Thursday, September 15, 2011

The New Term Has Begun, Somehow

Well, it has been a while since my last post. I’d say at least a few things have happened since then. Let me recap:

My first term of teaching ended. I was only teaching two stream of S3 mathematics, but it was tough. The end of term exam I gave was a fair exam, I think, but the best student’s score was still less than 50%. This is apparently true for teachers of other subjects as well. I have my work cut out for me there.

I am starting to set up an internet café in my town. A businessman approached me about starting one up with the intention of increasing computer literacy and allowing easier access to the internet. We will see how that pans out.

Been setting up my house more. Got new furniture, I bed I can fit in, a place to hang my clothes. Just the ma-bear necessities!

Visited the US. My bro got Mari’d. Got to see Selina. Got to hang with my parents. (They are great, they even send me gummy candy and Cookie Crisp!) (:-P) I also got to see most of the old Moyer Gang! Great fun! Gained about 15 pounds in two weeks. Good food.

On the way back from the states, I flew through Dubai. Had a 10 hour or so layover (with free hotel accomodations!). I got to see the town. It is crazy. There is the world’s largest building of course, then there is the world’s only 7-star hotel (which looks like the USS Enterprise is coming out of the top of it), an indoor SKI SLOPE (wanna check it out, Scott?), and way too many 6-star hotels everywhere you go. One of the famous hotels has a room that costs at least $15,000 a night. I asked about it and no the room does not come with an indoor golf course for that price – just a private pool. I met this chap from South Africa who knew a bit about the town. He told me the odd and ends of the place as we took a $30 2-hour tour around the self-proclaimed tourist capital of the world. Nice town. Little tid bit about Dubai: No crime. No crime to the point that you can literally park your car on the street, with keys in the ignition and it still running and the AC on high, go shopping and come back out to your cool vehicle. It won’t get stolen. Also, the cost of fuel is half the cost of water. Gas costs $0.35 per liter, which is about $1.40 per gallon. Anyway, I had fun in Dubai.

Also while in the US, I acquired more stuff. As I lay here in bed, I have my awesome DC clip-on fans keeping me cool. No more night sweats, if you want to know the truth of it. Everything I brought back with me made it to my house, save my headlamp. (I couldn’t save my headlamp, that is.) But, as the Ugandans say, “It’s okay!” as in “The way that most my stuff made it to my house is just okay.”

I have made some recent adjustments to my house as well. I added a solar panel, rewired my house and custom-made outlets so that each room has 12V car charger plugs (Selina rocks), upgraded my battery, got a water tower for my 500L tank (Oh yeahh!), Kirk installed a sink in my bedroom (seemed a good place for a sink), and I love my house. This weekend we (Kirk the Mechanical Genius and I) will finish the plumbing now that the pipes have arrived and we will install my new shower! Indoor plumbing, it’s gunna be big!

The new term has started, but teachers were on strike, demanding a pay raise. The government agreed to a 15% increase. Unfortunately, that 15% does not go far with the rising costs of goods (many foods are doubling or even tripling in cost). A can of cheese cost 1000Ush when I got to Uganda. Now it costs 4500Ush. Some teachers are having to really struggle to supplement their salary.

Anyway, I am back online for the new term! This week was sort of the first week of classes. Hopefully more students will show up next week when everyone realizes the strike has ended. We will see. I am starting to give lessons on computers to my fellow teachers as well as continuing to teach S3 math during this next term. That may be changing soon, however...

Until next time,

Mark “Parombro” Cotton