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on Sarah's Blog (Rwanda), 29/Sep/2009 13:27, 34 days ago
'the views expressed in this blog are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of VSO'.Monday 28th September 2009Yep...it’s that time of week again...and world over, people are filled with a feeling of dread and foreboding as they open their sleepy eyes...only to realise that it is Monday morning...and there are another 5 whole days until the weekend! And none more so than my kind self...Monday morning can only meanone thing...the 2 hour weekly meeting at the district office which is held in Kinyarwandan...I therefore don’t understand a word of it...but this morning was different...it was far more painful than previous weeks...my boredom was however briefly punctuated by Ruairi nearly being pooped on by a bird flying around the room...oh and the announcement that Thursday is going to be a public holiday...AGAIN...I mean...I’m not complaining...but they do seem to have a day off for anything here! I spent the morning catching up on emails...which included sending an email to Vodafone...I was soooooooo very angry as I was writing it...it was barely coherent...not that even when I am not angry things are any more coherent...but I was truly furious!!! There had been some confusion about the meetings which were to be held...it had been arranged that the Affaire Social (not sure if that is how you spell it...but if you pronounce it with a French accent, it works!!!) from each of the 13 sectors in the district, would meet Ruairi and myself at the district office with all the English exam papers for their sector...we would then help them to mark them...however it was only following the 2 hour meeting and only half an hour before the meeting was due to start that Francois thought to inform us that a meeting was to be held at the same time, in the same place...for head teachers...and that they would be needing the mock exam papers that we were typing last week (which we were told were neededfor Tuesday) we explained that this would not be possible and that they would be finished, as requested for tomorrow!...Text messages were sent out the Affaire social, and it was rearranged that we would meet them at Gisagara B primary school for the marking...Ruairi headed over first and I stayedin the district office to do some catching up, as these things NEVER start on time...as it turns out...several of the sectors were on 3 days training so sent their papers in to be marked, while one district still have their papers as they don’t have an affaire social at the moment. Ruairi was busymarking papers while I was informed that the head teachers who had written the mock exam papers I had been typing up the previous week would talk to me about any issues with the papers...they were due to arrive at 12.15. 1.45 and they still hadn’t arrived...rubbish...in the meantime, I managed tohave a bit of skype time...and very nearly seriously offend one of the members of the district staff...he came in and was chatting away to me in English...when another man came to the door and they spoke in Kinyarwanda...obviously I had no idea what was said...the man in the doorway was still stoodthere...at which point the man who had been talking to me in English said (or so I thought...) ‘he has come to deliver a message, but he is a little deaf...’ (yes I think you might know where this is going...) at which point I giggled and said, ‘oh!’ still smiling...the man then said this several times...I continued to smile like a cheshire cat...it was only when after an excruciating minute later, when the man then said, ‘a deaf, in our culture, is never a good thing’ that I realised I had misunderstood the conversation...and he was trying to tell me that a message had been delivered to tell him that a member of his family had died...shit shit shit...crap it, crap it, crap it!!!! Why do these things happen to me!!! I managed to talk my way out of (just like Squirmers Maggie!) but I was so embarrassed!!! Well I waited a little longer...and the head teachers finally arrived...there was some discussion about the maths paper...as one of the questions , the working out on the answer sheet is completely wrong...even though the answer is right...they didn’t understand what I was saying so it was agreed that the paper would go out to schools as it was...and then came the English paper...oh my word...looking for opposites...ugliness, well that one was fine. Ever...well what is the opposite of ‘ever’? well of course it is ‘never’...we had changed that one to ‘always’ and ‘never’ and then the last one we had a problem with...’to study...’ well what isthe opposite of to study...yep you guessed it...’to wonder’ WTF!!!!! I think they may have been getting at ignorance...but it just doesn’t make sense...the teachers laughed and agreed that we could use ‘hot and cold’ instead...but then there was something which was not agreed...Complete the sentence with questions tags... I am a boy...the answer...aren’t you? I tried to explain that that didn’t really make sense and should have been changed to You are a boy, aren’t you? But one of the teachers was adamant that that was wrong and was changing the philosophy and science of the language...he also turned to another head and said ‘you have a degree in the English language...’ and then something about me being wrong...finally after some discussion about it...and just one head getting very cross...while the others tried their hardest to explain that what was written didn’t work...it was decided that the questions would be I am a boy, aren’t I? I am still not convinced about that, but I am will to go with it...and let’s be honest...the English language is not my strong point! Later I was joined in the office by some other people...I started coughing...and they were worried that I was ill...I wanted to explain'the views expressed in this blog are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of VSO'.