Teaching has begun

21/1/2010

I finally started teaching this past week. The schedule of periods wasn't finished until wednesday, but since only 4 of my 31 periods are not form 1, I wasn't missing out on much. Since the form ones have their 6 week orientation before the subjects begin, I began teaching orientation. The first day of it was quite the shock. The text for the orientation course provides fairly detailed lessons for the entire orientation, but the lessons assume either the students are already quite good at english or else that the teacher speaks Kiswahili (neither is true in my situation). So I sort of fumbled through the few lessons I “taught” this week, trying to explain in kiswahili as well as english, but I don't think the students comprehended the vast majority of what I was teaching. The schedule for the orientation will be done for next week, so I won't be teaching all of it then, and I hope the students make significant progress by the end of their 6 weeks, otherwise I think this will be a long year as I have form 1 for the vast majority of my periods.

In other news, I had ordered a kind of table/dresser to be made from a fundi in my village the other day. Its like a tall table with two shelves underneath and I plan to use it as a dresser. I ordered it on sunday, and they delivered it to my front door today, via cow-drawn cart. I was quite impressed with the rapid turnaround, and since the table looked good and sturdy (it was super heavy, I struggled to move it once it was inside) I ordered a coffee table from him as well. Once I have that, I think I will be done buying stuff for a while. I still have a significant amount of stuff I've yet to unpack. I'm not entirely sure what it all is, but with the table I got today, and the one I should get tuesday, I think I will finally have space for everything. While the fundis were here dropping off my table/dresser, and some stuff my neighbor had ordered, the also put a handle on my courtyard door. I've been waiting almost the entire time I've been here for that. A fundi came once to fix my door the first week I was here, and I told him I wanted him to come back to put the handle on, and he said OK, but he never returned. All is well though.

On the bat front, they are still here, and I may additionally have rats. I saw one in my store room outside the other day, so I'm assuming they are in here too, but hopefully not. I might buy some rat poison to sprinkle around the corners of my house. And if anyone knows how to get rid of bats, I would love to know so please send me an email. Thats all for now, time for a nice warm bucket bath.