Work, work, work and fun, fun, fun
on Kev in Tanzania (Tanzania), 03/Feb/2010 05:27, 34 days ago
Hmmmmm, I seem to have lost a few days of work here somewhere but then some weeks seem to last for ever and others vanish in a flash!Here is the latest updateFriday 22nd JanuaryOn Fridays I do not have classes and the college shuts at 11am. This does not mean it is quiet in ICT though, the room is open for the students to come in and practice ICT skills or study.There is a guy from outside college who came in wanting tuition, I told him to join my guest classes but he seems to want individual attention, I gave him all of the ICT diploma materials that I made on a disk along with some free software, he also wanted a photo of me which I thought was a bit strange…Ramala (who is a secretary and she seems to be in charge of deciding which guests come to my classes) was chatting to a rude local guy who normally comes to the college and downloads dodgy software, he came up to me and told me he was going to learn FrontPage and I was going to teach him (nice and polite…) I told him that I was currently teaching PowerPoint and we do not have FrontPage, he did not seem too put off.On the way home we went shopping for our party that we were having on Saturday (In honour of Australia which is the 26th of January). Back home there were hundreds of mosquitoes (there always are!) they seem to hang around the kitchen and the toilet, our zapper runs out of charge there are so many!In the evening we went down to the mess for some beers, it is always nice to have a beer or two at the end of the week and I am glad we can still do that on Pemba! Whilst at the mess I shared my dislike for Tanzanian music with Liz, they always seem to play the same songs, it is like there is just one CD of really bad music and it is played on repeat by everyone at full volume!Saturday 23rd JanuaryToday was our Australia day party, in the morning I made a banoffee pie and Liz made some salads and Mexican rice.We played some music and with a few pre-party beers discussed some future plans, as Africa is a long way from Oz and Liz has always wanted to, she is going to travel from Tanzania down to South Africa, something which would be great but too expensive for me to do. We planned to spend our Easter break in Kenya if possible and were talking about countries we want to visit in the future.Juanito, the Cubans (Norge and Mariale) came over around 7pm. Pepe a Filipino seaweed farmer also came over. They bought some dessert over and we enjoyed a mighty feast, there was no power but it did not stop us from having a good time. The Cubans were talking about differences in working as doctors in Cuba to here in Tanzania. Back home they only get paid $24 a month but they do not need to pay rent and the $24 is more than enough to get by. They are getting more money here by volunteering but everything costs more here!Sunday 24th JanuaryThe aftermath of the party was not too dire so I clean up in the morning and spent the rest of the day being lazy with Liz. She has started watching‘The Tudors’ TV show and I am trying to work through a 500 must see movie list from Empire magazine (quite a challenge out here but doing OK!) I watched ‘Maltese Falcon’ with Bogart and the Spanish ‘Amores Perros’Tuesday 26th JanuaryHad my guest lesson and first year diploma lessons as usual today, I was looking at the syllabus for the ICT diploma, some of it is so unrealistic it is frustrating. I also got a look at Ramala’s schedule for the guests lessons. Apparently I am going to teach them programming and web design, these guys have no English!! Totally unrealistic!In the evening Liz and I drank the left over Konyagi (local gin) from the party and we played some cards as it was (again!) a none power night.Wednesday 27th JanuaryWoke up feeling really rough and tired, did not sleep very well due to the lack of power at it being a hot night. I was sick and feverish when I got to college and then went home for a rest (pretty sure it was not the Konyagi…) Had a few hours decent sleep and then felt better!We spent the evening at Juanitos and the Cubans were there again, we played monopoly cards and café international. Norge picks up the games real fast and enjoys himself! He and Juanito always try and bankrupt each other in monopoly cards!Thursday 28th JanuaryToday I took the diploma students as they missed the lesson yesterday as I was at home. The practical lesson was chaohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giftic, managed to get all of the students some time on the computers despite the fact the class size seems to grow each lesson!In the evening I watched‘Wall:E’ which was funny and another film to cross off the big 500 list!Friday 29th JanuaryToday the principle told the tutors that they must stay until 12.30 on Fridays from now on and do extra curricular with the students (he then went home, at 8.30am…)There was a trip to the mess again, just for 2 beers and food and then we took 2 home as well. We watched Batman Begins and True Romance– both of which Liz had not seen before so it was a educational experience for her. I fell asleep before the end of True Romance but it was around 2am so I did not do too bad.Saturday 30th JanuaryWe had a lazy morning, though I did all of my washing as it was nice and sunny. There was no power at home all day and in the middle of the afternoon we played some Frisbee outside the house with the neighbour’s daughterIn the evening we were invited to the Cubans house for dinner, we took a nice nice juicy watermelon for dessert. They were staying in a block of flats the exact same style as Martin and Yasmin’s place on Zanzibar. They cooked up some fantastic food and it was a chilled out night.Sunday 31st JanuaryAnother lazy morning (but it is the weekend!) I cooked eggs and beans for breakfast and we had party food leftovers for lunch. Once again there was no power, it seems to be getting worse!But the power returned in the evening and I cooked up a mung bean, cabbage and potato curry which was delicious! I will try and perfect it and cook it at home one day…Monday 1st FebruaryHot!! There was no power all night and not a good night for sleeping, it was just as roasting at the college. We went to see Juanito, at the TRC for a meeting– we are going to do some Gender training with the students and staff to try and redress some of the gender inequalities that women face here on Pemba.On the way home we bumped into the Norwegian guy who is working for UNV (UN Volunteers) doing voter registration observation. It seems our eclectic mix of UK, Oz, Philippines and Cuban is going to expand!Tuesday 2nd FebruaryWoke up at 5am this morning and could not get back to sleep, so I decided to go for a little jog, I went out for 20 minutes around some school playing fields and up a some streets. I felt pretty good but was so hot, even at 6am!!College was fine, I fixed Ramala’s computer which had over 85 differen viruses on it! But some people had been fiddling with the network cables in the internet room and managed to screw up one of the computers. The internet is unreliable at the best of times and people don’t believe me when I say there is no connection, theystart fiddling, it is very annoying!Had a busy theory lesson in the afternoon as per usual on Tuesdays I was the last person to leave the college.Juanito came over in the evening and we had dinner, guess he gets a bit lonely but it was nice to see him. When Liz goes to Dar for the reps meeting I will invite him over for a game of cards or to watch a movie.Thats the update, off to Juanitos for dinner tonight and Liz leaves for Dar tomorrow. 3 months left here on Pemba, time is flying!Take care