Thoughts on teaching, annoyances, travel plans, and Chickens

Today Samuel (the other teacher I work with) offered such insightful commentary on my life as to note, "Today madam you are not wearing your spectacles." (I haven't worn them for over a month now). Earlier he also said, "Today, madam I think you are not so tired as you were yesterday." me: "I wasn't tired yesterday." Samuel: "No no, I can see it in you from my studies of you here, you are much better today than yesterday." I know that he is well intentioned (he is also VERY naive), but his interest in continually making conversation with me through constantly commenting on my activities and state of being makes me want to wring his neck sometimes. He is constantly saying things like, "today I have seen something new!" in reference to some random thing in my backpack. This really chaps my ass. I should note that Samuel is at least 25 and other teachers and students I work with do not behave this way. It is really just him.

I really like my students, but I think that I would be much happier if the classes were really mine. Today I taught a really good class on past and past continuous tenses for the first class of the day. Then I didn't have my second period class because a few weeks ago they rescheduled that group because they are getting pre-form one students now. (14 year olds preparing for all English instruction in Form one). They don't speak enough English so Masha teaches all of them. Then I discovered that in the week that i was away helping run the volunteer project Masha apparently consolidated the 3rd class and was teaching pre-form ones in the room where my lesson was still waiting on the blackboard form my advanced 3rd class. So in other words, no one told me that the class was essentially canceled and moved in with the intermediates and I wasn't needed to teach the class.

I could have taught from what Samuel had on the board, but teaching someone else's lesson is really difficult when you don't believe that what they are teaching is that important and most of it could be covered in 10 minutes for a 2 hour class. So here I am at the internet. I was quite disappointed really because I don't have much time left before I leave and the one thing that I wanted to successfully do was teach my students tenses. It is their biggest problem and for some reason, Masha keeps teaching them things like the difference between many and much which is easy to learn, but not nearly as essential when they make sentences all the time like, "I going to working now". In other words, we have a vast difference in priorities...

To be fair, I cannot expect them to consider me in everything that they do because for them to rely on unpaid volunteers who come and go for such short intervals would only jeopardize the school because it would be constantly unstable. But given that I have been considering coming home pretty soon for the election it does make clear to me that I am useful, but not critically needed and they will go on without me. The best thing that I can do is connect them with resources in the long run anyway.

2 months here is not a long time, but it has given me the opportunity to do something different and try teaching English as a foreign language. I do like it (as long as I only teach adults) and maybe this will help me find work in NYC or abroad doing the same thing. I will look in to getting TEFL certified in NYC.

Today I requested a return flight to NYC for the 27th, 28th, and 29th of October. My first choice is October 27th. I may be flying in and then the next day busing it to Ohio to help out Obama. But we will see what happens with my flight availability.

In the time that I have left I plan on engaging in project Chicken. This is a project of my creation wherein I will purchase live chickens from the market and give them to random Tanzanians. How much is a live Chicken do you ask? about 6$. And I get to carry a chicken.