple to read but have lots of words and make you want to read the next book in the series because it is fun. The second thing that could be useful is multiple copies of the kinds of books you could have an entire class or reading group read at the same time. I don't know what books this might be, but if the English teachers had multiple copies of books they might assign the whole book. This is why I don't want to get ahead of myself because I don't want to get a bunch of books and then no one ever use the 10 or 30 copies of whatever book we have. Remember that the grade 9 learners probably read at a grade 4 level. I have 5 of the 7 Chronicles of Narnia, the kids might enjoy Tolkien as well. The third idea is to make dictionaries available to the kids. I don't know if this will be a classroom set or pocket size dictionaries but it makes sense that if these kids are trying to learn a new language they need to be able to look words up. The general principle with my ideas for the library is that there are sources of random old books for free, but we have those already. The stuff that no one will/can read is here to fill the shelves, so I would rather not get a bunch of free books from the variety of sources there are to get free books. Think about the books that you loved when you were learning to read, sports, mysteries, all these sorts of series could really go a long way towards encouraging the kids to want to read.

I have now been trying to connect to the Internet for 2 hours while I type this and watch I am Sam, which is an excellent movie by the way. One of my favorites.

madness

I have to be back at a meeting in 15 minutes so this will be quick. Friday I thought I was going to go to town but I couldn't get a hike. Saturday I went to another village for the younger kids athletics which was wonderful, then decided to stay the night with 3 other PCVs. I didn't bring anything with me so it was minimalist. I had a great time catching up with the others and relaxing. Sunday I tried to get a hike back home with no success so I called my school, as instructed, to see if the teacher who said he would pick me up would come but no one knew where he was. I thought I was going to be spending another night there but then late in the evening I got a hike and picked up 5 kids going to back to school in Coblenz. This morning I went to work, suprising several people who didn't expect me there today, and was asked to take grade 10 physical science in exchange for grade 8 that I have now. I also found out that there is a meeting today that I need to get back to about a cluster (like a district) examination for physical science this august that we need to set. I suggested that if I was going to take the grade 10 class then I should be at the meeting which means I missed a few periods of work and will be busy all afternoon until the internet cafes are closed.

 

I just ate a cheeseburger with a chocolate milkshake.

no time

I don't have any time to write now, hopefully I'll be online tomorrow but all is well. I got mail for the first time in Coblenz on Monday which was wonderful. I watched the Super Bowl on the replay on Monday afternoon. I've got to go to the post office now though to get the package Brad sent and get a mosquito screen for my window. All the rain is going to make for a nasty spell of bugs I think. More later, thanks for all the emails, I just copied them onto a floppy disk to read later when I get home.