A Day in the Life of Ms. Riley

            I have been slacking on documenting my experience and for that I apologize but this term has been crazy and frankly has kinda sucked. I found myself working my butt off and not having time to sit down and write about what I’m doing. It’s unfortunate that this is the first time since March but such is life.

            I have realized that one of the reasons I have been so busy is because I play so many different roles throughout the day. I’m pulled in so many different directions that there leaves little time to myself which is fine but it’s been exhausting. Here’s a little insight into my daily life this past term.

7am – Teacher

Everyday I wake up in the morning, some days earlier than others and arrive at school to teach English. Some days are longer than others with my “library” classes but I generally am an English teacher 6 hours a day. We do listening comprehensions, reading techniques, grammar busy work, and class discussions on hostel life, corporal punishment, school uniforms, and who they admire most in life. 4 real classes and 2 “administration” periods that I should be able to use for grading, or preparing for future lessons/days.

7am-430pm – Babysitter

Part of the reason this term has been so horrible is because out of three months of school, there has been a fully present staff a total of 5 different days and only 28 actual days of learning in class. Absenteeism has been extremely high and there has been absolutely no planning for it. Substitute teacher are nonexistent out in the village so when a teacher fails to show up for class the kids are either left unsupervised in a classroom or are instructed to “find an open classroom”. After the principal and the head of department (vice principal who is a teacher), I teach the least amount of classes because I am only allowed to work a certain number of periods a week being a volunteer. So when the kids have nowhere to go the first teacher that is looked to is me. In a normal uncontrollable/emergency situation I would be completely fine with this. After all I am here to help but it got to the point that I would have the same kids in my classroom for three whole hours because there were no other teachers present to teach them or watch them. Had I been notified that I would take over a certain teacher’s classes for a whole week I would have prepared extra lessons for kids. I was never notified until the period started so what ended up happening was I babysat the kids. Half their teachers weren’t there to give them work and there is 5 hours outside of school that is set aside for mandatory study time so the kids had nothing to do but sit there causing trouble resulting in them not doing anything educational in school and me not being able to do anything while actually IN school. I tried to stay a step ahead of the game but when I would prepare extra lessons and extra work the kids would refuse to do it or refuse to come to my class. They would find another teacher that wouldn’t make them do anything then come and bother me because they were bored and doing nothing. No one was present to discipline the kids or keep them in line so I fought a loosing battle for a good 2 months.

3pm-430pm (Mondays and Wednesdays) – Volleyball Coach

Against my pleas and promises that I knew nothing about athletics I found myself as volleyball coach. There were actually three coaches but the other two failed to show up more times than they were there which left me flying solo with maybe a ball and/or a net, maybe not. Okay boys lets um do leg workouts. Okay run a lap, okay lets talk about sportsmanship and teamwork. Lets work on communication skills. I had a whistle and a loud voice but I’ll just recap the season as a fail. Nonetheless, the boys had fun, I think

After school – Tutor

Teachers being absent meant that lessons could not be taught meaning the kids had to learn the material and do the work without an actual teacher. The kids all know I am good with math and sciences so multiple times a week I had kids running to me terrified they were going to fail grade 8 because they did not understand why letters were now being used in their math books.

Nights and Weekend – Banking Services

Being stuck in a village for a month it can be really hard to budget your money if you don’t know anything about saving. Saving is not a value that many kids are taught by their parents so when they arrive at school for a month with money from home its all gone within a week or two and they are stuck. Then it turns into Miss Riley can I have 5$ to go to the movie night with everyone, Miss Riley I need 30$ to get home, Miss Riley I’m so hungry I just want a 10$ for bread. Instead of free handouts of food, money, soap, whatever I tell them they can have the amount of money they need if I get their cell phone or school shoes or something personal of value that I know they will want back. I lent kids money before and I was out like 150$ at the end of term one so now I have a system. It works quite well until I found out one of the cell phones that a kid gave to me for 10$ was in fact stolen from a girl in the hostel. Well that was a fail but his punishment was no more Miss Riley banking.

I also have a few kids give me their money after coming home so that 1) it doesn’t get stolen and 2) so that it doesn’t burn a hole in their pocket.

Nights/Weekends/Holidays – Cruise Director

I use the term cruise director in reference to my mother who always plans fun events and activities when friends and family come to stay at “Resort Riley”. Becoming my mother in yet another aspect I now consider myself the Cruise Director of the hostel and school. Being a teenager living in the middle of nowhere Namibia and not allowed to leave the hostel gates except on one weekend a month would drive anyone flipping bonkers. I don’t show it but I truly feel bad for these kids. I remember all the different things and activities I was involved in as a teenager and how it helped to balance my schoolwork and my students have none of it so what I have tried to do give them something to do in their free time. There’s only so many Harry Potter and Hunger Games books that grab kids attention so most of the time it is a movie night with the school’s projector (I know SO Peace Corps right) and if I’m feeling really generous with my time, I will make them popcorn to sell (Kelley Riley Popcorn to be exact).  Other events offered are sports activities, workout videos, cleaning Ms. Riley’s flat and doing some of her wash.

Random Times and Days – Doctor/Nurse

My kids are violent, they’re mostly city kids with dark pasts and so you throw them all in a hostel together with hormones they punch walls, scratch each other, and bash each others faces. At 8pm just last Thursday night I had a kid at door with blood running down his hand. He punched a wall and needed a Band-Aid. Okay here are two, don’t punch walls any more. Sometime they fell playing soccer and a simple Band-Aid wont help at all but like every little kid, its like a miracle drug and all of a sudden they are all better.

About a month ago I had a girl who fell and knocked her head on a concrete step. Okay come in, sit down let me look at your eyes, here’s an ice pack (which is actually a bag of spirit alcohol I purchased in Malawi for purposes like this), talk to me for a half hour, let me assess if you have a concussion, no you’re good. Just take some pain pills and take it easy.

Flu season was pretty bad. That was lots of hot water with lemon. Miss my head is paining and I don’t feel good. Okay how long has it hurt, how much water did you drink today, you need to drink more and take some pain pills before bed and try to sleep early.

There was one day during study where a kid came up to me asking if he could sit with a girl to get something out of his hand. There was the Namibia equivalent of a sliver in his hand meaning it was a microscopic thorn that had broken off in his hand when he as playing soccer in the location. It was his writing hand and he said it hurt a lot so I said yes if she could get it out okay that’s fine just stay quiet. Wait do you have tweezers? No can I go outside to get the thing she uses? She’s really good, she knows what to do. Okay whatever just don’t talk. Well the kid brings back an acacia thorn. For those of you who don’t know they are extremely long and strong thorns and getting one in your shoes unexpectedly pretty close to stepping on a Lego. Well the girl tries for about a half hour and gives up, no luck. Miss can you please try. Okay fine come here. I do not know how I did it but I managed to extract the microscopic thorn using the same kind of thorn that was in his hand. I felt like nurse of the year with that one, the kid was so happy and I felt really warm and fuzzy inside.

Weekends – Big Sister/Mentor/Life Coach

Most weekends kids are bored so they stop by to say hi but more often than not they come over with a story or a question. These range from girl fights, to troubled pasts, to bad friends, to relationships, to sex questions.

Ah Miss these girls in the hostel they are all two-faced and talk about you behind your back. Yeah well unfortunately it doesn’t get better as you get older, there will always be people that don’t like you and that say bad things all you gotta do is learn to keep your head up.

Miss theres this girl that I like but the problem is she has another boyfriend who she doesn’t want to break up with because he has a heart problem and she doesn’t want to make him sick. Okay hun you are too young to date and even if you do like where are you gonna go? You’re not allowed to leave the hostel grounds or even have relationships in the hostel. Go write me an essay about it.

Miss you know a lot of like stuff right? Like these STI’s or whatever? Well theres a guy at the hostel who has a something on his something and everyone is saying is herpes. Okay well it could be that or another infection, but it could also just be a pimple, it happens but if it starts to hurt or grow he needs to go right to the clinic. Okay thanks Miss.

I even had one day where there were three large boys at my door at 1130 in the morning asking for their essay books and toothpaste. These were not the most dedicated of students and it was a Thursday and there was no school, some holiday that meant everyone got the day off,.1130am, three extremely large boys asking for toothpaste and homework why? They were drunk as skunks and thought it was funny. Between breakfast at 630am and right at that moment these boys managed to leave the hostel grounds get their hands on a fifth of whiskey and finish it before coming back to school. I was furious, not only at them and their stupidity (actually one was 18 so he was technically legally allowed to drink) but also for the lack of security and supervision on the part of the adults at the hostel. They wanted the toothpaste to mask the smell but I knew that even if I gave it to them it wasn’t going to help much. Now with them showing up at my door, I was either an accomplice or the one to rat them out. These boys would be expelled from the hostel and unable to attend school to finish the term if anyone found out they had been drinking. I began to interrogate them: who let you leave the hostel, how long were you gone, who did you buy it from, where did you drink it, WHY DID YOU COME TO MY HOUSE IN THIS STATE HAVEN’T YOU LEARNED ANYTHING, WHY, WHY, WHY? Their answer: Miss, its because we trust you. We’re not going to make any trouble, we were bored, had nothing to do, and wanted to have some fun. We just wanted you to help us with some toothpaste and we are going to bed. I ended up not ratting them out, because while I realized it would have been the correct “adult” thing to do, these boys trusted me. They skipped my class most Fridays, would sleep on other days, one of them once threw a dead bird into my classroom, and not one teacher trusted them to do anything productive ever, but they trusted me and the last thing I wanted to do was break that. I wanted to make sure that in the event that they really screwed up, that they knew they could come to me for genuine help. In the end, it was a good gesture and I really thought I was going to get somewhere with these boys but since then all three have been expelled from the hostel or other incidents and only two returned to finish school. Well I tried.

Days are long and many are tough. You get defeated a lot but you also win a lot. Its not easy filling so many roles and being pulled in so many directions but it is worth it. Even if I only write one blog post a term…