On the Brink of Tears

SEPTEMBER 20??
I don't know what to do!!!
I'm on the brink of tears because I can't connect to the internet. Then I feel guilty for crying about internet because I step outside the internet cafe and people are laying there crippled and dirty. I don't have it soo bad, I know...

School continues to get worse! One of the head administrators resigned in the middle of a shouting match b/w he and the director in the middle of the schoolyard yesterday. We continue to be lectured and patronized by administration who fails to demonstrate puntuality, maturity or competency. Noone will take responsibility for our complaints and when we go to the top of the director to get help, he lectures us for not following the chain of command! (And even he doesn't help get things solved) Half the time noone (including the director) are to be found. Questions, suggestions and concerns are met with defensiveness and the gossip is worse than junior high!

I'm beginning to see that this is simply how the entire country operates! Planning ahead and efficiency just aren't a part of their mindset! ERR, I hate to make such generalizations, hopefully I'm wrong... but I think it may be a societal thing, not unique to FTA.

The school start date has been pushed ahead again. I'm beginning to wonder if I'll begin teaching, or if I even want to...

The school facilities are a disaster. OSHA would have a field day. There are wires sticking out of the wall, classrooms are still not built, construction ouside the classrooms which won't be completed anytime soon which means we'll be screaming over tractors and bulldozers. One of my classrooms is filled with closets, so I can neither clean it nor prepare it. Every afternoon it rain beats down on the tin roof, preventing any conversation or concentaration- and it also leaks into my classroom, as I exit the classroom I have to carefully plan my route to the class next door to stay out out of the flooding playground. FTA is housed in a 5 story building, there are unenclosed balconies, uneven stairs, slippery front stairs... I could go on forever!

There is also a sense of distrust- Ethiopians don't trust Ethiopians! Everything is locked away, we must sign in everyday, etc. We have to request toilet paper for Godsake!!! They think that toilet paper will be stolen out of theh bathrooms!
The system here makes no sense and is totally ineffective. To get anything done takes 4 days and the board's approval! This school has money!! Families are paying out thier noses to send their kids to this school. I'm a freakin kindergarten teacher and noone will give me scissors or crayons! This lack of trust though I think is representative of the country as a whole, mainly stemming from the Prime Minister's sense of trust with Ethiopians.

Today I asked one of my "babysitters" (I prefer to call her ann assistant) to help make a poster... her handwriting is worse than a 5 year olds and her English is at best- intermediate- and yet she is the one who will teach these children in English!! The taxi drivers have better English than she does! I must say , though- the other assistants are wonderful! I am confident that they'll actually teach me a lot this year.

And while I want to run away and quit I just can't! I feel guilty for complaining when public schools here work with less than I have. I feel guilty leaving the students without a teacher. I feel guilty for breaking my contract. But I'm beginning to wonder if maybe its best I leave. I have three days to decide... if I break the contract before I begin teaching, I pay 2000 birr and am on my way. If I break contract after Friday I must pay two months salary!! I could run away and tell noone, but I'd have to leave the country. I do like Addis! I still want to see Ethiopia! I just don't know.