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Sunday Jan 28, 2007

Back to work

 So, I've been back at work nearly a month and surprisingly it's not been too much of a downer after the holidays. It helps that we've had interesting stuff to do – just before we went to print with our last edition of the paper, we got a call telling us about a plane crash in the desert near the town. Being a fairly low-budget paper we don't have a car or anything, so we rang up a friend to give us a hand. “Hi Andries, you up to anything? ...Fancy coming to find a plane crash with us?”

The plane had fallen in diamond territory, unfortunately, so we couldn't go in to get pictures (unless we wanted to risk getting shot for trespassing!). In true journalistic style, I went and annoyed people at the hospital to try and find out what had happened. There had only been 5 people in the plane and none were seriously injured so I wasn't being completely insensitive. It paid off as I managed to interview one of the guys who'd been in the crash while he was waiting for an x-ray. I was surprised he didn't mind, but I think the painkillers may have put him in quite a good mood!

My teaching work isn't quite as exciting, but at the primary school we've got new grade 1s and they're so cute. You try to tell the naughty ones off but they just give you this cheeky grin and you're like, “Aw, carry on scribbling on the other kid's work, you're too adorable for me to stop you...” I still think it's really sweet when they call me “Miss Lucy” even though I should be used to that by now. I'm so weak.

At the secondary school I have to draw a much more definite line as some of my kids are 17 (and still in the first year of high school... Ouch), but it's all good. Me and Marcel have started work at a creche too, in Area 7 which is the poorest bit of town. The creche is actually a corrugated iron shack with no windows, running water or electricity, and 54 kids inside. All of whom speak Oshiwambo, a language that I've got as far as 'Hello, how are you?' in. So we're doing a lot of sign language and songs and the like. The teachers speak a bit of English and are meant to teach in it, but as they taught them the alphabet missing out the letter H, and most of the kids can recite the days of the week but deny the existence of Thursday, there's still quite a language barrier...

Anyway, I should probably go and do something constructive, but as it's Sunday and I'm lazy I might just go to the beach... Ah, I love that I can say that when most people I know will be braving the freezing British winter right now. Not to rub it in, of course!

Posted by Lucy Hayes ( 12:33 PM )
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