And.... no. And movies

5 May 2007

Nope. No househelp. She never showed up. Apparently, as I learned from the headmaster this past Monday, a week after she was supposed to start work, he found out about some "bad behavior," apparently she hadn't told him that she has a husband she ran away from in Njombe, and a son too. I'm not sure whether the son is with her or him. He saw this as good reason not to hire her (she was to work part time for me and part time for the school) and told her not to show up.

Now, I do agree that she probably should have told him about these things when he interviewed her--I know he asked her quite a bit about her time in Njombe and all she said was that she took some secretarial classes--but my instinctive prejudices tell me that she probably had a very good reason to run away from her husband, and that now she probably needs help, such as employment. Unfortunately, now that the headmaster has nixed her, it would be bad form for me to go look for her to just work for me without first consulting with him. I'll try to do that, but he's only been in town for a handful of days in the last month. Sooner or later I will get househelp.

I brought a VHS copy of Pirates of the Caribbean to my school because I found out we do have a VCR. I watched it last Friday with the teachers, and then this past Monday (the day before the May 1st holiday) I watched it with the students--about 600 of them staring at a normal size TV in the auditorium/dining hall.

The reactions to the movie were a lot of fun. I will continue to bring movies, but my next choice will be a shorter movie. Even a movie as fun as Pirates got boring for those who couldn't understand it well (everyone but me). After the viewing with the teachers the head of the physics department (whom I have previously referred to as Evil Physics Teacher, but I think I'll downgrade now to Annoying Physics Teacher) asked me "Is it true? Is it true that skeletons can talk?" I assured him that it was not true and asked him how he liked the movie. "It was absolutely terrifying."

Most of the other teachers seemed to enjoy it more than be terrified, and the kids enjoyed it. Explaining the plot also gave my Kiswahili some interesting vocabulary such as gold, curse, and skeleton.

Speaking of movies, the wishlist is updated and (as I cringe to think about what the ex-PCVs reading this are thinking) I've added some movies that would be fun to have in Njombe, either VHS or DVD is good, but don't anyone spend much on these. They're just whims.