My dog has left me because i was not very nice to her this weekend. She kept following me into church and making a big embarrassing scene. So I tied her up but she chewed through the rope and found me and then I had to yell and throw stones to get her to leave (not at her really just sort of in her direction, I would never actually stone a dog). Anyway now there’s no more church and I want my friend back but yeah I guess it doesn’t work that way. I deserve it but I hope she comes back before I go to Vila. I was planing on feeding her lots of meat this week to fatten her up in preparation for my departure. Dogs here just eat scraps from the kitchen, which is what she’ll have when I’m gone. It’s enough to live off of but I want her to be big and strong and healthy and all that. DESOLE MARIE! MI SORI TUMAS! Ki Gio!
My mosquito repellent and parasite cream has run dry, I have a bitch of a kava hang over and the Bishop is here. It’s Easter week and I managed to escape church on Thursday but had to go Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Today, Monday, I was nearly forced to go (in a nice way, as they do here). A friend brought me a new dress to wear to the Bishop’s mass and then came to check if I was ready to go. I had to tell her sorry I’ll be late. Yeah 4 hours late. Oops haha. I’m sorry but I’ve been to three masses this weekend. And I’m not Catholic so I think that’s good enough. Anyway there’s going to be lot’s of traditional dancing and drinking kava with the Bishop tonight and I need to rest up for that. Not to mention all the work I have to get done before I get to Vila this week. Yikes! Time to get back to work. I’m also currently trying to make a baked potato on a gas stove, I don’t think it’s going to work out. It also doesn’t help that it’s not a potato. It’s some relative of a sweet potato, Kumala, the not so sweet potato.
I’m also typing up a letter for the South Malekula Land Committee to take to Court as evidence on a land case and there is some pretty funny misuse of language. “Approximatively” that made me laugh out loud. “Juridical” is actually a real word but I almost corrected it cause I'd never heard it before. And then they are confused about the meaning of condone. “We strongly condone Mr. Martin’s wrong moves and bad attitude.” Well if you condone his behaviour then why are you going to court against him? Other fun unrelated language differences: barrel=paddle “did you bring a barrel for the Canoe?”, sevem=serve/sieve; “They’re sevem kava now” Two very different steps in the Kava process. It’s either time to drink or they haven’t finished making it; sel=coconutshell/shellfish/sale/sell “we’re selem copra.” Could mean they are selling it or taking it out of it’s shell. “Are you going to have a sel?” Could mean a yardsale or a shell of kava.
ok next blog will be my Vila update. I'm staying for two full weeks!
xoxox
Steph
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Some thoughts I've been having recent
3/20/10
Yeah so I’m being super good and writing three blog posts this week because I just got a new computer cord. My old one broke and then it took 5 weeks for the new one to come. It also didn’t help that the cord had to travel through a big snowstorm in DC and big tropical storm on my end that canceled postal flights and is now terrorizing Australia. So now all the work that needs a computer has piled up and I am procrastinating by blogging.
I just came back from visiting my mama’s house. I went and had dinner there last night. My mama is an amazing cook, relatively speaking to other mamas here. She made this soup the other day that was just like Mrs. Fearnoughs Brunswick Stew, my favorite impossible to find canned soup. I asked her what’s her secret and she said icing sugar. Brillant! Of course, cause its sugar with starch in it. It made it all thick and slightly sweet. Yum.
But the food’s not always amazing. When I went to eat there just now she made laplap flying fox, which is a cassava cake with a huge hairy bat inside and coconut sauce. When they cook the flying fox it’s not skinned or boned and it smells literally like a dead rat. It looks like a rat too, like a huge rat with giant bat wings. It was this foot long piece of laplap too. I was like what’s up with that? So I tried to cut the laplap with my spoon but hit bone immediately. Then I realized it had the entire wing of the bat folded up in it. Yuck. Luckily everyone was watching a movie so they didn’t notice I didn’t touch my bat-wing cake. They were watching this really funnny french movie series from the 60’s. I think it’s a classic. It’s about these 6 gendarme that always get into trouble. Fricken hilarious, even though it’s in French. I also watch a lot of kung fu classics in French. It rarely impedes understanding of the plot.
Today apparently, is Francophone Day. At the primary school they are collecting money for a donation to chile. Which I thought was funny cause maybe they should be donating to Haiti for francophone day. Anyway I really feel for the francophones here. They are kind of at a disadvantage and the disadvantage is growing. Vanuatu was a colony of both the French and the British. So it has Francophone areas and Anglophone areas. Lamap, where I live is Francophone. They have a great school here that goes to tenth grade and will have year eleventh next year. But then all this education goes to waste when the rest of the country speaks English. The language barrier can really set up a wall to development. The official national language is Bislama and the people here are fluent in Bislama but not English. Yet most of the laws, contracts and newspapers are written in English, not Bislama.
Here’s an example, the tourism office just sent me a contract to have my Tourism committee sign in English. I was like no, I’m not having them sign this. Signing contracts without reading them is not a good habit to get people into. I read it and it wasn’t even appropriate for them. For example it said only tour providers could be members of the committee, which the members of the committee are not. So by signing they would be writing themselves out of the committee. Now I know this wasn’t the intention of the Tourism office but the point is that Anglophones don’t have to deal with this that much and the attitude is always ‘oh the francophones will figure it out’. And yeah they get by but they also get screwed over.
Another example: I went to the umbrella agency for all the vocational training schools to try to get some curricula. They showed me all this great material, textbooks, videos, etc. that could be used in our school. But it was in English. I was like yes I can tell this is all great stuff but it’s in English and the guy goes yes but the simplest English. Ok but that’s still English and the teacher and the manager at the school have a 10th grade education in French and most of the students at the school have 6th grade education in French so all of this material is absolutely worthless to us. This is the Organization that looks out for all the vocational school in the country and it doesn’t have anything in French. In Francophone areas only the very highly educated speak English. Those people are quad lingual; French, English, Bislama, and local language. The vocational schools are set up to look out for those that the conventional school system left behind. These students speak the local language, pretty good Bislama, and some French. So how can you expect them to learn English when we’re struggling to teach them in Bislama?
PS no my French isn’t getting any better. Cause I can’t speak French when I’m already trying to translate my thoughts into Bislama all day. It just comes out a jumbled mess. Je tink se emi vrai.)
3/19/10
So I moved to this new house. It’s really nice cause it’s all my own. It’s got a main house which is like 27x12ft which has a dividing wall where I sleep behind. Then it has an unattached kitchen which is like 10x12ft and then it has a room for bathing and a toilet. The bathroom is just a shack with a coral floor that I take bucket showers in. And the toilet is really just a shack with a whole in the ground. When I first moved to the house the men in the neighborhood decided that I should have a toilet seat. I told them I don’t want that because their toilet seats are made out of concrete and they get really gross. With a concrete toilet if some guy comes and pisses all over your seat, which they will, there is no way to clean it. The piss and shit and gross ass-dirty from whoever's ass just stays there in all the little holes in the concrete. Ugh it’s much better to squat over a hole where you don’t have to touch anything. They found this hard to comprehend because the general community consensus is that a concrete toilet seat is a step up from a hole in the ground. It was hard to explain this and I think they thought I was just being overly gracious by telling them I don’t want the toilet. So then one day I come home to find a concrete toilet in my front walkway. I don’t know where it came from, who brought it there, but I know I don’t want it. The custom here is that if someone gives you something you have to take it. It is impolite to turn it down. So really I shouldn’t return the gift. Regifting is a less taboo. So now I have to find someone to give this toilet to. Anyway it’s been about 6 weeks and the toilet is still sitting in front of my house. I’ve gotten kind of used to it now so I keep forgetting to try to find a way to give it away. I wonder if it would be taboo to plant some flowers in it.
One issue with my new house is that it’s not in a family yard, which I really like because it means I have privacy. The only problem is that it is unsafe at night for a woman to sleep in a house by herself. And apparently there are some seedy characters in this village who would take advantage. So I have a mama that stays with me at night, my security guard, Daniella. She lives right across the street. They are not so attached to personal space as we are. In the states when you live in a house there is usually a room in the house that is designated yours where you sleep every night and keep all your stuff. Here they live in the house and it is the family’s house. Every room in the house belongs to the family. Usually there will be a room or space to store all the stuff. Then the family sleeps wherever, sometimes all in one room, or sometimes in separate rooms, sometimes in the living room and sometimes, if it’s really hot, they’ll sleep out on the front lawn. I’ve witnessed my brother change rooms 5 times in the last 5 months. He just moves his bed. Anyways, at first I felt bad about how this mama has to sleep with me instead of sleeping with her family. But then I realized that she actually doesn’t care where she sleeps. She still lives in the house across the street. She just sleeps in my house. Plus her husband’s dead and her kids are grown and now I’m like a new member of her family. She’s really nice too and she makes one of my favorite island dishes all the time simboro, plantain cakes wrapped in island cabbage with coconut sauce.
She’s also helping me learn the local language. Though she does this weird thing that I haven’t heard other people do. Where she uses the word church and school interchangeably. She actually never uses the word church. Its always school. At first I thought she maybe worked at the school cause she was always saying she was going to the school. But then on Sundays she would always says she was going to school but actually she’s going to church. She goes to church all the time, like 3 or 4 times a week. She never goes to school. So should I trust someone with this interesting language twitch to teach me the local language. Yeah sure. Maybe I’ll just ask somebody else what the local word for church is.
3/18
Some thoughts I’ve been having recently:
“sandy soap is really great, it’s all exfoliating” after picking my soap off the sand and coral floor of my shower.
“bat for breakfast and pigs liver for lunch, well at least I’m getting some protein”
“Shit I’m talking to myself in Bislama again ‘oh la la from wanem mi mas tingting long bislama oltaem’” Additionally recently I’ve found myself confusing b’s and p’s like locals do. Especially when teaching class. Like I’ll write pukiping instead of bukiping or pikfala instead of bikfala. People use them interchangeably here so the meaning is the same but still I know bisness, bookkeeping and big all start with b. Even if they don’t I think I should be setting a good example or something. Whatever. It really doesn’t make a difference.
I live in a world where the newspaper still prints Calvinand Hobbes comics, are you jealous?
“I love laplap manioc how would I go about making it if I were in the states” a variation of “how am I going to get kava when I go back to the states”
Yeah so I’ve been at site for 5 months now and a bunch of projects have been set into motion. I teach a computer class and a business class at the vocational school on Mondays and Wednesdays. On Tuesdays we work on building the tourism and environment center and work on various tourism or environment projects with the environment committee. Then on Thursday again we work on more enviro or tourism projects. I also may start working with the women’s group on Thursdays. Fridays more work with the environment committee and drink kava. Saturdays do long over due laundry and clean around the house and chill and read awesome magazines that awesome people have been sending me. Sunday go to church eat really good food all the mama’s make and stock up on produce people give me. Saturday is garden day for everyone. Recently I’ve been working my ass off during the week so I like to chill out on Saturday instead of go to the garden but I’ve been getting tons of random produce given to me when I go visit people on Sundays cause their kitchens are full of fruits and veggies from Saturday. I love it. I never ask for anything. It’s just the local hospitality. Love it. I got three huge avocados, a bunch of bananas, 3 oranges, and three grapefruits on Sunday. Yeas so that should last me the week. Like I said, Love it.
I’m trying to start some projects with the women’s group but for lack of a better term they don’t have any team spirit. They are much more happy talking shit about each other than actually meeting. It’s so self-degrading. I mean gender equality is totally screwed here but when they are asked to make a group to represent women, then they can’t get it together to stand up for themselves at all. Because from what I can tell standing up for your self is not what a proper woman should do according to this society. Plus if any woman tries to be a leader all the other women in the group start talking behind her back but then they won’t stand up and lead either because they know people will talk behind their backs. They are thinking about disbanding. Ugh well I’m not letting that happen. It’s hard though because I don’t have tight relations with all of them because all the women mostly work at their respective houses and most of my work so far has been with the men. I also work with the men and drink with the men and am treated like a man. But I can’t really act like a proper woman or I wouldn’t get any work done. A proper woman would stay at the house and do laundry and cook and stay quite. However that would mean being a terrible Peace Corps Volunteer. Anyhow I am going to organize some tourism projects with them for the tourism season. Maybe they can be motivated by money.
The other committee I’m working with is the Environment and Tourism Committee. They are great. They are really on top of it. I know that when I leave their projects will hold up. Cause the president is really on the ball. Sometimes even more than me. Some projects we are working on are reef preservation, conservation areas, waste management. The conservations areas are rocking, the waste management is well underway. We are getting a reef check certification class taught here soon so that should start that project. Our main work at the moment is spending grant money from GEF on building a sweet envornmental education and tourism information center in the middle of town. Everyone from the committee is psyched about it and they are working their asses off to get it done. Cutting down trees to make timber, doing math(!) to figure out how to use all the grant money. Then for our tourism projects we have a bunch of hiking trails we are working on. Also we are making a big culture and arts festival in July, which I hope will become an annual event. That should definitely boost tourism in the area. Put Lamap on the map so to speak. Cause tourists love this place. We get at least 200 a year because it’s a great harbor for yachties. For a small outer island village that’s impressive. There just aren’t any services for them. There’s nowhere for them to spend their money. Few stores, no touristy activities, no place to buy local crafts, and one bungalow in not the nicest location. So yeah that can be remedied.
The vocational training center is in a much more precarious position. It’s not breaking even. The quality of education is low because there aren’t enough teachers. Students aren’t paying their school fees. It needs a lot of work. But the manager is enthusiastic and so is the one teacher. Problem is the manager doesn’t really have the skills needed to run the place. He has a relatively high level of education compared to the average population. He finished 10th grade and studied mechanical repiars and maintenance at a tech school in the capital for 2 years. That is well educated considering the average education level is 6th grade. However that education doesn’t really prepare him for starting a brand new vocational school. Luckily for him the students in the area don’t have much choice of schools and the parents really can’t tell a good school from a bad school. The parents often have a lower level of education than the youth. Anyhow we’re working on things and I think we will have a new teacher and be ready to apply as an official vocational school that can issue government certificates by the end of the year. Oh think it could happen. Especially now that I have my computer cord!!
ok that's all at the moment. Sort of a long one cause I haven't posted in three months. xoxox
Yeah so I’m being super good and writing three blog posts this week because I just got a new computer cord. My old one broke and then it took 5 weeks for the new one to come. It also didn’t help that the cord had to travel through a big snowstorm in DC and big tropical storm on my end that canceled postal flights and is now terrorizing Australia. So now all the work that needs a computer has piled up and I am procrastinating by blogging.
I just came back from visiting my mama’s house. I went and had dinner there last night. My mama is an amazing cook, relatively speaking to other mamas here. She made this soup the other day that was just like Mrs. Fearnoughs Brunswick Stew, my favorite impossible to find canned soup. I asked her what’s her secret and she said icing sugar. Brillant! Of course, cause its sugar with starch in it. It made it all thick and slightly sweet. Yum.
But the food’s not always amazing. When I went to eat there just now she made laplap flying fox, which is a cassava cake with a huge hairy bat inside and coconut sauce. When they cook the flying fox it’s not skinned or boned and it smells literally like a dead rat. It looks like a rat too, like a huge rat with giant bat wings. It was this foot long piece of laplap too. I was like what’s up with that? So I tried to cut the laplap with my spoon but hit bone immediately. Then I realized it had the entire wing of the bat folded up in it. Yuck. Luckily everyone was watching a movie so they didn’t notice I didn’t touch my bat-wing cake. They were watching this really funnny french movie series from the 60’s. I think it’s a classic. It’s about these 6 gendarme that always get into trouble. Fricken hilarious, even though it’s in French. I also watch a lot of kung fu classics in French. It rarely impedes understanding of the plot.
Today apparently, is Francophone Day. At the primary school they are collecting money for a donation to chile. Which I thought was funny cause maybe they should be donating to Haiti for francophone day. Anyway I really feel for the francophones here. They are kind of at a disadvantage and the disadvantage is growing. Vanuatu was a colony of both the French and the British. So it has Francophone areas and Anglophone areas. Lamap, where I live is Francophone. They have a great school here that goes to tenth grade and will have year eleventh next year. But then all this education goes to waste when the rest of the country speaks English. The language barrier can really set up a wall to development. The official national language is Bislama and the people here are fluent in Bislama but not English. Yet most of the laws, contracts and newspapers are written in English, not Bislama.
Here’s an example, the tourism office just sent me a contract to have my Tourism committee sign in English. I was like no, I’m not having them sign this. Signing contracts without reading them is not a good habit to get people into. I read it and it wasn’t even appropriate for them. For example it said only tour providers could be members of the committee, which the members of the committee are not. So by signing they would be writing themselves out of the committee. Now I know this wasn’t the intention of the Tourism office but the point is that Anglophones don’t have to deal with this that much and the attitude is always ‘oh the francophones will figure it out’. And yeah they get by but they also get screwed over.
Another example: I went to the umbrella agency for all the vocational training schools to try to get some curricula. They showed me all this great material, textbooks, videos, etc. that could be used in our school. But it was in English. I was like yes I can tell this is all great stuff but it’s in English and the guy goes yes but the simplest English. Ok but that’s still English and the teacher and the manager at the school have a 10th grade education in French and most of the students at the school have 6th grade education in French so all of this material is absolutely worthless to us. This is the Organization that looks out for all the vocational school in the country and it doesn’t have anything in French. In Francophone areas only the very highly educated speak English. Those people are quad lingual; French, English, Bislama, and local language. The vocational schools are set up to look out for those that the conventional school system left behind. These students speak the local language, pretty good Bislama, and some French. So how can you expect them to learn English when we’re struggling to teach them in Bislama?
PS no my French isn’t getting any better. Cause I can’t speak French when I’m already trying to translate my thoughts into Bislama all day. It just comes out a jumbled mess. Je tink se emi vrai.)
3/19/10
So I moved to this new house. It’s really nice cause it’s all my own. It’s got a main house which is like 27x12ft which has a dividing wall where I sleep behind. Then it has an unattached kitchen which is like 10x12ft and then it has a room for bathing and a toilet. The bathroom is just a shack with a coral floor that I take bucket showers in. And the toilet is really just a shack with a whole in the ground. When I first moved to the house the men in the neighborhood decided that I should have a toilet seat. I told them I don’t want that because their toilet seats are made out of concrete and they get really gross. With a concrete toilet if some guy comes and pisses all over your seat, which they will, there is no way to clean it. The piss and shit and gross ass-dirty from whoever's ass just stays there in all the little holes in the concrete. Ugh it’s much better to squat over a hole where you don’t have to touch anything. They found this hard to comprehend because the general community consensus is that a concrete toilet seat is a step up from a hole in the ground. It was hard to explain this and I think they thought I was just being overly gracious by telling them I don’t want the toilet. So then one day I come home to find a concrete toilet in my front walkway. I don’t know where it came from, who brought it there, but I know I don’t want it. The custom here is that if someone gives you something you have to take it. It is impolite to turn it down. So really I shouldn’t return the gift. Regifting is a less taboo. So now I have to find someone to give this toilet to. Anyway it’s been about 6 weeks and the toilet is still sitting in front of my house. I’ve gotten kind of used to it now so I keep forgetting to try to find a way to give it away. I wonder if it would be taboo to plant some flowers in it.
One issue with my new house is that it’s not in a family yard, which I really like because it means I have privacy. The only problem is that it is unsafe at night for a woman to sleep in a house by herself. And apparently there are some seedy characters in this village who would take advantage. So I have a mama that stays with me at night, my security guard, Daniella. She lives right across the street. They are not so attached to personal space as we are. In the states when you live in a house there is usually a room in the house that is designated yours where you sleep every night and keep all your stuff. Here they live in the house and it is the family’s house. Every room in the house belongs to the family. Usually there will be a room or space to store all the stuff. Then the family sleeps wherever, sometimes all in one room, or sometimes in separate rooms, sometimes in the living room and sometimes, if it’s really hot, they’ll sleep out on the front lawn. I’ve witnessed my brother change rooms 5 times in the last 5 months. He just moves his bed. Anyways, at first I felt bad about how this mama has to sleep with me instead of sleeping with her family. But then I realized that she actually doesn’t care where she sleeps. She still lives in the house across the street. She just sleeps in my house. Plus her husband’s dead and her kids are grown and now I’m like a new member of her family. She’s really nice too and she makes one of my favorite island dishes all the time simboro, plantain cakes wrapped in island cabbage with coconut sauce.
She’s also helping me learn the local language. Though she does this weird thing that I haven’t heard other people do. Where she uses the word church and school interchangeably. She actually never uses the word church. Its always school. At first I thought she maybe worked at the school cause she was always saying she was going to the school. But then on Sundays she would always says she was going to school but actually she’s going to church. She goes to church all the time, like 3 or 4 times a week. She never goes to school. So should I trust someone with this interesting language twitch to teach me the local language. Yeah sure. Maybe I’ll just ask somebody else what the local word for church is.
3/18
Some thoughts I’ve been having recently:
“sandy soap is really great, it’s all exfoliating” after picking my soap off the sand and coral floor of my shower.
“bat for breakfast and pigs liver for lunch, well at least I’m getting some protein”
“Shit I’m talking to myself in Bislama again ‘oh la la from wanem mi mas tingting long bislama oltaem’” Additionally recently I’ve found myself confusing b’s and p’s like locals do. Especially when teaching class. Like I’ll write pukiping instead of bukiping or pikfala instead of bikfala. People use them interchangeably here so the meaning is the same but still I know bisness, bookkeeping and big all start with b. Even if they don’t I think I should be setting a good example or something. Whatever. It really doesn’t make a difference.
I live in a world where the newspaper still prints Calvinand Hobbes comics, are you jealous?
“I love laplap manioc how would I go about making it if I were in the states” a variation of “how am I going to get kava when I go back to the states”
Yeah so I’ve been at site for 5 months now and a bunch of projects have been set into motion. I teach a computer class and a business class at the vocational school on Mondays and Wednesdays. On Tuesdays we work on building the tourism and environment center and work on various tourism or environment projects with the environment committee. Then on Thursday again we work on more enviro or tourism projects. I also may start working with the women’s group on Thursdays. Fridays more work with the environment committee and drink kava. Saturdays do long over due laundry and clean around the house and chill and read awesome magazines that awesome people have been sending me. Sunday go to church eat really good food all the mama’s make and stock up on produce people give me. Saturday is garden day for everyone. Recently I’ve been working my ass off during the week so I like to chill out on Saturday instead of go to the garden but I’ve been getting tons of random produce given to me when I go visit people on Sundays cause their kitchens are full of fruits and veggies from Saturday. I love it. I never ask for anything. It’s just the local hospitality. Love it. I got three huge avocados, a bunch of bananas, 3 oranges, and three grapefruits on Sunday. Yeas so that should last me the week. Like I said, Love it.
I’m trying to start some projects with the women’s group but for lack of a better term they don’t have any team spirit. They are much more happy talking shit about each other than actually meeting. It’s so self-degrading. I mean gender equality is totally screwed here but when they are asked to make a group to represent women, then they can’t get it together to stand up for themselves at all. Because from what I can tell standing up for your self is not what a proper woman should do according to this society. Plus if any woman tries to be a leader all the other women in the group start talking behind her back but then they won’t stand up and lead either because they know people will talk behind their backs. They are thinking about disbanding. Ugh well I’m not letting that happen. It’s hard though because I don’t have tight relations with all of them because all the women mostly work at their respective houses and most of my work so far has been with the men. I also work with the men and drink with the men and am treated like a man. But I can’t really act like a proper woman or I wouldn’t get any work done. A proper woman would stay at the house and do laundry and cook and stay quite. However that would mean being a terrible Peace Corps Volunteer. Anyhow I am going to organize some tourism projects with them for the tourism season. Maybe they can be motivated by money.
The other committee I’m working with is the Environment and Tourism Committee. They are great. They are really on top of it. I know that when I leave their projects will hold up. Cause the president is really on the ball. Sometimes even more than me. Some projects we are working on are reef preservation, conservation areas, waste management. The conservations areas are rocking, the waste management is well underway. We are getting a reef check certification class taught here soon so that should start that project. Our main work at the moment is spending grant money from GEF on building a sweet envornmental education and tourism information center in the middle of town. Everyone from the committee is psyched about it and they are working their asses off to get it done. Cutting down trees to make timber, doing math(!) to figure out how to use all the grant money. Then for our tourism projects we have a bunch of hiking trails we are working on. Also we are making a big culture and arts festival in July, which I hope will become an annual event. That should definitely boost tourism in the area. Put Lamap on the map so to speak. Cause tourists love this place. We get at least 200 a year because it’s a great harbor for yachties. For a small outer island village that’s impressive. There just aren’t any services for them. There’s nowhere for them to spend their money. Few stores, no touristy activities, no place to buy local crafts, and one bungalow in not the nicest location. So yeah that can be remedied.
The vocational training center is in a much more precarious position. It’s not breaking even. The quality of education is low because there aren’t enough teachers. Students aren’t paying their school fees. It needs a lot of work. But the manager is enthusiastic and so is the one teacher. Problem is the manager doesn’t really have the skills needed to run the place. He has a relatively high level of education compared to the average population. He finished 10th grade and studied mechanical repiars and maintenance at a tech school in the capital for 2 years. That is well educated considering the average education level is 6th grade. However that education doesn’t really prepare him for starting a brand new vocational school. Luckily for him the students in the area don’t have much choice of schools and the parents really can’t tell a good school from a bad school. The parents often have a lower level of education than the youth. Anyhow we’re working on things and I think we will have a new teacher and be ready to apply as an official vocational school that can issue government certificates by the end of the year. Oh think it could happen. Especially now that I have my computer cord!!
ok that's all at the moment. Sort of a long one cause I haven't posted in three months. xoxox
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