School Daze

Last Tuesday was the first day of school for students at all public schools in Namibia. For me, it felt good to be at school the first day and to wish all of the teachers a happy new year. I came into the school last year with only a few weeks remaining in the year, so there were a lot of times when I didn't really know what was going on. Being present for the first days of school made me feel much more comfortable at the school and more prepared to move forward.

Although registration was to take place the Thursday, Friday, and Monday preceding the first day of school, most of the students were still registering throughout the week. So, those students who had already registered were required to be at school, although they had nothing to do, so they spent much of the day causing mayhem around the school grounds. It was a very unstructured week for teachers, and I spent most of it trying to fix a couple of computers in the computer lab. Being the American volunteer, it is often assumed that I am able to work magic with anything with a motherboard, so I've kind of become the de facto computer network administrator, which has given me plenty of good, learn by fire sort of experiences.

The first week back served as a good reminder of the differing levels of structure and scheduling between here and the states. Although it was sort of nice to be able to start the year in such an unstructured environment, I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of work the new year brings.