The One With The First Round Of Meetings (written 9/14/2012)

Yesterday was the first staff meeting and today I had my first department meeting.  I’ll start with yesterday’s meeting… all I can really say is it was LONG.  Meetings are conducted during the school day which means that we are pulled out of classes and the students either wait in the rooms or clean the school.  The meeting this week was 3 hours long and all in Swahili.  One of the teachers next to meet translated the headlines but from what I gathered there was not a whole lot of information given.  Graduation is coming up in a few weeks for the form 4 students (although I am not exactly sure how it works because the date of graduation is before their final exam).  Anyway, I guess the teachers plan the whole thing so committees were formed.  I got selected for the decorations committee (again, I have no idea what this will entail) along with Dahlia, and Grace, one of our fellow teachers.  I will let you know as plans progress!

This afternoon was a department head meeting run by Kivega who is the academic master.  It went really well! His English is great so he conducted the meeting in English for me.  He is super time efficient and very agenda oriented which is a rarity in Tanzania but certainly something I appreciate when it comes time for meetings.  We talked about exams and keeping our departments uniform (which clearly won’t be a problem for me as I am the only one in the department).  Overall it was a great meeting. 

Tonight our neighbor, Elizabeth, has invited us over for dinner.  Dahlia and I are both super excited not to have to cook after a long week of school.  And so the weekend begins!