Exam Express

Day 22 – May 27

Very little to report on the school front today as we continued with the second day of exams. I wasn’t scheduled for the first session, but presided over the second session history exam for the Form IIA class. For history, it wasn’t much of a term exam though, I have to say. It consisted of three sides of foolscap, containing mostly multiple choice questions, one matching exercise, and two list questions. There were no short-answer or essay questions whatsoever. Not surprisingly, despite having two hours to write the exam, the students were finished after about 45 minutes. Our day was done by 12pm, but unfortunately, the teachers are required to stay until 3:30pm and the students even longer. It seemed like such a waste, especially for the students, who spent the time doing nothing when they could probably have been studying at home. Tomorrow’s exams are geography and physics.

At lunch another teacher and I walked down to the cookhouse to watch the students get their lunch. There is one massive, massive cauldron of ugali (maize flour polenta) and a large pot of beans. The students line up with their own plate, bowl or whatever container they’ve brought from home and receive it in that. A few have spoons but most just take a chunk of ugali (it’s rather stiff) and sop up the beans. As a rule, the girls line up and receive their lunch first, which they do in a fairly orderly fashion. By the time it comes to the boys’ turn, especially after half of them have already gotten their food, the line breaks down into a bit of a mob jostling to get their plate to the server. The reason is that the beans usually run out before the ugali, and ugali by itself is a rather dry and tasteless affair.

On the way home from school I passed the carpenter’s workshop. Three men were out working and the tables and chairs for the staffroom were complete, varnished, and drying in the sun. They were just sanding the large shelf. I don’t know how far along they are (or if they’ve started at all) on the lockable cabinet, but they are supposed to have everything finished and delivered by Thursday. They have an incentive: I’m the one who has the money and I leave on Friday!