So here’s my drama for today: I am still sick, which means I am exhausted. Unfortunately, it has been affecting my teaching but some classes (grade 7) have been very understanding and have even been better behaved than usual. In addition, two of the five teachers for upper primary are gone to a two-day conference. This means I no longer have free periods because I have to babysit/teach whichever class is unattended. Also add to this the stress of government inspectors coming to the school today. I actually left classes with two periods left in the day because I had finished all of my scheduled classes for the day and was no longer effective in any capacity. I said I had a fever and went home to sleep, which, to be honest was absolutely necessary. I woke up feeling somewhat refreshed and went to library where I had a great success (just to give you one happy thing for today;) ). I have been struggling with younger kids wanting to use the library but they don’t know how to put the books back and don’t speak enough English for me to teach them. I am currently mobilizing “library helpers” to teach the younger grades, but they are a week or two from being ready. Today my brilliant idea was just to select a bunch of books at their level (or with fun pictures in them) and put them in a box with the instruction that those are the only books they can use. This plan led to about 20 five to eight-year-olds sprawled on the floor with books—awesome.
But the day doesn’t end there. I have no water. I thought this was because of the water shortage in the location (a pump at the water plant broke) and didn’t question things, I just haven’t showered for two days and was prepared to buy bottled water. But today during my nap, two notes of “disconnections due to overdue accounts” were slipped under my door showing a balance of $27,500 for water and $800 for sewage from whoever lived here before me. Fabulous. I have the principal working on it now and I got enough to drink for today and tomorrow from another teacher but I certainly hope it gets fixed in time for me to shower tonight… the heat, dust, and being sick all combine to make a pleasantly filthy Tina. Sorry if this post sounds incredibly whiney, but this is just how today has gone. Also see the previous post for an in depth investigation into why I might be feeling a bit negative…
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
$27,500 for water? Did the person shower with liquid diamonds? Was the plumbing system set up to "make it rain"? Hopefully the person who lived there before you is now in their appropriate job, building rocket ships that run on garbage, because it takes an incredible amount of genius to make that high of a water bill (unless water is just really expensive in Namibia).
ReplyDelete