First Day of Class

Today was the first day of class, or should I say, the first day of school. The school did open, and students came. Classes, however, didn’t start. I always thought that the school would prepare the class schedule during breaks, before school opened, but apparently in Tanzania, the first week of school is synonymous to the week of preparation.





The students from morning cleaned the classrooms. The staff had a three hour long meeting. It began in English, but ended in Swahili. The Headmistresses went on a tirade on the low Form 2 student scores (only 11 out of 180 passed) and on the teacher’s lack of work ethic. The Headmistress told me later that she plans to buy sugar so that the teachers would have tea in school, rather than at home. This plan (hopefully) would prevent teachers from skipping class during mid-morning tea.




The meeting was torturous. The room was extremely hot, with only one small fan working. At least an hour was spent announcing which teachers will be teaching what subjects, and which will be in charge of homeroom duties. Both of these information were posted on the bulletin board.




Also, the class schedule is still work in progress. This means that there will be no classes tomorrow.




Jan 18.