Bad work week and an evil rodent...
on Kev in Tanzania (Tanzania), 15/Feb/2010 07:13, 34 days ago
Had my worst week at work last week, bounced back though, for now. Sure I will look back at this all one day and laugh...Wednesday 3rd FebruaryWork has been getting us both down recently. Liz is being very helpful and team teaching the ICT diploma class with me. We split them into 2 groups, I take one in the hall and do theory and she does practical with the other group up in the ICT room (3 to a computer…)She has been getting annoyed with the way the male staff and students talk to her, Kiswahili is a rude language (ie nobody ever uses‘please’ or ‘can you’ or ‘is it ok if…’, they use ‘come’)In the afternoon we sat outside in the courtyard and discussed plans for the next few weeks, we want to go to Kenya and Liz wants to climb Kili in May before she travels down to South Africa.In the evening as per usual for a Wednesday we went down to Juanito’s to meetup with him and the Cubans for some dinner.On the way down we bumped into the election watch people and their friend from England who has volunteered and will be working at the college with us.Thursday 4th FebruaryLiz went a 6am to catch a dala to Dar for the reps meeting, she would be coming back on Sunday so I get the place to myself for a few days.At work the technician had been messing around with the computers and now that Amina is back from Dar, Ramala decided that rather than sharing the computer in her office they need another one! So they took one of the computers from the internet room (3 in there now)Back at home there was no power, I made a curry and got an early night.Friday 5th FebruaryAt work I made a homepage for the college for the computers in the internet room, I put on it a link to Yahoo! Mail (which everyone seems to use), a google search bar and a wikipedia search bar. I figured this would reduce the number of people asking me for help if when they open up the internet it is ready for them to search or read mail. I also added a nice little title and 2 links to some help files (How to create a Yahoo! email address and How to search Encarta Encyclopedia) I plan to make some more help files which I save as PDFs.After work I went over to Juanitos work and installed Avira Anti-Virus on some of the computers, one machine had 1983 virus detections!!I got home, did my washing and had some noodles for lunch. Leftover curry for dinner and as there was power I backed up Liz pictures and music on my external HDD. I watched Carnivale (only had 5 episodes but watched them all) a TV show a bit like twin peaks and I really enjoyed it, must try and watch the rest when I get home.There was loud music was played from 7pm all night. And there were lots of mosquitoes, I decided to try shutting doors to see if it would reduce their numbers.Saturday 6th FebruaryThe crap music played all bloody night, I woke up a 3am and 6am and at both times it was still playing!! I was tired I did not get much sleep… But at 9am I added my own music, some heavy loud stuff to drown out the annoying crap. There must have been some kind of parade as I could hear marching music but I was fed up and did not want to go and have a look.I cooked up egg and beans for breakfast and watched‘7th Seal’ (another 500 film)I did cleaning and washing, had fried rice for lunch and watched 2 movies in the evening,‘Never ending story’ the 80s classic and ‘Hitchhikers’ which was pleasantly funny, I have read the book but cannot remember much of it.Sunday 7th FebruaryAgain I had egg and other half of the beans for breakfast, not going to starve while Liz away… She is bringing more supplies from Dar too!I went down to Juanitos and gave him some books and a music CD. Got some sticks from TRC grounds for my tomato plants as they are getting big. There are no trees near our house only bananas and papayas which do not have branches.On the way back I did some shopping and once back home, finished reading‘Lost world’ by Conan Doyle. In the evening before Liz arrived I did some work, typing up notes and adding more to the website I am building for the students to use to study when I am gone.Liz arrived at 6pm, It was good to see her again and catch up on some gossip from the mainland. We went out to the corner for chipsi mayai as no power at home. She bought me some bacon from Dar!!We could see the difference from the door shutting, it did reduce the number of mosquitoes! Hot inside though especially with no power!Monday 8th FebruaryI organised the computers in my teaching room. Ramala and the technician (who are related– well most are here…) had swapped the computer from the internet for one from my teaching room. I wish they would have asked me first. It had all students work and resources on in it, I told her I needed to swap back and she just smiled and ignored me... They swapped them over because they wanted one with proper graphics drivers. I was starting to get annoyed…NECTA results are out (NECTA is national exams council of Tanzania), people came in wanting results (which are posted online, but no one knows how to get to them…), the website is shit and keeps crashing. People were demanding help from us both (no please or thank you, saying ‘come here I need help’). They think internet not working but it is the website, I show them the internet is fine but they still want to fiddle with cables. They do not say please or thank you… Seems priority is not students in my lessons…At home, grumpy from rudeness… I cooked, Juanito came over for some food.Tuesday 9th FebruaryI swapped the PCs back and sorted out them both, I even gave Ramala all of her documents back and she did not thank me. In fact they both sit at the same computer, they do not even use the one they took from the internet room…I had a powerpoint exam for the guests and 6 turned up, there are only 4 computers and when I asked to use the one in Ramala’s room (which she had taken from the internet room) she said no and told me to send the guest down to the PC that is used to faxing… I asked how I was supposed to invigilate 2 rooms so far apart and she just found it amusing. I didn’t put the guest in that room though I put her in the internet room next door. Staff kept interrupting my exam and asking me to help them – I told them no I am trying to run an exam. The staff are so rude and selfish sometimes! This would not happen back home and is not very professional!It gets better/worse…Wednesday 10th FebruaryWe had dodgy power in the morning. I made posters, 5 different ones so I can put them up in the ICT room for the students to see, study and create their own. Power came back around midday.In diploma lesson the power went off, no one would put on the generator because they wanted to go home… I teach late on Tuesday and Wednesdays, Liz and I are the only ones left. I was annoyed because the student’s lots a lesson, annoyed because the staff view students as a inconvenience yet they are meant to be there for them!! If the principle had been there they would have put the generatoron. They timetable me to teach when no one else wants to but they could at least let me run the generator… Maybe I have been here too long? It was not this bad in Mpwapwa.I offered to give up more of my time to make up the lesson the next day for the students. I went home pissed off at the unrealistic time frame for teaching the course and rude, lazy, unsupportive staff!Went home, started watching the wire series 2 which is great and Liz cheered me up, I don’t know how shes managed it here for so long!Thursday 11th FebruaryDid Publisher with the guests– it is hard to explain in Kiswahili, Excel is going to be really hard! The Diploma students came in and practiced but then power went. I read ‘Heart of Darkness’ (not read since college).Liz went to Chake, she was delivering books and going to the ministry to sort some stuff. Juanito left for Morogoro for his intermediate language training.In the evening I played some flash games with Liz, I got some quizzes and fun 2 player games, it helped to cheer me up beating Liz at games!Friday 12th FebruaryNo laptop and no power at work today. There was some mail though! Mail as been bad since Christmas but got two packages from Mum which was lovely, helped me to end the week feeling at bit better than the beginning!We went for beers at the mess, White came along and we took some beers home. It was so hot at night that I slept in the spare room.Saturday 13th FebruaryFried breakfast, perfect after a few beers. Liz cleaned, she was on a mission. We found traces of a rodent behind the fridge, he had been chewing the wires and stole Liz’s Konyagi which I found rather funny.I decided to make something sweet and as there was power I made some brownies (see Wendy and Liz, I can do more than banoffee pie!!)Liz cooked for dinner and we watched‘Oh Brother where art thou?’ with some take away beers – a nice restful Saturday, much happier.Sunday 14th FebruaryAs there was power a night, we could sleep together without being too hot, we had a nice lie in. I then went to get some shopping and did my washing.I had noodles for lunch and back brownie again as it was very nice and easy to make. There was no power in the evening and I cooked potato and mung bean curry.Liz was not feeling too good and we went to bed early.Monday 15th FebruaryDisaster! Not only was it hot and there was no power but the bastard rodent knocked my container with the brownies in onto the floor and got into them!! Little shit!! I was looking forward to having one for breakfast…We are both tired due to it being hard to sleep when there is no power.Off to work now, lets hope this week is a bit better than the last one!Take care