Term 2 Week 1

I survived the first week back of term 2. It was a busy one.

Monday morning started with a teachers meeting at 9am followed by coffee and lots of notices with all the staff together. After that it was time to do all the last minute jobs I'd not yet done before the kids and parents arrived in the afternoon.

It was a little strange for me when the kids arrived back. I had been looking forward to it for the previous few days as I started to realise how much I loved and missed the kids in my dorm. On the other hand, the kids are saying goodbye to their parents for the next month and a half or longer. There's a very complex mix of emotions on these occasions here. For me there was joy and excitement at the return of the children. For parents there is the sadness and pain of saying goodbye to their young children for so long. For the children there are all of those emotions jumbled up. Sadness at leaving their parents, excitement at coming back to school and friends, joy at being reunited with the larger school community.

Tuesday is still a busy day for me in the classroom this term. It was good to be back teaching although, despite my preparation, I had lost track in places of where some classes had got to in work. My first lessons back had a feeling of settling back into the role but by Wednesday everything was vback to normal. I think in some ways it was good to have a break because I can now readjust some of my classroom relationships which were getting too informal or causing repeated disruption for other students.

We have three new kids in the dorm, a Nigerian family. So far they are settling in fairly well although it's early days. It's nice to have two more boys in the dorm; we now have two rooms to put to bed at night. Joshua and Jahaziel are pleasant boys although they still seem a little unsure of how to fit into the school culture. It has been good for Immanuella and Josephine to have some other Nigerians around, particularly as the eldest, Deborah, is Imma's age and she had been struggling last term having no particulr close friend to talk to.

We also have two new day students, Ada and Iza (Brazilian), who are of Eagle age. Although their English is still fairly poor they seem to be enjoying being at the school and are making friends. Florence, our other Brazilian girl is not back from her holidays yet. It will be interesting to see how her English is after a month without using it.

The weekend was a fun one. On Saturday I played football and went running with some of the dorm kids and in the evening I was in charge of setting up a big screen movie in the chapel. We watched 'Over The Hedge' which was great fun. On Sunday I had to get up very early as a group of us were going to Lac Rose, near Dakar to see the final stage of the Lisboa-Dakar rally (formerly Paris-Dakar). There were more staff than children on the trip as we had surprisingly little interest (absolutely no girls apart from staff) but it was a really fun day, although very tiring. The cars (and bikes and trucks) raced along the beach and we sat there, along with thousands of other spectators, watching them zoom past us in front of the crashing waves. I took lots of photos so I'll try and send a CD home soon so you can see them on Flickr.

Now it's Monday and my day off again, I'm sat in the treehouse with my laptop and I'm planning to sign up with a few online recruitment agencies when I finish writing this. It's time to start seriously job hunting (a year and a bit later than I should have), I wrote my CV last week and Tracey's checking it over for me in the school office. It's coming to the time of year here when everyone's talking about whether or not they'll stay for the next year, my housemate Adam was the first to announce that he'll be coming back. I'd love to stay but I feel the need to at least explore other options and hence the need to start moving on the job hunting issue.