Final Days

We are at school, wrapping up the final few things. I must admit, this is a lot more strange then other years. Instead of just saying "Have a great summer." to colleagues, this year, they are headed to Spain, Germany, back home. There is a good chance I never see those people again. There is no 'Welcome back BBQ' where I get to see old friends.

The 'Bees' are packing up the school to move it to the new venue. Twenty years of dust, roach shit, rat turds, etc. needed to be packed. They wanted to take my chairs but when I said there were still students sitting on them they agreed that was not so convenient. We cannot watch movies- they took the projectors. Many classes have no chairs or desks. There is a soccor ball in the gym....A soccer ball.

In my science lab I am finding many years of old, unlabelled chemicals. In fact, yesterday, I found two bottles of mercury. I haven't seen mercury since I was in junior high. You cannot even have that in a school back home. When I went to see someone about disposing of it they mentioned how they would get me some sand, pour the chemicals into the sand and then dump it out. Wow! When I explained how that would NOT be happening the Indonesian staff went into overdrive to find a proper way of getting rid of it. I did mention that the amount of mercury I had could poison a substantial number of people they were a little more willing to listen.

Today is our awards presentation. It proves to be a success. With 30 awards given out and 42 students there will definiately be some happy kids....or 12 really ticked ones. But, just to make the year end on a fabulous note, I get to give the closing address. Yay me! I was going to use some parts of a speech given by the Dean of Medicine at the U of A but that proved to be a bad idea.

The students are bouncing all over the place. The grade 1 class has no teacher. The other teachers VISA ran out and there has been a revolving door of coverage there. Parents are not impressed. If I was paying $15000 to have my student here, I would be pissed, too.

There are no substitute teachers. Many people have been 'sick' lately and we are supposed to cover their classes. But, often we do not know people are missing and the kids just go and hide in a dark, empty room. I am certain they are behaving themselves.

We move on Saturday. Our apartment is beautiful. We are excited to get to a school that has some idea of normal.