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.