So it goes

Yes, the title is a Kurt Vonnegut reference

Over the weekend, I went to visit another volunteer named Greg (one of the new health volunteers) who is only a couple of hours away from me. We had fun making burritos (I even brought cheese so they were closer to authentic). My responsibility was the guacamole, and I have to say that we found some choice produce in his market. Delicious! Greg invited some German volunteers who work around his town as well as some of his Kenyan friends. We had a good time, and it was fun getting to know the Germans. One of them has a similar problem to me, where he will talk shop anywhere, anytime (ask anyone who lived in my dorm in college and had to suffer through me talking business during study breaks). It was a lot funnier since he works on bio-gas (turning organic waste into fuel), so he was standing in the kitchen talking about manure while we were cooking. Ummmmm, yeah. All in all, it was a good opportunity to recharge the batteries a bit.

At school on Monday, things were a little better. Nearly half of the students did not show up to school today in protest of the water policy. Just over a quarter were in class and one third stood outside the gate in protest (I know the fractions don't add up right, but I didn't want to start using twelfths or anything like that). I don't have lessons on Monday morning, so I went out to talk to the students who were protesting. I tried to coax them to at least come in for the lessons (they would not be allowed to eat lunch as punishment for not bringing 5 liters of water, but I still wanted them to learn a bit), but it was to no avail. They asked if they were going to be punished. I told them "I hope not. But you probably will be no matter when you come back. So at least if you come back now you won't miss lessons." Then some of them showed me that they had some of their notebooks so they could study a little bit while they waited outside, and as cars drove past, they would see that there are problems at the school. I told them that I supported them that that was entirely reasonable, as long as they actually planned to study and not stand around doing each other's hair and things like that (which is what a few of the girls were doing with their free time). Then I saw some students put their ties around their head and start bleating and chasing goats. I tried to talk with them about civil disobedience (hard to teach in ten minutes) and let them do their own thing since I had to return to class. Sadly, I think the mob mentality won.

Fortunately, some students went to find the chairman of the board of governors (think superintendent) and present their grievances, so I was grateful for that bit of productivity. It was especially useful since this was the man who had shut off the school's water in the first place and then promptly started avoiding all contact with the school. It was agreed that the headmaster would meet with the parents at the school on Tuesday and the chairman would be there as well. The headmaster refused to listen to the complaints of the students ("power distance" is a big buzzword here) such as that the water they brought last week was used to mop the school compound in spite of the drought and that the students were paying school fees and not even getting food. At least the ball got rolling a little bit.

I went back to my office to continue grading exams and planning lessons. In the afternoon, I had to announce to the students that I would no longer be teaching agriculture, since it was putting too much stress onto me. The staff suggested that since I was there I should also tell them that the Kiswahili teacher was gone so they would no longer have those lessons either. We were fortunate to have a reasoned discussion, but the students were understandably disappointed by the news. The rest of the day was generally uneventful, and I was glad to be able to head out a bit early.

Yesterday was the meeting, but since I had a much busier day, I focused on my lessons and started working on normalizing things at school a bit for the students. I witnessed an incredibly savage beating for one of the students. Though he misbehaves a lot, I wasn't sure what the cause of this beating was. The best guess I could come up with was that he didn't have cigarettes in his pocket, so the teacher was especially furious that he couldn't bust him for that (the reason given for the punishment was "rudeness"). The cane wound up splintering into lots of little pieces, and I was amazed that the student could walk after the beating, but he did not give the teacher any satisfaction by letting his anger take hold of him. It was an impressive display. The thing that made it worse was that the mother was there and felt that this was the appropriate way for the teacher to handle the situation. I felt too sick to eat lunch after that.

In the afternoon, we found out that some of the education higher-ups would be coming, so most of the rest of the day was spent putting together paperwork so the school wouldn't be admonished while still trying to make it seem like the lessons weren't being neglected. At least all the teachers were being productive simultaneously. I don't see that very often. One of the parents came up to me to say that she intended to report that only three of the teachers actually teach the students (there are seven on staff). It's even more dismaying since one of the three happens to be somewhat sadistic (see the above paragraph), but I will say that that teacher does try to help the students do well on their exams. The inspection took a little while, but since we had to stay at school a bit later, they were nice enough to give us a lift across the village to where the teachers stay.

Today was normal. That was refreshing. Several of the students still haven't returned to school. The ones who have weren't allowed to come to lessons, since they needed to spend 6 hours of the school day cleaning the entire compound as part of their punishment (disobeying orders from a teacher) at least they should be back in class tomorrow. I gave my lessons and everything seemed a lot better. We're getting into a much better groove now. I handed over my second year math lessons to the new deputy and I added some chemistry lessons to my workload. Giving up math has been difficult, since I was jumping around the textbook a bit (when I started teaching them, I found out that they hadn't actually learned a single topic since they started secondary school, but I didn't have time to start from first year topics, so I started choosing second year topics that would allow me to review and/or teach them topics from first year as well) so now the deputy is working to figure out which topics they know. Currently, I'm giving them some extra lessons during the lunch hour to bridge the gap a bit.

After school a truck came to fill the school water tanks. I was overjoyed to see it. I had to stay a bit late, but I just used the time to continue grading exams. I went out to check on the filling and discovered that the hose was leaking a bit, so a lot of water was being wasted. No one seemed interested in this, so I ran and grabbed a plastic container to place underneath. The people were surprisingly impressed, and the trees were especially happy to get a drink of water for the first time in ages. Only one student saw it, but I think he made a mental note about finding a use for every drop of water. Maybe I'm hoping too much, but I think there was a lesson in there.

Tomorrow I'm travelling to Nairobi all day. I spent the evening writing lesson notes so that my students will be busy even if I'm not in the classroom. (The idea of a substitute teacher is completely alien; instead, one student will write the notes on the board and everyone can copy them down. Sadly, some teachers use this method even when they're at school.) I imagine it will be a bit hard for my third years to learn organic chemistry this way, but at least the time won't be wasted and I can move a bit faster when I come back on Tuesday (Monday is a national holiday to celebrate Eid-al-fitr or Idd-ul-fitr or many other spellings for the festivities at the end of Ramadan; don't mind the fact that there are less than ten muslim students at our school). I'm excited to get to Nairobi and shower.

Also, I've started making status updates on facebook. This is a new thing for me, but I like it so far. At the same time, my mother has started making status updates on facebook. Feel free to keep up with us a little bit there too.