04/01/10

It was finalized last night that I won’t be able to attend the big annual REDES conference. It is scheduled for the one week between the first and second trimesters which is the only time it could be since we are supposed to bring two girls from our group to the conference and pulling girls out of school for a week isn’t quite justifiable. But the problem is that this is the time teachers do all of the grades (keep in mind this is a HUGE process with over a thousand students and all of the grades been entered by hand). In previous years the break has been two weeks long, so the grading could happen the first week and then the conference the second week, but this year the school schedule changed. I asked if I could finish everything before hand, but the problem is that many of the teachers at our school also teach at the other secondary school in town, and since the other secondary school is even huger than ours, they will be working there that week. I think that also they don’t want to let me miss that week because they know for sure that I will show up and work hard, whereas they can’t be as sure of some other colleagues, and we will already be short teachers. I understand and there is no one to be mad at, I am just incredibly frustrated and disappointed. I spent two weekends planning the conference, so I was incredibly pumped up for it and looking forward to how good it was going to be.
And someday. Someday. I will learn not to believe a Mozambican when they tell me something will happen quickly and not last long.