Back at Site!

After vacation, training in Nairobi, and then staying in Nairobi for an extra week for some medical stuff, I am finally back at site! Yay!

The girls reported back to school on the 5th, the regional games competition was on that Friday and Saturday and then classes started on the 10th. Since arriving back at site I've been teaching classes, re-marking the volleyball court so we can start practicing, and just generally trying to get back in the swing of school. This term I am teaching both streams of form 1 bio, one stream of form 2 bio and life skills to all of the classes. So, this term I have 18 lessons a week, which is 4 less than last term. I’m excited to have fewer classes this term so that hopefully I can start doing some secondary projects with the school and in the community. Right now I am still working on getting a scholarship program going for my students who could really use assistance paying their school fees, I’m still coaching volleyball and the volleyball competitions will be this term so that will also keep me busy. Other secondary projects are starting up a health club at my school that can do peer education at our school and also at the local primary schools, building hand washing stations for the school. I've also been talking to the geography teacher about possibly starting the world map project with the help of the form 4 class. I was also able to schedule my classes so that I have Friday afternoons off, this will make it a lot easier for me to set up meetings with organizations and go on trips on the weekend every once in awhile.

Most of my schedule/class changes were possible because we got 3 new teachers! The school is supposed to have at least 9 TSC (Teachers Service Commission) teachers (teachers who have gone to university and gone through a teacher training program), but when the school population was way down a few years ago, most of the trained TSC teachers were transferred, and unfortunately, they haven't been replaced since the school has grown to its current size. The school right now only has 4 TSC teachers and all of the other teachers are hired by the Board of Governors (BOG) of the school. All of the BOG teachers are very dedicated, but some of them just finished secondary school last year, while others are just teaching until they leave for university, while others have taught for years but have not been through a teachers training school. Having a majority of BOG teachers causes a number of problems for schools. Often BOG teachers only stay at a school for a year or two, this causes inconsistency in teaching, and causes the administration to constantly be looking for replacement teachers, and many of them do not want to be teachers in the future, which can cause a problem with motivation (thankfully this is not an issue at our school). BOG teachers are also paid for with the schools funds, while TSC teachers are paid by the Ministry of Education, so the more BOG teachers a school has to hire, the more the school is paying out of their pocket. Hopefully Bande will be getting more TSC teachers in the future, but for now we are just happy to have enough teachers in each subject and we are incredibly lucky to have such dedicated BOG teachers on staff.

In other news it is now the height of the rainy season here, which means everything is green and growing! When I got back to school the whole compound was overgrown with grass and plants, so the students have been busy slashing the fields and remarking all the paths on the compound. The rain has kept me well supplied with water for cooking, cleaning and bathing, which I appreciate, but it also makes traveling much more difficult. The roads between Migori and Bande are incredibly muddy with giant ruts and rocks that stick out after being exposed by the rain. The bridges on the road are also incredibly low, and they have a tendency to be overrun by the rivers after a few days of rain. Luckily, there is an alternate route to town that is better, so I won't be stranded. All in all, its really great to be back home (it really does feel like home to me now), and I really missed the students and the staff, so it's been great to see them too!