midterm examinations

September 18th

My computer has been dead for two weeks now and I finally managed to get it halfway charged to update you.

When I last wrote I had started the task of grading my midterm exams. It took me another two days to complete grading the 120 exams. Overall, the scores were what I expected. There is a high percentage of failures in the school system and almost half of my students failed. Failure is between a 0 and 30. The highest mark was a 91 with the lowest being a 5. I thought once I finished grading the examinations I would become quite bored so I worked slowly through them. I did manage to keep myself very busy throughout the week. Lindsay, however, had a very boring and pointless week. Her students (she teaches only one form equivalent to one grade) were sitting for a district wide mock examination and she neither taught nor graded throughout the week. She read a lot of books. Our week was not entirely boring though as there was much going on that we still do not quite understand.

On Tuesday I saw Mr. Mbughi and he invited me to a celebration on Wednesday. He told me it would begin at saa kumi (4 PM). Since his English is very broken I did not quite understand what type of celebration he wanted me to attend but I agreed to go. After school Lindsay and I headed to his house. He was not there but at church so we walked over to find him sweeping. It was 4:30. The celebration had not started because the visitors from Isoko had yet to arrive. We went home and said we would return. Since we can hear everything at the church from our home we decided to wait until the music started. At 7 we returned when we thought we heard sufficient music for a celebration. We were wrong. The guitarist was just practicing. We went inside the church and sat. The guests arrived and we greeted them and kept on sitting. Around 9 o’clock we were escorted outside to eat. It was windy and very cold that night. As I shivered sitting on a bench people ran around getting food. Eventually we were served rice and beans with kitimoto (pig meat). At first I didn’t notice the meat (it is dark and there is no electricity thank you) until I took my first bite of the fat. Since it was dark I was able to hide the rest of the fat on my plate and throw it to the dog when I finished. As I was eating though there was some clump of something that I ingested that I think should have never been eaten. I don’t know what it was; I thought it was just a clump of rice but am pretty sure it was some part of the pig. After sitting outside for an hour we were brought back inside for the celebration to begin. By this point it is 10:15 at night and I am tired and getting cranky. We sat next to the blaring speakers as a group went up and danced and sang. At 11:15 Lindsay and I had enough and waited until a group was performing to dash out the back door. We practically ran home without looking back.

On Thursday I woke up rather ill. I managed to go to school and teach form four but went home and stayed home for the remainder of the day. After being sick for the morning I stuck to only liquids for twelve hours and then rice. The diet seemed to work and I was feeling much better Friday morning. That mysterious clump in my food came back to haunt me! When I went to school on Friday I ran into the student cook and she was very sad that I was not feeling well. At lunch hour she made me eat two meals to make up for it! Towards the end of the day I was sitting outside the staff lounge when the teacher who now calls me “tiger” decided to join me. As I sat reading he sat down next to me and said, “I had a dream when I was in form three that I came together with a white girl.” At this he brought his hands together to emphasis the point. This is also the gentleman that brought me to his house and told me the guy that came to my door to ask me for sex wanted to learn of my preference. I responded that if his dream was true then he can wait until Madam Lindsay returns. He was quite persistent though and kept asking me about my sex life and telling me that he is allowed to force himself on any girl he pleases. Since he is quite weak I wasn’t too freaked out by him but just completely disturbed by the conversation. He informed me that he was going to get married in 2015 and that after three years of his marriage he could do anything he wanted with his wife. I told him that he is disgusting and he just laughed and didn’t understand why it was so wrong. On Monday he thought staring at my chest all day was appropriate though. For the last couple of days he has left me alone so I think he finally gets the point. He will be gone after this week and I won’t ever have to deal with him again.

The celebrations continued throughout the weekend and then the following week which was this past week. Please continue onto part two!

Love,

Gretchen