School has Started!

As you may have noticed already, things around here move slower than in the US. Things also do not always follow the schedule set up by whomever is in charge. School years tend to begin slowly here, as people are waiting for the government to send money and for students or pupils to arrive, but this year has been exceptionally slow. The election officially pushed the start of the school year back to February 22, ten days after we arrived at site. Many of the primary schools began within a week or two of this date, though PTCs are a different story. The people who grade examinations for students leaving Senior 4 (approx. end of high school) did not release this year's results until the middle of February. Since these exam scores were not out, the PTCs could not accept students, since a large portion of their applications are these scores. My PTC did not even begin admitting students until the week of February 22, when school was supposed to start.

When students were admitted, they were told to report by March 1, and the second years by February 24. If they do not report within 2 weeks, their spot is given to someone else. So students who report on time are rewarded only in being able to pick their beds and do nothing while waiting for their classmates arrive. Once a majority of the first years arrived, they began an orientation to campus that was indefinitely long but also unofficial. At least I think that's what they were doing. They met every day starting maybe the week of March 7, learning about campus. Then this week was their official orientation, a two day event on Tuesday and Wednesday. (To put my part in this into perspective, the schedule for this event was created the day before, and the tutors were not told about it until the morning of. I found out at 8:00 am that I was supposed to address the first years alongside my fellow ICT tutor, who was nowhere to be found, at 10:00 am, and on a market day nonetheless.) Classes then officially began on Thursday, but even though I was on the time table for Thursday, I didn't teach until Friday because the first years were all together again for...something. No one really seems to know what happened on Thursday.

This week was also National DEAR Day, on good ole St. Patrick's Day! (So it really was okay I didn't teach on Thursday, because I was quite busy.) All of the students and staff dropped everything and read for an hour on Thursday. We had students help us to distribute books, magazines, and newspapers so that the library wouldn't be overwhelmed. Students sat anywhere in the shade (hot day), lining the verandas (porches) and huddling under trees. It was really great to see everyone reading together for an hour, even if I only got to read for maybe half of that.

Matooke Delivery Man DEAR

Then on Friday I taught my first class here! The students were interactive, mostly quiet, and obviously excited to learn about computers. After Easter I'll split them into two groups per stream (class) so that they can fit into the lab. I gave them a pretest, and so I think I'm going to try to split them by ability level, since it will help me to shape my lessons. 

I'm so excited to finally be a teacher!!