new bike

Yay! So, yesterday, Vanessa, my roommate, and I went to Beira to get me a new bike, which is going to be paid for by Peace Corps. Isn't it nice? Got a basket for groceries, backseat for passengers, and even a bell. Honestly, school is only a 15 minute walk from home, so I don't really need a bike, but it's so hot here that even 15 minutes in the sun is exhausting. Plus, I haven't rode a bike since who knows how long, and though it's only 1 speed, it's really so much fun :-)

Anyway, so school started last week. Even though I was trained to teach bio, I ended up having 4 English 8th grade classes in the afternoon and 1 8th grade class at night. The way school works here is that regular day school is from 7 to 6 at night. You either have morning classes, from 7 to 12:45, or afternoon classes, from 1 to 6.45. Night classes are for older students who have never passed, and since the majority of the population has not finished school, a lot of the students in my night class are adults. I taught afternoo classes, so I didn't have to be at school until 1 so I usually did planning in the morning. I liked that a lot, but that's all going to change next week.

So, apparently we don't have enough english teachers so I have to take over all the 8th grade English classes, which is 8 classes altogether, and that includes morning classes. Since I will be teaching morning and afternoon, I didn't think I would have enough time to plan, so I'd asked them to drop my night classes, which is a little disappointing cause I was looking forward to teaching the adults bio, but I guess that's one thing you learn in the Peace Corps, it's that you gotta be flexible. holy crap. i have no training in english. It can't possibly be that hard, right? We'll see how it goes..

So, my first day.. I was super prepared and had everything written out that I was going to say, and guess what happened?! I had like 10 of my students out of 50 showed up, and even worse in might class, 3 of the 50 ppl showed up! Apparently, it's common for ppl not to show up to school here the first day, not even teachers. Can you believe it?! So, whatever lesson I had planned was worth nothing cause I couldn't teach it to just a few students so I had to improvise. Damn. It's really not as easy teaching english as you might think. the students don't have books and so any vocabulary had to be written on the board and copied. They take a very long time to copy, especially when I have to wait on 50 students, and they're all at such different levels. No overheads so that means no visuals unless I draw it with chalk. Shit! I'm no artist, and then they're also no artist so they don't even know how to copy down my drawings. Last week, I taught about family, like how to say mom, dad, uncle, etc, but that was only to 4 classes. The ones that didn't have me had no English class, so they have not had English at all. It's unbelievable that we're still rearranging classes and schedules, not just of individual students but entire grades, and it's the 2nd week of school already. We had to dissolve 2 8th grade classes and split those students up into other classes because one of our teachers transferred and we don't have enough. Students don't know when they have classes and when they don't. It's all so sketchy. You would think it'd be more organized!

Anyway, so far, i don't feel like the kids are bad. They just don't understand. I ask and they don't know how to respond so it's very frustating for me, especially when the answer is so obvious. It's like teaching elementary school. I gotta remind myself that they just were never taught to think, only to memorize and regurgitate, so I have to be patient.

Damn but it's hard to be nice and patient when it's so rediculously hot and I have to wear a lab coat on top of my clothes to teach. Dude it's like atleast in the 90's everyday, and they fit a room with 60 ppl, no AC and only windows. i gotta keep a sweat rag in my lab coat pocket to wipe the neverending trickle on my face. I've got heat bumps all over my skin from all the sweating cause I just never stop. As soon as I put on clothes after a shower, I'm sweating again. It's so hot at night I can't even sleep sometime, even if I sleep naked. That's one sure way to make sure you get up early. Just be so hot.

Other than that though, I still love it. It just offer to rain or cool off. Then i'll be happy.