I’m not quite sure how I feel about yesterday. It was a productive waste of time, if that can exist. I slept in an extra hour. The morning route didn’t need me and for that I am grateful—it leaves school around 6:30, so I would’ve had to get up at 5:30 (ON A SATURDAY)! I knew the day was going to be exciting, there were many new activities planned—or should I say expected, because nothing was talked about or planned, just thrown on the schedule for “at some point during the day”. Two of these things were Global StoryBridges and extra music lessons. The final piece which was truly unplanned was teaching remedial English because Pius was gone in the morning.
GSB was miserable. The teacher in charge of recruiting students managed to over shoot our limit by 20. We only wanted 12 maximum, but Samwel told anyone and everyone from class 6 to show up. We weren’t able to do anything with them because on Monday we’re going to have tell 20 people they are uninvited. We’ll start the process all over again to recruit the correct number of students this coming week, and thankful I’ve learned that I’m going to have to be more involved than I thought was necessary.
One good thing about all the kids coming is that many of them are part of Ezekia and my star music students list. Ezekia spent a lot of time with about 10 choice students and I tried to help as much as I could, but I was busy trying to figure out a solution for the chaos of GSB. I also was jumping around to English.
In the morning, Pius was at the hospital. I’m not sure what was wrong, but he seemed to have a fever and was moving pretty sluggish when I saw him later in the day. But, this resulted in his absence and the need for me to substitute teach. (It’s funny that I’ve only now remembered this term, “substitute teacher,” and at this point I think our time is split 50/50 with his class, so is it even appropriate?). His two lessons ran from 9:30 to 12:00, with the daily 30 minute break at 10:30. I’m not complaining about the length of the lesson, only the placement. GSB was supposed to run from 9 until 11. It’s not like much was going to be achieved, but the kids still needed supervision. Thankfully Samwel, Lameck (another GSB instructor) and I were able to figure out a schedule to sit with them in between remedial lessons.
It was pretty nice yesterday. There was a light sprinkle in the late afternoon and then a consistent downpour through the night. While I was at school my laundry finally dried out! It was getting a bit dicey there for a bit. I didn’t have many pairs of underwear left (0 clean ones to be exact) and I was feeling a bit nervous I might have to do a bit of RRR—reduce, reuse, and recycle. This stretch of sun saved my butt! It was also nice for the kids who were getting bored of computer time; they had a chance to go play some soccer and get a little dirty.
I got home early. 4:00. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was able to practice some guitar. I’ve learned You Are My Sunshine over the past couple days. I was surprised to learn that it’s a real song, I always thought it was some silly nursery rhyme. Jovin had a friend over and was fully occupied, so it was nice to not have him always pestering me and asking me to do something. Funny enough though, I found myself getting a bit jealous and wishing we could make use of the brief sun to play some football. It’s only fair I was hit with a bit of karma after all my complaining about my buddy Jovin. Dinner was spaghetti. I went to sleep after a shower and a shave. I had been so busy I forgot to shave all week and these days the facial hair is growing quickly. If I cared, it would be an every day routine to shave, but I’m lazy and vanity is a lesser concern right now. Maybe I embrace it and go for a beard?