15/03/10

Last night I woke up to the sound of the hardest downpour I have ever experienced and I was incredibly thankful that I have a roof and walls that actually keep water out, unlike many of my colleagues’ houses.
Over the weekend I had to complete the grade sheets for my classes, now that all the class lists are finalized. We are given photocopies of a list that has a space for each student and their grades on each exam, and then I got photocopies made of my five classes so I would have the students’ names to write into the spaces. And as I am painstakingly writing by hand all 225 names of my students, I wonder why, if both of these pieces of paper came from a computer originally, why we couldn’t have just cut and pasted the names while both pieces of paper were still on the computer. And then I realize that I have left out student number 27 of one class, so I have to write all 45 names again.
The homeroom that I am director of was being a little unruly during class today, including their elected boss/president/chief/leader (“chefe”—the word doesn’t translate very well) who I have always been on the fence about. She seems to be constantly torn between trying to look cool and really getting into what we’re doing. I caught her mimicking me so I told her to get out (kicking students out of class for misbehavior is common here). First she tried to blame it on the boy next to her, and then she tried to ask please and say she wouldn’t do it again. Like with the ear-grabbing incident, this was another situation where she was clearly acting out of line with a teacher because she thought she could get away with it with me. The class knew she was out of line and was kind of interested to see how it would play out, but also were worried about missing the lesson since it was a review for our test this week. I told her, “we are not conversing and I am not asking, get out.” When she still made no move to leave I walked back to where she was sitting, took her stuff, walked back to the front of the classroom and threw them as far as I could out the front door, and continued to teach. She left and everyone else in the class was incredibly well-behaved for the rest of the period.
Some fellow volunteers are good friends with and in many ways help take care of a neighborhood boy who hangs out in their yard every day. They had long suspected that he was HIV positive, but every time they tried to take him to get tested they ran into roadblocks with the family. They were finally able to take him today—sad results.