Life here in Kosele is never dull – there is always something happening that keeps you on your toes. Having had a really up, efficient kind of day yesterday it was back to situation normal today. It isn’t entirely discouraging – just highly unpredictable. The school is back in exam mode again. We have a supervisor back on the scene, (but no armed guard this time). Now that the KCPE, (Kenya Certificate of Primary Education), is over and done with the other classes get their opportunity to shine. It’s a shame the powers that be can’t!
According to our planning the pupils in classes 3, 5 and 6 should be doing zonal exams next week. The pupils in class 7, (who are now the ‘pre-candidate’ class, as they become KCPE ‘candidates’ next year), should have started divisional mock exams yesterday. All of these exams are set externally and the papers should be delivered to the school. For reasons, which were not entirely clear today, the class 7 exams have been postponed until Thursday and the other classes started their exams today, (instead of next week). Given the early start for the majority of the school a teacher was despatched to Oyugis to buy exam papers for the pupils in classes 1 and 2 to ensure that all of our end year exams are conducted this week. You have to remain nonplussed by it all – it’s life as normal out here. Nobody seemed to expect an explanation and none was given. No parents will come to the school to complain tomorrow and the children don’t seem to mind. I couldn’t imagine a response like that in the UK!
To add insult to injury the clutch packed up on the Landrover this afternoon so it had to be towed back to base.
The termites, (see yesterday’s blog), seem to have been shaken but not seriously deterred by the hot bath last night. They are still excavating a small amount of soil in the house, (though there aren’t as many termites in evidence as there were yesterday). One of the side effects of the anti malarial drug that I take is that it gives you very vivid dreams – I'm anticipating dreaming about the house sinking into a huge hole in the ground and then being eaten by monster termites in the near future, (the dreams seem to take a couple of days to catch up). Fortunately they don’t seem to want to eat any of the other buildings so we don’t have too big a problem to deal with.
As the day draws to a close I wonder what will happen tomorrow. It makes sense to plan ahead but it can drive you mad if you take it too seriously. ‘African time’ really is at a different location on the time, space continuum. Some days it seems crazy, some days it doesn’t. According to wikipedia hakuna matata is a swahili phrase that means "there are no worries". Under the circumstances it's the only sane way of thinking.
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