Sunday, March 13, 2005
Saturday, March 12
Yesterday was money day. I bought supplies for the Economic Empowerment course – decent pens and spiral notebooks for all students and instructors. Flip charts, markers and tape for all the instructors, and – extravagance – flip chart stands at $130 each. All this stuff is really nice but superfluous. It wasn’t in the original budget, but we sent fewer people for training than I anticipated, and more of the training costs were picked up by TechnoSeve than I expected. I want both the instructors and the students to feel that they are participating in something special, so thought this is an OK use of the project funds. The total came to $620 – a lot of money here in Africa.
I also want to give the instructors a little more money than I told them they would get - $1.25 per session instead of $1.00 per session.
I also took out the $1,500 that the Peace Corps had provided in advance of the grant money, and sent it back to HQ by EMS. That was expensive – their fee was $47.50, and the bank charged another $10 to take more than $1000 out of a savings account. But it is only money....
My own finances have been running close to the ragged edge since I got back from London in December. Without a working debit card, I can’t call on my own bank account in the US as a safety net. So I hung around town until early evening, when I could call my bank (eight hours time difference) to arrange an electronic transfer to my account here. Took out $700 which is probably ‘way too much and stupid because I will get hurt on the exchange rate, but there it is.
Otherwise – teaching is going fairly smoothly these days, since the non-students dropped chemistry. I am spending one day a week on classroom work, and one day a week in the laboratory, doing volumetric titrations. The idea was for each student to do their own titrations, but we don’t have enough equipment and while my department chairman is being very helpful – unlike last year – he makes up the solutions and never makes enough. So many of the students still end up watching their friends do the work. They will get killed in the National Exam, when they have to do it themselves. So it goes.
The classroom work is dull. They call it “theory,” but it is just writing reactions on the board for them to copy and supposedly memorize. On the whole they like it – it is what they are used to. After one of my classes this week, the students practically cheered, because they thought I had taught so well and given them so much information. Then I went into the very next class and did the same thing, and ran into a buzz saw. “Mr. Lee, don’t write that stuff on the board, we can get that from other notebooks, just come in and talk about the chemistry.” Much as I would LOVE to do that, they do NOT have the books or resources, and so I will continue to teach like a Tanzanian.
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So now Tony Blair’s African Commission has released its conclusions and recommendations on how Africa can halve its poverty rate by 2015. I gather that it calls for reducing official corruption (GREAT goal and ESSENTIAL, but HOW?), writing off national indebtedness (excellent), eliminating trade and agricultural subsidies that work against 3rd world countries (ESSENTIAL), making free education available to all (excellent), encouraging entrepreneurs (my PET issue) and doubling the international aid destined for Africa. Of course, it is the request for a massive increase in aid that is getting the headlines. And it is a HORRID idea - I can just imagine all the government leaders and aid recipients already in the Mercedes showrooms, drooling all over themselves. The donors will finally get frustrated at the waste and stop the money flow, and meanwhile corruption will just be that much more deeply entrenched.
Yesterday was money day. I bought supplies for the Economic Empowerment course – decent pens and spiral notebooks for all students and instructors. Flip charts, markers and tape for all the instructors, and – extravagance – flip chart stands at $130 each. All this stuff is really nice but superfluous. It wasn’t in the original budget, but we sent fewer people for training than I anticipated, and more of the training costs were picked up by TechnoSeve than I expected. I want both the instructors and the students to feel that they are participating in something special, so thought this is an OK use of the project funds. The total came to $620 – a lot of money here in Africa.
I also want to give the instructors a little more money than I told them they would get - $1.25 per session instead of $1.00 per session.
I also took out the $1,500 that the Peace Corps had provided in advance of the grant money, and sent it back to HQ by EMS. That was expensive – their fee was $47.50, and the bank charged another $10 to take more than $1000 out of a savings account. But it is only money....
My own finances have been running close to the ragged edge since I got back from London in December. Without a working debit card, I can’t call on my own bank account in the US as a safety net. So I hung around town until early evening, when I could call my bank (eight hours time difference) to arrange an electronic transfer to my account here. Took out $700 which is probably ‘way too much and stupid because I will get hurt on the exchange rate, but there it is.
Otherwise – teaching is going fairly smoothly these days, since the non-students dropped chemistry. I am spending one day a week on classroom work, and one day a week in the laboratory, doing volumetric titrations. The idea was for each student to do their own titrations, but we don’t have enough equipment and while my department chairman is being very helpful – unlike last year – he makes up the solutions and never makes enough. So many of the students still end up watching their friends do the work. They will get killed in the National Exam, when they have to do it themselves. So it goes.
The classroom work is dull. They call it “theory,” but it is just writing reactions on the board for them to copy and supposedly memorize. On the whole they like it – it is what they are used to. After one of my classes this week, the students practically cheered, because they thought I had taught so well and given them so much information. Then I went into the very next class and did the same thing, and ran into a buzz saw. “Mr. Lee, don’t write that stuff on the board, we can get that from other notebooks, just come in and talk about the chemistry.” Much as I would LOVE to do that, they do NOT have the books or resources, and so I will continue to teach like a Tanzanian.
////
So now Tony Blair’s African Commission has released its conclusions and recommendations on how Africa can halve its poverty rate by 2015. I gather that it calls for reducing official corruption (GREAT goal and ESSENTIAL, but HOW?), writing off national indebtedness (excellent), eliminating trade and agricultural subsidies that work against 3rd world countries (ESSENTIAL), making free education available to all (excellent), encouraging entrepreneurs (my PET issue) and doubling the international aid destined for Africa. Of course, it is the request for a massive increase in aid that is getting the headlines. And it is a HORRID idea - I can just imagine all the government leaders and aid recipients already in the Mercedes showrooms, drooling all over themselves. The donors will finally get frustrated at the waste and stop the money flow, and meanwhile corruption will just be that much more deeply entrenched.
