Chacos :-(

Apparently I wasn’t the only one who got a bit overwhelmed this weekend; we all seem to have hit a wall. Naturally, we took a break from class and I walked around the school talking with Ezra and Tim, which helped.
We tried figuring out our internship teaching today but I didn’t get too far. Seems the Form 2 Chemistry teacher is gone; whether temporarily or permanently, I’m not sure. The Form 3 Chem teacher did introduce Ezra (also Chem) and I to all of the Form 2 & 3 classes though. Later in the day, when I tried finding the class I am supposed to be teaching, I had no luck with looking at notebooks to see where the students are. Hopefully we’ll get this figure out before Thursday because I would like to make a lesson plan before teaching next week.
To top off our day, we had one of the Education coordinators some to our CBT group to observe a few of us micro-teaching (teaching a 10 minute lesson to our group). Like our session on Friday, she went on forever about simple things like the lesson plan. Normally we get out of class mid-afternoon because our group learns well that way. Today, we were there until 5pm. We were beat and I was really annoyed because I had to sit through a long, drawn out talk about things I already know and aren’t very complicated to begin with – this is exactly the sort of thing I was trying to avoid by not studying education in grad school.
I was on my way to the internet café but never made it – I joined my friends at the bar instead. We ended up with folks from all 3 CBT groups in Kihonda and it was great to sit and chat about our weekend adventures and experiences micro-teaching. A few of my compatriots ended up at a funeral for some neighbor and Veronica (the only girl) was dressed up by the women in kitenges and kangas. When they stopped by Ezra’s house, he didn’t recognize her at all. Apparently wrapping a person in cloth will make them look black too lol.
Tonight I spent way too much time trying to plan a 10minute lesson on Chem for micro-teaching. Although the content isn’t too difficult, it’s hard to plan a complete lesson (intro, content, practice, conclusion) into 10 min. I chose the sub-topic of Periodicity from the Periodic Table topic because it may be something I will have to teach in the next few weeks.
Some sad news to report: my Chaco sandals have begun to fall apart. After only 2 weeks in Africa, the rubber is separating significantly from the rest of the sole. I’m hoping that superglue will work. Cross your fingers…