First Day

This is from a letter:
The first day of school I got up at 7am, got ready, and at 7:45 I asked my host mom if she was ready: school starts at 8am! But, she was gone! Did she go that early to school? Without me?!! So I ask my host dad and he says she left, but we don’t have work until 9am: it’s the first day of school after all, so everyone goes in late. Ok. So I wait. At 8am my mom calls me, saying let’s go. We get there, she goes to her office since she’s the secretary, and I’m lost. I don’t have a schedule, I don’t know where the classrooms are, I’m ready to teach, and have NO IDEA what’s going on. I tell this to my host mom and the Counselor/ vice principal, saying they have to tell me exactly what I have to do because the first day of school in America is (already) really different. The VP says I have to prepare lessons and teach. HAHA.
I’m sitting in the staff lounge when the other English teacher comes in so I tell her I’m lost. She explains to me the big chart on the wall: my classes! I’m supposed to teach 15 hours a week, with Mondays off—according to our contract and the principal. But I’m only teaching 6 hours! I ask her what we’re doing today, she says we look at the curriculum for our classes, make a syllabus, and prepare our lessons. But I did that 2 weeks ago! And the classrooms, they have no labels! WHERE do I teach?! She says she’ll show me.
Finally, ready to admit defeat for the day, I just ask, “Will I teach today?” She says, “No.” students are either at the bank paying school fees, cleaning out the classrooms and dorms, or still making their way here. Teachers are getting their class schedules, looking at the national requirements and preparing their lessons. I’m confused. It’s the FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL! I’ll just call it the first day of PLANNING school. I was so ready to teach!
It only took us 2 weeks to get into the swing of things! School “started” February 2nd, and by Feb 16th we had a schedule. February 24 we had a final schedule.
So, kids stay in THEIR classrooms, teachers rotate to them on the bell (an old tire rim and a rock) every 50 minutes with no passing period. Just go and show up. If you find another teacher in the classroom still, it is proper etiquette to just wait until they finish. You never kick out another teacher! Oh, and if it’s raining we don’t teach! This morning it was raining before school started and I was worried that I’d be late to school. I got there at 8:10 with another teacher, only 10 minutes after classes start…. We were the first ones there. If its raining, teachers don’t come! They say they can’t teach over the noise of the rain on the tin roofs! I just gave my students an essay so they don’t have to hear me, just sit and write.
If I’m not being the “strange/cool/funny muzungu English teacher” in front of my 40+ students (in one class) then I’m in the teacher’s lounge: all 22 of us teachers share one room 6 yards by 8 yards, 5 tables, 4 benches, and cubby boxes for each one of us. We can plug in our phones to the one power strip, type (not print or surf the web) on our 1980’s reject computer-donation from Germany (I just deleted some company’s back up files—all in German) We usually listen to 1. Religious songs in Kinyarwanda cheesey videos, or 2. Pop songs in Kinyarwanda with sexy videos. Usually the SAME song will play for like 20-30 minutes. Daily. The SAME one! (I thank God I don’t understand Kinyarwanda that well). This is our only teacher space, so we sit, prepare, talk, eat lunch, grade, EVERYTHING in this room. We get teacher lunch every day but it costs 1,500F, about $3 a month.
We also have to wear white lab coats to teach in. And bring our own chalk. If I have to erase anything on the board, one of the kids hops up, gets the eraser from me and erases for me! Kids usually have one text book per class, one is in charge of it, writes the assigned pages on the board, and the others will copy down what s/he writes into their notebooks. They just copy text books into their notes! That’s all they can do! Kids are also in charge of their own cleaning: sweeping classrooms, cleaning bathrooms, maintaining the grounds, cleaning everything. Usually the poor kids that can’t afford school fees work off their debt. So Wednesday afternoons we have off: I find many kids digging, planting flowers, sweeping, etc. They all have a job, including one lucky kid that gets to ring the bell each day…aka hit a big rock against a tire rim in the middle of the school yard every 50 minutes to mark the beginning and end of each class.
I love it!