Back to School

The last couple of weeks here have been slow. The first week back from vacation for the students was interesting. Most of the teachers weren’t teaching their sections and most of the students didn’t show up to class anyway. The teachers were busy grading exams and having meetings. The students were busy enjoying a second week of vacation. The teachers didn’t mind taking another week and the students absolutely didn’t either. In the second semester the morning and afternoon shifts switch, so the teachers and the students have to get used to a new schedule. The school administrator posted the new schedule on Monday. From this schedule we have to take one class from every 9^th grade section. They posted the morning and afternoon shift revised schedules at different times during the week. It took us about two weeks to get a new schedule. The teachers constantly change the schedule for their individual benefit (not having class one day as opposed to having a section or two). I think we have a good handle on our schedule moving forward and we don’t expect any more changes.

One interesting interaction that week was with one of our final classes on Thursday. When I entered class, just like every other section that week, there were barely any students there. Most other classes were just lingering around campus because the teachers weren’t teaching. I finally asked this class what was going on around campus? Where were the students? One student, who isn’t great at English but always tries and I respect him, told me simply what was going on.,“All of us failed the exam, all of the students in this class failed the exam,” he said. “We are very upset and we don’t feel like learning this week. Maybe in a week or two you come back.” I was taken back by his honesty and appreciated a real answer. I wish that I could have communicated this with the students, but that attitude, that failure is ok and we’ll just take more time and try again later, that is the issue with education here. No one cares. It is so far from my own way of thinking. If I fail something, you better believe I am going to put in twice as much work and make sure I ace it the second time. Here, it’s “ah, we failed, all of us, so we will start in a few weeks.” With that, the students asked me to just go, so I obliged them and left. That was the end of my first week back during second semester.

The majority of students did poorly on their English midterm. I have only seen a few that are willing to buckle down and make a change. These are the students that regularly attend our Saturday classes. From the original 13-15 students that used to show up it’s now around 2-4 students, but the same students keep coming. I don’t know how to get through the rest of the students. We are offering free English lessons, from native English speakers, giving them worksheets and helping them with sentence structure, pronunciation and spelling and this only appeals to about four students in the roughly 1,000 that we teach a week. I don’t know how to communicate the importance of having us here for a year. I understand that a lot of students work when they aren’t at school, but I also know a lot of them could spare an hour and get better at a foreign language that will get them further in life. I think that I need to try some different tactics of attracting more students. I know one issue is our consistency with offering the sessions. We have been busy or in and out of town for the last couple of months. I think that if we can develop some consistency with the Saturday sessions then more people will come. We will have to wait and see how that works out.

On another very different note, Liz and I found some food a couple of weeks ago that has changed our lives here. A few weeks ago I went to the market to buy chickens and other stuff to make doro wot, a traditional Ethiopian chicken stew. Yes, I slit the chicken’s throat. Yes, it was exhilarating. No, I didn’t intend on having to feed the chickens the day before they were scheduled to die. We had a bunch of friends over and ate a lot. It was really fun. Anyway, as I completed my food run I came across this juice place. Outside were some vegetables I hadn’t seen in Gondar. There were watermelons, cucumbers, zucchini, green beans, mangos, papayas and some other delicious fruits and veggies. I was shocked. The only place that I knew of to get this stuff was Addis or Bahir Dar. I bought a watermelon and some cucumbers and knew that Liz would be ecstatic. We’ve been going back twice a week for fresh produce ever since. The man that runs the shop gets his stuff from Addis twice a week on Monday and Thursday. We go in the afternoon on those days and stock up on food for the rest of the week. It’s the little things that get you through the tough times here. These foods are something that I could just walk down the street and buy whenever I wanted at home. Here I find them and end up thanking the shop owner for a half hour for enhancing my life. He’s a really nice guy and we enjoy seeing each other a couple of times a week.

This week we are going to Israel for our mid-year seminar and visiting my younger sister for a few days. I haven’t seen her in the flesh in six months. I think this may be the longest time I’ve gone without seeing any member of my family, kind of crazy when I think about it. However, with Skype and iChat I can see them as often as I want or as often as they would like to see me. The only questionable thing is the Internet around here, but we make due. I am excited to see her in her element in Tel Aviv. She just bought a puppy and I absolutely can’t wait to squeeze it! After this trip my entire family is coming to Gondar for five days to visit Elizabeth and I. They have all been here before, years ago, but this will be a different experience. I can’t wait to show them our work environment, the students, our home, our friends, our life here. I know they are anxious to see it too.

We have some fun stuff coming up. School will pick up a little bit more and we’ll be back in our normal groove with work. I am excited for continued progress with a lot of our students. A lot of students are reacting well to having us around. Our lesson plans have gotten better and I think that’s reflected in the students’ involvement in our classroom exercises. We will keep cranking away at the English Club and see if we can make this thing more popular and hopefully sustainable. I would like to figure out a way to involve the teachers but a lot of them have similar attitudes as the students. I will keep you all posted on its progression.

I hope everyone is doing well. I can’t wait to see my family so soon. I can’t believe I’ve been here for almost six months. That continues to blow my mind.