It's Been a Week...Almost to the Hour

And I can’t believe it!  It feels like I’ve been here forever.
Well…so much for being tired on Friday…I’m exhausted!

The rising sun on my walk to work.  It's so cool...the sun
here is like always a perfect circle.

Today I got up at 5:38...got ready…and walked to school (it was a little frightening, but fun to be out and about in the midst of everyone - although it is NOT easy to walk around here…the drivers are maniacs so you literally have to beware for your life…and the sides of the roads are dirt so you’re constantly sinking in - especially with my heels…but I honestly loved the walk…haha = )  I was the first one there…but as soon as Melinda came (about ten minutes later) and unlocked the office, the chaos began.  And basically it didn’t end until we left at 6ish.

I dunno…feeling real mixed feelings today.  In a lot of ways they’ve really got things right here.  But other times, it’s really difficult to stand back and watch certain things, and not say anything.  These are some of my observations from today:

• I watched the students stand in line at lunch with their glass dinner plates/bowls and silverware that they’d brought from home.  The lunch lady scooped their food into their dishes and then they ate, cleaned their dishes, and had them ready for the next day.  They also have soda in bottles.  When you’re done drinking, you send the bottles back to the distributor who cleans them and refills them.  It seems that people here generally wash their clothes by hand…and all dry them without a dryer.  I also haven’t seen a dishwasher.  Paper towels are also not used much here (I’ve only seen them at church), although this has proven challenging at times.  But we produce so much waste at home…when we could almost as easily use alternative methods.

Kids standing in line for lunch

And eating

The recyclable bottle

• However, when they do have waste, I’ve noticed that littering doesn’t seem to be a big deal.  Not just outside, but INside.  Like people will just crumple something up and drop it on the ground.  I think this is partly because trash cans aren’t easy to come by.  But this leads me to the part that’s been hardest to watch.
• Children aren’t treated with very much respect.  They’re kind of servants to the adults, like just told and expected to bring this or clean that (including the rubbish that people drop) without thanks.  I’ve seen them spoken to harshly, and just pretty much be treated like second-class citizens.  Of course that’s not the way every adult is, but when I did see it…it bothered me = /
• At the same time, they seem to be very polite and 

  

  This isn't the girls sweeping, but it's a pic of the broom

  hard-working (like this morning I watched two girls sweep this huge courtyard with these tiny brooms before school…and even though no one was monitoring them, they did such a thorough job) and disciplined and well-mannered (a little girl came in to the office today to get a new uniform, and at the end she said in a soft, timid voice, “Please, Aunty Melinda, can you please talk to so-and-so?  He has been very mean; he told me my uniform was ill-fitted.” - how cute is that?) and sweet (it‘s not uncommon for boys to walk with their arms around each other‘s shoulders).  And after what I said in the last bullet point…I think it’s important to point out that the adults I saw are SO good to babies…like they’ll totally take a crying baby from a mother in need of assistance, even if it’s a stranger.

I guess what it boils down to is that they run school really differently than we do, so I was finding frustration with a lot of things.  We’re so lucky to have free public education because the families here have to spend a lot to give their children a good education.  And the anti-salesman in me was really feeling for them, even though I knew that it was necessary.  I don’t know…I’m having a really hard time explaining what I was feeling.  I will say this, though, (Kristen, you’ll appreciate this = ) we teachers have it good in Hawaii!  Teachers here don’t really have rights, and they don’t have a union to complain to.  They’re spoken to like little children (commanded, reprimanded), they have long school days, the lower primary classes don’t even get lunch breaks because the students eat in the classrooms, they don’t have room cleaners or custodians, they have huge class sizes, they don’t have a materials closet - just to get a new, plain black whiteboard marker from the office they get given the third degree, and they have to wait to leave until all their students are picked up - sometimes hours after school!

Anyway, after the day I had at work, it was so refreshing to come home and feel like I was home…if that makes sense.  Amanda and Chi-Chi greeted me at the door and it was like arriving home to family.  And she had prepared a delicious feast for dinner (rice and stew with egg and cabbage salad - it was SO nice to eat fresh veggies…and PINEAPPLE!!!!  Oh how I’ve missed fruit! = )  It was just what the doctor ordered…probably literally, too…haha = )  Over dinner we had some great conversation about Nigeria - everything from it’s current situation to it’s political history (that’ll have to be for a later blog…I’m fallin’ asleep).  And yeah…it was just a great ending to the day! = )