Exams Day 4

Last night I didn't grade a single exam. That's going to come back and bite me later. I fell asleep early, then woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't fall back asleep for a long time. And my stack of ungraded exams keeps growing.

One of my third years hasn't come to school for the last two weeks. I wasn't sure what I could do, and since I had enough to worry about, I hadn't taken any steps. Well, he came to school with his father today to meet with the principal. I couldn't be there for the meeting, since I was giving the third year chemistry exam. Also, I was pretty sure he was going to be caned a lot, and nothing I would say or do could stop that, so I just avoided that scene. After about an hour, he came into the classroom (during the exam) to collect his books. I think we all thought the same thing. I followed him out and he was crying a little bit (probably he was in complete agony). I tried to be motivational and wish him the best wherever life was going to take him and tell him that he had a lot of potential. He looked back at me and said that he would be back next term. I just hope I can get him to be a little more serious about his studies then.

I went back into the exam, and the students were all watching him leave instead of working on their exams. I told him that he would return next term and that they needed to return to their exams. One of the girls in the class forlornly mumbled "good-bye boyfriend" (dating is banned at the school, but the students trust me enough at this point). I couldn't suppress a little laugh, and then the whole class started laughing together. It was pretty funny (even Mercy was laughing at herself), and it took us a whole minute to settle back down. I knew about Kent and Mercy (actually it's pronounced like Marcie, which always confuses me) but I make sure that I don't meddle in the personal lives of students. Still, I think that I may need to give her some relationship advice (for those of you who know anything about my past, there's no need to make fun) to help her make mature decisions.

We finally managed to focus on exams again, but it was pretty short lived. There was a commotion outside as local parents were chasing away elephants that had wandered towards the school in search of water. At this point, I lost most of my faith that the students would ever be able to focus on their exams (good thing it was 90% finished at this point). I actually found myself doing the Funky Chicken at one point. Few of them saw because they were all trying to see the elephants. Still, it must be pretty distracting to take an exam with me in the room.

At lunch, the physics teacher was teaching me a traditional Luhya dance (the Luhyas are a tribe from Western Kenya), so I started dancing with him while singing Chava Ngila (sp?). That was fun. Most of the rest of the day has been grading papers and helping people use the computer for recording grades. They seem pretty sold on the idea, which is nice. Now I just need to help them learn how to use the computer.

Exams Day 3

Today I didn't have an exam in the morning (my first break), so I used the time to really make a dent on grading. I am grateful that today's grading was much less eventful than yesterday's. Then, midway through the morning, my 4th year agriculture students came to me so that they could write their reports on the napier grass projects. I helped them figure out the general outline, but everything was their own work. I have been really proud of their work. Since I will be the only one grading them (even though it counts towards their national exam scores) I think I will give them all 100% (grading is pretty flexible on this one). That is 20% of their total agriculture score in November. They generally concluded that napier grass can grow here, although it is a bit too water intensive, so it isn't very practical. I was happy, since usually conclusions are something to the effect of "everyone should grow napier grasses because these plants will allow them to become better farmers." Or something like that. Most of the hard part in teaching agriculture is ending, I think. I hope.

I mentioned yesterday that I have concerns about another one of my students having a learning disability. As I was marking her exam today, I realized that she had also copied. Unfortunately for her, she sits next to the 3rd lowest scoring student in the class. Copying didn't help very much. I don't even know what I can do for her. I've given her some special attention, but I am not sure she is past the 6th grade level. I didn't penalize her at all (my default punishment for flagrant cheating is to take 20 points off of the exam), but I don't even know what to do.

After my afternoon exam, I sat at my desk grading and fell asleep on the papers. When I woke up, the students had already left school. I was a bit disoriented, but the other teachers were still grading in the staff room. They just assumed that I was marking in the lab, so we would all leave together. Exams are more than half done. I just need to push myself a few days more.

Exams Day 2

I'm in way over my head. It was pretty gratifying that a few students were able to get results that were pretty accurate (it means that I am capable of making solutions to a precise concentration). Still, running the lab session today was crazy. Actually, there wasn't enough equipment, so we had to run it twice. In addition to the fact that the students didn't actually know how to use several of the apparatuses, we had to do a lot of damage control throughout. Most of the casualties were just test tubes that were heated too strongly. The students were using old fashioned pipettes, which meant that a few students drank the unknown solution (sodium carbonate doesn't taste very good, but it's harmless). Nothing bad happened, which was nice.

The most hectic part was that we didn't have containers for storing extra solution, so a few of them had to be remade during the exam. I think I would up making 0.25M HCl about 9 times. One time, I was so rushed that I mixed water with acid (one of the first rules in the chemistry lab is that you pour acid into water, not water into acid. Thank you Carmen Sandiego.) At least I didn't spill on my hand this time (I put a band-aid on today to avoid that pain; that's almost as good as gloves, right?). I'm not entirely sure how consistent the concentration was. The worst was making ammonia because of the smell. Also, I had to keep leaving my afternoon math exam with the third years to make solutions. I had one day of training with Mr. Hunt (my wonderful high school chemistry teacher) six years ago, but apparently none of the other teachers were willing to even try. My brain was pretty fried during all of this, and the other chemistry teacher wasn't doing so well either, so the students were completely unsupervised for a good part of it. Still, it's over now. I'm very grateful and glad there were no injuries.

As my stack of exams keeps growing (right now, I have 7 stacks to grade), I have been too tired to make much of a dent. Still, I decided to start off by tackling the third year math papers. The scores were not great, but I was happy with some of the progress that they've been making. I was particularly excited by one of my students who has consistently ranked second to last. His score had more than tripled his usual on this exam. I felt like maybe I had flipped some switch and he now miraculously understood some of the topics. Then I looked at the paper of the student sitting next to him (he usually ranks second or third in the class) and it all became clear. There was no switch that had been flipped. This was a clear cut case of copying (crowded classrooms make it a bit hard to prevent). Kinda crushes my spirit a little bit. I think I may have a talk with him about taking some time off of school. All the other teachers would love to expel him (I'll do everything I can to make sure that they don't find out about this), but I think he would do better to do things on his own terms. There's also the possibility that he is dyslexic or has some other kind of learning disability (I have another student with whom I have the same concerns). Since those things are completely unknown here, they don't really have any way of getting diagnosed or helped. I hate to admit it, but I haven't had much time to give them special attention either. I just don't know what I could do. For now, it will just have to start with a conversation.

On the plus side, no problems with water today.

Exams Day 1

I had both first year physics and third year math (actually, I had 4th year agriculture too, but I had already made arrangements for that one) to start off the day. When I initially made the exam schedule, this wasn't a problem since I wasn't teaching first year physics. However, lots of things changed, so I had to coax the other physics teacher to supervise the exam for me. My math exam was pretty uneventful, though it was a pretty tough paper. The physics exam was graded by the other physics teacher too (I am very grateful to him for that, but we had made that deal since I graded a set of his fourth year physics exams). The previous physics teacher had written the exam during his brief tenure, which was a mixed blessing. He got a bit overzealous, and wrote questions that were a bit more difficult than the students were ready for (or maybe just a bit too peripheral) and the average was 30 percentage points lower than it was during midterms. I think I'm just going to weight the midterms strongly and the final really lightly. Sometimes it's nice to be in charge of grades and exams (at most schools, the rule that midterms are 30% and final exams are 70% of the final grade is completely unquestioned).

At lunch, I went to wish my third years luck on their afternoon exams (agriculture for half the class; business for the other half of the class). Thankfully, this one was supposed to be supervised by the business teacher. The students told me that they had no water at lunch. I knew this would be a problem and I had no idea what I should say or what I could do. As the area is hot and dry, they needed something. They started pounding on their desks and chanting. I was nervous that things might take a turn for the worst. Then, one of them broke in over the chanting and announced that there was a little water in the tank near the lab. I asked them to wait, and I ran to check. As it turned out, there was lots of water in the tank (about 3500 liters) so I ran to the principal to ask if we could use the tank to give all the students a little water before their afternoon exam. He just smiled and nodded (most of the staff was pretty indifferent to the plight of the students, so it probably seemed a bit strange that I was doing this). I grabbed three of my third year boys (not trying to be sexist, I just thought it would have been a tad inappropriate having girls in skirts climb on the water tank) and we went to the tank. They all felt anxious about climbing on top of the tank with a bucket, so it fell to me. I hopped on top (nearly dropped my cell phone in the water again, but I managed to avoid that) and dipped the bucket and passed it down. I had to brace myself with one arm, which meant that I was lifting 20 kg with my other arm. I'm still feeling that. We had to do it 5 times to get enough water for all the students. I wound up pretty dirty from the adventure, and I got a small cut on my index finger (you'll see why that's important later on), but the students were very impressed and excited, so that was a nice reward. The next step is finding a way to treat the water, because this water had dust and bugs floating inside (and probably other stuff too). That will have to come later.

After lunch, I had planned to grade some papers, but the other chemistry teacher reminded me that we had to set the equipment up for the lab portion of the chemistry exam that is going to be tomorrow. The school could really use a proper lab technician, but we knew there wasn't anything that we could do, so we set to work. We had to find and clean lots of equipment, track down the necessary chemicals (we had ordered most of them 2 weeks earlier) and apparatuses and then prepare all the solutions to specific concentrations and make labels. Fortunately, the secretary and the physics teacher came to help out at various times, but it still took over 3 1/2 hours. We were also hamstrung because we only had the question sheet and answer key, not the confidential instructions telling us the exact concentrations (and for one question, the necessary chemicals). We got everything set as best as we could. The only issue was when I was preparing some dilute hydrochloric acid and I spilled a little bit of the concentrated stuff on the cut on my finger (I have to say that the bottle is not exactly conducive to pouring). Wow, that stuff hurts. It wasn't helped by the fact that we needed to hurry and finish, since staying at school late increases the risk of meeting unfriendly elephants on the way home (they startle easily, and a few people in the area are injured or killed by stray elephants every year). Anyway, it's done. Tomorrow should be interesting.

Pre-Exam Post

Exams are starting for the whole school today. The fourth years actually started doing exams two weeks ago to get ready for their national exams in November. It's been a long haul for them. The exams we have been giving them were written at the district level (like a county, I suppose), which means that they were relatively error free and came with answer keys (I was grateful that the students would get better exposure in agriculture). The fourth years had a total of 20 exams. The other exams were supposed to start and finish last week, but that got changed. It threw a bit of a wrench into the scheduling, but then, things never go exactly as planned here. The plan is to give lots of exams (I will be giving physics to the first years; math, agriculture to the second years; 2 math exams, 2 chem exams and 1 agric exam to the third years [yikes!!!]; on top of 2 agriculture and 2 chemistry to the fourth years, but those ones are nearly done) and grade them, return them and submit the report cards by Monday of next week. I already did one stack for fourth year chemistry. It was not very pretty (average was 20%, high score was 60%, and there was only one other student who scored above 40%). Things are going to be pretty busy (hence my reversion to this format of blogging). Just when I had hoped for a respite from all the work of writing the exams.

Also, a few more notes from the weekend. Just before I got on the matatu in Voi, I decided to run to the supermarket and grab a small block of cheddar. Well, the matatu was in no rush and it was also very hot, so by the time I got home (of course, there's no fridge) it was not the prettiest block of cheese I'd ever seen. I knew it was now or never, so I made myself 4 grilled cheese sandwiches. Yummmmm! I'll have to do that again.

I had to reevict those wasps. This time, they decided to set up their nest on my front door. Well, I decided to just by a can of insect killer and get rid of them for good (I feel like I had given them enough warnings). They are gone again. I hope they stay away this time.

I don't think we could have this conversation in the US

Today I went to Voi to get some groceries and take care of some things
on the internet. When I arrived, I saw a group of Americans. And I
walked right past them. Most times when I see Americans, they are just
here for a safari and I find that we have little in common. Still,
something seemed different about this group, so I turned around and
introduced myself.

As it turns out, they're also volunteers. They're here for 3 weeks
helping a village to build a cultural center for the Taitas. They
seemed like a nice group (about 8 of them, including a girl from the
North End in Boston). We only talked for about five minutes, but my
favorite excerpt was:

Girl: So do you have rain in your area?
Me: Nope. It's dry as a bone. Actually, today was the first time I've
taken a bucket bath in almost 2 weeks.
Girl: Oh, yeah. We have the same problem. I haven't showered in a week.

I'll miss exchanges like this when I come back to the States.

A special kind of love

I enjoy watching livestock because most times you don't have to wait
very long before they do something ridiculous.

As I was walking home from school today, there was a Somali who had
travelled a long way in search of water and pasture for his large herd
of cows (don't even get me started on the environmental damage caused
by overstocking). One of the calves decided that it wanted a meal,
while its mother was walking. Now normally, the mother just continues
walking until the calf gets the idea that it might need to wait for
its meal. Today, however, I saw a new technique. The calf was trying
to drink while standing behind the mother, so the mother stopped
walking and started peeing. Yuck! That poor calf.

The week is looking up

Well, after a manic Monday, a tense Tuesday and a pretty lousy start
to wednesday (so much for alliteration), things are looking up.

So things haven't actually improved at school. If anything, they've
probably deteriorated. But I got a very nice email from a Peace Corps
staff member in Nairobi. There was a recent coup in Madagascar (it
seems most people missed this news story), but the silver lining in
the Madagascar evacuation of Peace Corps was that some of their
friendly staff have come to Nairobi for the time being. Can't say much
more about that right now. Also, I started working on two somethings
that I find very rewarding this week. Can't really say more about that
either at this point. What I can talk about is the amazing guacamole
that I made last night at the restaurant near my house. The produce
seemed to be perfectly in season, so I wound up with two burritos sin
queso for dinner. Yummm! It was a little disheartening that some of
the customers at the restaurant were criticizing the cook for becoming
white (i.e. eating my recipe), but they were probably secretly jealous
of our culinary prowess. Gotta savor those small victories. Also,
today is Economist day, so as with every Thursday, I look forward to
reading the new edition.

Let's hope things keep going like this.

Deja vu or something like it

This morning I was working on the school computer when all of a sudden
the secretary comes in and announces "Dan! The chemicals are leaking!"
I followed her to the lab and sure enough, there was a bottle of
concentrated sulphuric acid (at least the bottle was labelled this
time) that had eaten through the bottle and was spilling onto the
floor. All I could muster was "Fancy that." I lazily took the
carbonate out of the cabinet and started neutralizing the acid. I was
sprinkling it by hand and waving it in the faces of other teachers
(sodium carbonate is harmless). Then, rather than find another bottle
for it to eat through slowly, I just threw it down the toilet. I
proceeded to sprinkle ash down there to neutralize the acid so that I
wouldn't contaminate the groundwater or the air. Well, minimize the
effect, at any rate.

This response was markedly different from the last time this happened
for several reasons. First, I have accepted that the school has no
intention of finding a lab technician, so doing labs will be an
extreme rarity in the near future, so there is little reason to keep
such large supplies of dangerous chemicals, especially without
adequate means of storage. Second, I am much less concerned about
damage to the school building as I have seen that these acid spills
are far from the greatest threat. Third, I have little optimism for
the future of the school with the way the principal is currently
handling things. He left a message this weekend that there would be
another week of lessons before exams without stating any reason. This
confuses a whole lot of things that we had planned in our lessons, and
he is not even here today to explain why. More frustratingly, he told
our teacher who had come from university to take some of our lessons
and reduce our burden that the school would pay him an undisclosed
amount (read very small sum) and it would only do so well into the
future. Looks like we just lost a teacher. I know that money is a
problem at the school, but I am pretty sure the principal takes a per
diem stipend every day he misses school (that is approaching 75% of
school days). And no one actually sees any benefits for the school
from any of his trips.

These days, small acid spills are the least of my worries.

Books 6.1

Well, I recognize that this is neither a book, nor did I read the bulk
of it in June. Nevertheless, I feel that it deserves special
attention.

***** - The Economist's Special Report on Texas. The Economist
publishes a special report nearly every other week. Many of them are
highly technical and go way over my head. Sometimes the theme seems a
bit esoteric. I admit that I was a bit skeptical when I saw that the
theme was Texas. In reading the articles, however, I realized that
there is a lot that I don't know about the state. Rather than getting
bogged down in history, they tried to take a snapshot of the present
and consider implications for the future. As always, I didn't agree
with everything that they had written, but I think that they certainly
outline some interesting perspectives on demography, politics and
industry in the state. The anecdotes are nice too (did you know that
"Don't mess with Texas" was the slogan for an anti-litter campaign).
If you are interested, the magazine should be available at newsstands
until Friday, or it will be online at www.economist.com. You can click
on print edition or scroll down for special reports. I would also
recommend looking at their special report on waste management from
February.

I always set a good example...

So, burnt hair smells pretty bad. I think the best way to avoid that
smell is by not putting your face over the Bunsen burner as you try to
light it. Oops. Well, I hope my students learned something from this
episode.

Also, my principal did come to school these last two days, which was wonderful.

My hair still smells like burning.

Das unrecht in der welt

Yep, the title of this post comes from a song by one of my favorite
German a capella songs.

My friend Nick just called me to break some bad news to me. His school
got a new teacher. Now, while this is good news for him, it rather
destroys my theory. I had previously assumed that the Kenyan
government simply assigns teachers to schools completely randomly
(i.e. no consideration for teacher preferences or school offer). Well,
if that were the case, I think the law of averages says that they
would eventually send one to my school (we have increased teaching
staff a bit since I arrived, but the government had nothing to do with
that, except for sending us a principal). My new working theory is
that they send teachers anywhere except where they're needed (i.e.
it's not completely random). Nick assures me that they do not need the
new teacher, and while he does not fill our most urgent needs, he
would certainly reduce the burden on some of our teachers.

Still, I always enjoy hearing from Nick, and we had a good
conversation. I've actually gotten a bunch of calls from people
recently, so I definitely owe profound thanks to Jeff (my charcoal
buddy), Dennis (he managed to call me less than 5 minutes after I
emailed to say I was having a bad day), Katherine (oh, Katy...), Iti
(big props for calling from Israel on the 4th of July), and of course,
my wonderful parents.

Problems at school

Well, I'm on duty again this week. We have the usual problems: faculty
shortages, principal absenteeism (with this week's absences, I think
that brings him to 1.5 days attendance in the last 3 weeks), teachers
not coming to school on time and not teaching their lessons and
leaving early, overworked school staff bearing the brunt of criticism
for the problems associated with problems 1 and 2. And now, we have a
few new and exciting ones all the while end-term exams start next
week.

The printer has been broken all week, which means that things like the
exam timetable can't be printed. Yesterday, the kitchen ran out of
food. Even after I returned my food. That meant that several students
didn't get lunch. I am not proud of the quality of the lessons that
came after lunch, although I think that they would have been even
worse if I were wracked with guilt about taking food out of the mouths
of students. There has to be a better way. One of them took a double
helping today. I pretende to discipline him, but really, I was
sympathizing. Then, one of the students who was sweeping the room with
the mimeograph (old school copy machine) apparently swiped a copy of
the 2nd year chemistry exam (somewhat reminiscent of certain members
of OPRF's class of 2003). There is a prime suspect, but I'm worried
about things turning into a witchhunt here. This one could have
probably been averted if teachers would arrive at school before their
lessons start. Exams are turning out to be a royal headache, since our
principal has absconded with the instructions for the lab component of
the exams. That means we kinda have to guess which chemicals to order
and hope that the students get the results that they are supposed to
find. Also, we haven't used it yet, but the lab plumbing is falling
apart. I can't figure out what they used for pipes, but it seems only
slightly stronger than cardboard. I also got nitric acid in my eye.
Whoops. No damage, but I'm pretty fed up with my role as lab
technician.

I should be in Ghana right now. Oh how I wish I were in Ghana.

4th of July

Well, as promised, I went to school today to teach a bit. That makes
two out of my last three 4ths of July (yep, that's how the plural is
written) spent in a school (2007 was in a primary school in India
where they also have school during the summer and where American
Independence Day is not a big holiday).

I came home in the afternoon not feeling terribly energetic and put on
my iPod. Chicago came on and as I heard the lyrics "Saturday / In the
park / I think it was the 4th of July," I realized that seeing as the
4th falls on a Saturday this year, I owed it to their immense musical
talent to go to the park. As it happens, there is an entrance to the
largest national park in Kenya just 1 kilometer west of my house.

I've lived here almost 6 months, and I haven't traveled more than 100
meters west. I knew that I needed to rectify this, so I walked along
the railroad tracks and came to the immense gates. Since no one was
standing at the post, I decided that fate wanted me to go inside. I
walked through the opening and was admiring the scenery and a plane
that a tourist had parked there when a gatekeeper approached me. I
apologized for being a bad neighbor and not visiting ever. We chatted
a bit, and then I talked with her son (he is named Baron. What a great
name!) about airplanes. Peace Corps language training did not
adequately prepare me for that conversation. Then I went over to see
the other gate (the Voi-Taveta road cuts through the park and there
are gates on either side) where the people were not as friendly, and
the view wasn't as nice, but still pretty amazing.

As the sun was starting to set, I realized I should head home. As I
was walking down the road, I met a woman walking towards me. She was
very friendly and she seemed very hospitable. That usually means a
prostitute. After trying to refuse her without making things
uncomfortable, she decided to introduce awkwardness of her own. "I'm
one of your students," she lied. I explained that I know all of my
students and hurried away. I think that last line was supposed to be
part of her sales pitch. ::CRINGE::

As I continued home, there was a car that wasn't starting, so I joined
the effort to give it a push so it would start. On our third try, the
engine finally turned. (I just wrote that and realized that that is an
allusion to One Headlight by The Wallflowers, which also talks about
independece day, albeit less cheerfully.)

I won't get to see a proper fireworks show until 2011. That will be 5
years without. :-) and :-(

Insomnia

I've always been a bit prone to it. For most of the last week I've
been having trouble going to sleep early. Last night, I stayed up
until 11 pm grading exams. I figured I would crash. No such luck.

After a few futile attempts to sleep, I decided to make myself a
nightcap. Or 3. Part of the problem has been having a cold and then
last night, my stomach was acting up too. Sadly, I didn't use my night
time energy very productively, although I did explore some interesting
mathematical patterns (that's just what I do).

As the hours crept on, I started tracking the Cubs game on my cell
phone. I happened to pick it up as they put on some offense, complete
with a grand slam. I would stay up until 4 every night if it meant the
Cubs would play like that. At about 4:45, I finally managed to get
some pretty restless sleep before the schoolday.

I'll be going into school tomorrow to make up for my low productivity
today. 4th of July is just another day here. Still, I'm glad that I'll
be spending the holiday with some of my favorite people: my students.
Now I just have to resist the temptation to break into the chemistry
lab and teach the students how to make fireworks...

A new record

I taught 8 lessons today. That was pretty exhausting. 4 of them were
chemistry, though, and I think that I enjoy those lessons the most.
Unfortunately, I've managed to catch a cold, so I am a bit stuffed up
while I try to teach.

Perhaps I should update a bit more on the goings on at school. The
outstanding news is that we have another teacher for the rest of the
term. He is a university student from the area who helps out when he
is on break. He teaches as wide of a range of subjects as I do. Right
now, he is teaching physics, business and chemistry. And somehow, my
lesson load has increased to 31. That is mostly my own doing, and it
should drop soon when the 4th years become preoccupied with their
practice exams. On the plus side, I am no longer teaching first year
physics, which frustrated me to no end because of how the syllabus is
constructed. Instead, I have 4th year chemistry, which I enjoy much
more.

I am also now in charge of exams at the school. It started three weeks
ago when I agreed to set the exam schedule for midterms, which were
last week, in order to give the secretary a respite and insure that
the timetable was logical. Then, two of the teachers left for a
funeral. Their exams were written, but it fell to me to make sure that
they were given. I also had to proofread them for errors and try to
make heads or tails of what the intended meaning was. As I became
increasingly responsible for sending teachers to give exams, arranging
make-up exams for students and coaching students on test-taking
skills, the other teachers made me de facto head of the exams
department. I don't even know which titles are real and which are
jokes anymore.

Yesterday, one of the other teachers started asking me to set the
timetable for final exams at the end of the month. That's going to be
hectic, as the 3rd years will have double exams this time around to
prepare them for next year. I was able to avoid responsibilities for a
bit longer by stating that I couldn't do anything until the principal
comes back to school. He's in Mombasa. Again. His attendance is only
slightly better than his predecessor's was while I was here. :-/

Books 6.0

*** White Man's Burden by William Easterly. I should start off by saying that it was rewarding to read a book written by someone who worked at MIT and actually wrote rather well. That's not to say that all of MIT's staff is bad writers, just that I go in with low expectations. In any case, the book was fairly easy to read and I mostly enjoyed the tone of it (a biting wit, some sarcasm and some self-deprecation), though at times I found it frustrating. In terms of content, I was rather disappointed. I thought it was nice as a rebuttal to Jeff Sachs, but still, it did not succeed in presenting a very compelling case. First off, I am bound to be disappointed by books on poverty that ignore the subtitle of Schumacher's book: Economics as if People Mattered. Though Easterly is able to give plenty of anecdotal evidence about his children, his favorite source is without question the work of other economists. He tries to intersperse case studies throughout to support his main thesis, but they seem more of an afterthought most of the time. In fact, in one chapter, he apologizes for not having more facts and figures from economists and concedes that he has to rely on anecdotal evidence. I am not sure why he perceives that as a bad thing. If those are the people who he wants to help, maybe he should be taking more from them, rather than less. He starts off the book by criticizing the aid business for not listening to the poorest people enough, though it seems that he listens to them only slightly more than the people he criticizes and certainly not enough to drive home his point. Furthermore, he likes to raise issues with his evidence that he expects his critics will raise and then argue the point. It seems like a good way to support his argument, except that there were many points where this was conspicuously absent and it seemed that he knew that he was relying on weak evidence or even trying (as Munkres likes to say) “proof by intimidation” where he makes his point forcefully enough that there is no need for argument. Nevertheless, the book has some useful ideas and some interesting suggestions. I found myself agreeing with Easterly more than I expected that I would. I think the book is an interesting read, but should absolutely be read with a bit of caution.

***** Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Well, I had already read this book, but it is one of my all-time favorites, so when I saw it lying around, I had to pick it up and read it again. The writing is impeccable and the story is tragic, humorous, dark, inspiring and brilliant all at the same time. I would strongly recommend this book as an interesting inspection of the war mentality in the 20th century. “Help him! Help him!”