Because of the Rain

Since the last time I have written I have spent another week in Lameshegu Primary School and learned much more. The biggest learning experience thus far came last friday morning. I arrived at Lameshegu at 8:30 just like every other day, however, unlike every other day none of the three first grade teachers were there. As I was walking in a teacher in a neighboring class explained that the teachers were late because of the rain the night before. I wasn't sure what to do. I was alone in a classroom with ninety plus children who were completely out of control. Many of them at this point were running around hitting each other with sticks and tackling one another to the floor. I decided that this was an inefficient use of school time and that I would teach. Remarkably, after telling everyone to sit and that we were going to do English, they listened immaculately. Everyone calmed down and filed into their crowded desks. I passed out books and began teaching, and though I know they struggle to understand me through my unfamiliar voice, they paid attention extremely well. After twenty minutes or so the teaching assistant showed up and if it was nothing out of the ordinary simply looked at me and said, "Good morning, I'm late because of the rain" and sat down. Things had seemingly calmed down, I assigned an exercise, which they dutifully completed and then it was time for break. During break men began removing the desks in the classroom to repair them, which generally would have been appreciated, but its difficult to conduct a class with no where to sit. Adding to the chaos that I feared the lack of desks would cause the teaching assistant(the only one of the three that ever showed up that morning) informed me that he needed to go to town. At the end of break things were even more chaotic than before. There were hardly any desks, and I was the only teacher(if you can call it that). Children were beating each other to the point of tears. So after pulling several boys off of one another I sat everyone down(the best I could with less than normal desks) and once again began teaching. When the teacher returned awhile later he again just sat down as I taught, and observed the now relatively calm classroom. It was an extremely chaotic morning! But I certainly learned a lot!