21/01/10

I had picked out my favorite capulana dress especially for today, the first day of classes. Imagine my disappointment then, when I put on my bata (white lab-coat that teachers wear here) only to find that it goes down far past my knees, completely covering all of my beautiful dress!
I showed up to school at 6:40am this morning, nervous but excited for my first day of teaching here in Mozambique! We all convened at 6:55am for some announcements and to sing the national anthem, and then I thought we would be told our schedules after. The schedules weren’t done yet. The only time I went into a classroom today was to take attendance for one class. I finally left at 12pm because one of my colleagues who also teaches in the afternoon told me he would call if the schedule got finished. I had just returned to my room when my director called me and said they were having a computer problem, could I come help? They were using a computer program to make the class schedule that, like many computer programs, is very useful and helpful, but also very inflexible and won’t work if all the conditions aren’t completely right. It took me about an hour to figure out a way to work around problem, and finally create the class schedule! It was wonderful to finally do some work and actually feel like I was doing something worthwhile with my time. At lunch my director asked me if I had figured it all out. When I said yes she rolled her eyes and said, “I have been telling them all week to ask you for help but they were too proud. It took you an hour to do it. If they had asked you when I told them to, we would have had the class schedules done on Monday.”
So tomorrow!