Students!

Maybe today! Dale and I set off to the University at 9 in anticipation of class at 10. When we arrived, most of the student body was gathered around the lecture hall of the "mulitpurpose building". Apparently, a student had died over the weekend and it is custom to close the University for a day when such a tragedy occurs. The School didn't close but they were having an open casket memorial service for the student at 1 PM in the Multipurpose building. They will take the casket later to the cemetery and have an extensive service there. We have observed a few of these cemetery services. A most interesting experience. I am not sure if I should go over there and see the memorial service or not.

Our first challenge of the day was to test the key we had made last week. After some jiggling and testing it appears to work on the common IT office. There I met an additional instructor, Mark. When I entered, most of the staff was still typing on the grade entry system on their computers. I tried Airtel again, to no avail. So in order to get on the internet, I will have to connect to the wired ethernet here on the campus. I connected, but DHCP doesn't actually work so you get to make up your own IP number (using private numbers, thank goodness) and try it. I guessed 192.168.155.107 and it let me in. Hopefully, no one else uses that number before we leave today. For those of you who don't understand what I just said contact your local network geek and tell them what I said. After a two hour explanation, I am sure you will be just as confused as when you read it for the first time. I can simplify it by saying that here we get to make up our own house address for the mailman. It doesn't have to be relative to our next door neighbor, and anyone could make up an address the same as yours.

A few minutes after arriving a gentleman handed me my teaching schedule and course descriptions for both of the courses. I have 10-11 Monday, 10-Noon Tuesday and 8-10 on Friday. It doesn't match well with Dale's courses but we will have to see how things go.

Each section of a course has a course representative (CR) and my Discrete's CR is Francis. The way things work is that I provide any handouts to the CR who is responsible for copying things for the rest of the class. He headed off to copy the syllabus and will come back to take me to the class in a few minutes. That seems like a good way to take a little of the load of the instructor. We will see how well this works.

So off to class. Supposed to be 39 students; but, if they close the school, I guess I will have to wait until Friday to see these students. Seventeen of the students showed up for the class. I introduced myself and explained that I have a hobby of driving trains (gare lamousi) and made a motion like steering a steering wheel. They laughed. I guess they understood my first joke. I asked their names and their favorite movie (mine: "The Jerk" and "This is Spinal Tap"). Most responded that they didn't have time for movies (I thought everyone liked Hollywood!). About 1/2 said they liked gospel music. Dale and I will have to sing them some songs. I think I will put some Vince Gill on my iTunes and see if they like that.

Dale had all 5 of his students in his "preaching" class so he was able to start them off on the right foot. So let me understand this. Last week, when the students were supposed to be here, no one (not even the department heads) was here. Today, when classes were supposed to be cancelled for a funeral, all the students in Dale's class were here. Really, you can't make this up!

I finally met Sanna Nevala, the Finish girl living in our apartment building. She has been here two months to work on English teaching in the primary schools and various other community programs. She is here at Tumaini to work with other community programs on problem solving -- especially when it comes to using technology. She lives with three other women who teach at the International School. The others are an American, a Canadian and one from the U.K. I invited them up to meet all of them, but they are all off to workshops in South Africa and Dar Es Salaam for the next week or so. I guess we will have to meet them when they return.

We took Sanna and another Finnish student/teacher, Kaala, to Neema Crafts where they were to discuss some options for helping each other teach and then stopped for diesel. We have a number of interesting challenges for the truck: first the gas filler cover won't open by just pulling the lever under the steering wheel; it is a two man job. One pulls on the lever while the other pulls on the cover. Then we pulled up to a pump and handed our 100,000 shillings ($60) to be then told that that pump isn't working so we have to back that beast up and pull up to the adjacent pump. In front of us on that pump is a little pickup truck that they are filling. Every once in a while the two attendants and the driver start rocking the truck back and forth and then add more fuel. I guess if you rock the truck some of the air bubbles come out and you can pump more in it! You can't make this stuff up. After the fill we headed back to the apartment for dinner and a game. The rest had been on a couple of shopping trips and had many stories to tell. Therefore, we have a new procedure. We have the numbers 1 thru 7 on little slips of paper and after grace (the prayer, not the housekeepper) we each get a number. We then can tell our stories of the day in that order. No one can jump in and tell the others' stories unless it is a clarification or expansion. This takes us at least 45 minutes to go around the table.