Weekly photo contest, hiring a teacher and finally over the flu

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This week I had several photos I liked so I am going to let you choose the best.  Please vote so I know what kind of photos you like best.




Finally, after about 5 weeks I can finally say I feel like I have kicked all the hanging on symptoms and sore throat associated with the flu.  It is nice to eat something without feeling like I am ripping the scab off an open wound in my throat.  I appreciate everyone’s prayers, well wishes and thoughts while I was sick.

This last week I started to get my life back in order around here.  I scrubbed every inch of the house down as I got ready to switch houses with the headmaster and his family for two weeks while I have visitors from the USA.  So everything I had worked up into organized luggage had to be taken out to switch up to luggage prepared to live in another house.  That includes all my clothes and food I have so I can cook in the other house.

At about 9:30 Saturday night I hear a big truck rolling into the school area and this is not normal so I went out to check it out.  They were arriving with the bed we need for the guests this week and 12 more desk units for the school which we desperately needed since we are now up to 95 students.  Fun to unload that late at night wearing my sleep shorts.



I also replaced the pool noodle on my front door to something actually designed to act as seal on the door.  This should do a good job of keeping the snakes out.


We continue with the "Reading with Barnabas" with another story being read by our youth group.  This time it was "Dad is a doodlebug".  So far we have done "Sally from Cars" also from the youth group and one from the team coming over in July, "Pout Pout Fish".  The system of dividing them into 5 groups and putting a Standard II student in charge of each group to wrangle them up, get them in and then lead them out has picked up our pace on the videos so I get them all done in the hour I have for the program.




At school we were normal with everything going on except our new teacher we hired that was supposed to arrive Monday after several weeks of searching called and canceled because her father wanted her to find a job closer to their home.  The interesting part of searching for a new teacher was that all the candidates that came in are required to bring their secondary education certificates and teacher’s college well we will call it a transcript.  They must also bring their certificate from the National Teacher’s examination that tests them on the subjects they are going to teach. 

I am not sure how to describe the candidates we got.  First it is an English Medium school so I would ask some basic questions in English.  Most could not figure it out.  It was much easier to understand when I read their National Teacher’s examination paperwork.  Most of them failed a significant number of the subjects they are supposed to be teaching.  Now this is not like failing the Engineer’s license exam in the states where you have to get a minimum of 70 before you can get your license and practice engineering without someone overseeing your work and being responsible for you.  Apparently if you fail the teacher’s exam (failing being less than a score of 20) you can still teach.

So it was disappointing when the first teacher to have passed all subjects of their exam and could understand my basic question, “Is your English strong enough to teach in English?”  all the sudden could not work for us because her dad wanted her to work closer to home.

The process started over again.  This time when we found someone who could speak at least some English and passed their teacher’s exam we asked if he could come to work the next day.  He really was not ready for that but accepted.  Now I just have to learn how to say his name.

Saturday I had to go back into town to repair my phone, that had to have a hard reboot after spending 2 days restarting constantly after a system update.  So I had no phone communication this week which was actually really nice.  I hope I never get so tied to a phone again as I did when working as an Engineer in the states. 



Location: Arusha Chini, Tanzania

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