My Big Week

Last weekend Simon and I found a room to rent in a ‘suburb’ called Banana (areas around here tend to be named after the largest sign in the vicinity, so there is a Banana wine factory with a sign by the road so the area is called Banana).

It’s fairly uncomfortable at times to live inside the school with all the usual sharehouse problems but with 25 housemates! It was also a matter of money as it’s only 10 000Tsh per month to rent (about $10). So, I have been happy all week waiting for the custom made furniture to be finished and transported to our little place… today hopefully!

I’ll be learning to cook the African way on a small burner on the floor, plus I’ll be cooking African food as it’s much cheaper and Simon doesn’t like most Western food. It’s going to be like I’m really living in Tanzania now! No shower at all let alone a hot one, I’ll be heating a bucket of water with an emersion heater and sloshing it over myself in a cold little cement room, a lot like a small cell.

So, that was the first thing to make me happy, then Gemma came to one of my recorder clubs and took photos for the newsletter (she might have finally accepted them). You can see the newsletter at the school’s website at
http://www.schoolofstjude.co.tz/



The next thing was that after Gemma telling me I was not good enough to take a homeroom class, especially the most important class in the school (Standard 5 – who have been here the longest and earned the school the number 3 rank in the district) Gemma then approached me and said she’d love me to take the class after the homeroom teacher left this week! Leslie, the current homeroom teacher had recommended me for the job about a month ago and it did not go down well, especially as I had never asked for the job and wasn’t particularly interested. So, now I’m the new Standard 5 homeroom teacher and that brings with it more report writing, parent teacher interviews and more classes!

Our deputy, Nestory dropped in to the artroom to point out the new logbook to Suzanne, the art teacher. He was informing her exactly how she needed to fill in yet another pile of paperwork (we have lesson plans books, schemes of work books, week outline forms, logbooks for after the teaching and something else that I’m sure I haven’t done). In the logbook there is a space for the Head of Department to sign, so we asked who signs there as we don’t have an HOD. Nestory then reminded me that I was the HOD since I had, in a tongue-in-cheek way called a meeting with all the ‘left over’ subject teachers like PE, art, music, library and tuition. It is EXTREMELY important to be ‘recognised’ in this school and if you are not seen to be doing you job then it is thought that you are doing nothing at all… something that happened to me as I did not ‘market’ myself.
So, now I’m officially the HOD of the extras, another job requiring a lot of paperwork and also making sure all the teachers ‘under’ me are properly recognised at staff meetings etc.

The next thing was that I was elected to represent all volunteers when it came to the monthly whole school meetings, this includes the cooks, cleaners, drivers, security guards, admin staff, gardeners and head tradesmen… apparently I’m diplomatic!!!

In the next week, when the school is closed for a week for mid-term break, I’ll be so busy with all of these things plus writing a music curriculum, I think I’ll go mad! At least my health is ok at the moment… although now I’ve written that, who knows?

Next week is the dealine for decided what I’m doing next year, both for the School of St Jude’s sake and for Orana School back home. At this stage, I just don’t know but I have 7 days to think!