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Today I was back teaching to various degrees of success. All the lessons went well and were enjoyed although in the last two, no-one paid attention to what I was saying. In one of the activities, everyone has a puzzle to make out of a country`s flag. Afterwards one group has to come to the front of the class with the flag such as Japan. The class says, “Where are you from?” They answer, “I am from Japan” They find Japan on the map. They sit down. Easy. This is my life. Today however in the tiresome lesson, the only people saying where are you from were me and the teacher. Everyone else was talking, shouting and generally ignoring us. The five kids at the front were even too afraid to say anything even though nobody was paying the slightest bit of attention. “I actually said to them “Look, nobody is even looking at you. Just fucking say it!” They just stared blankly in incomprehension at me then mumbled “I am Japan” “That`ll do. Thank you very much and sit down.” I sighed.

Lunch was provided today by the school. I got to sit in the classroom and eat with them. It was soup with bread. I broke the bread up and spread them around the soup and the kids looked at me as if it was the first time they`d seen a light bulb work. Of course if I had two good classes and one bad class who do you think I got to eat with? Of course it was the bad one. A kid showed me to my seat by saying Oi and pointing to the chair. I felt like slamming his head through it. During lunch they were a lot better and I made conversation and played cards with them for a bit. Don`t get me wrong as I had quite a good day today. Just those last two lessons.

I got a call this evening asking me to work tomorrow. I was supposed to have tomorrow off but I could have kissed them. I need to make money. I`m doing the easy numbers lessons to the lovely fifth graders but in the afternoon I am teaching a lesson I haven`t done yet as it is very short notice. It is about words such as Left, Right and Straight Ahead. We have roughly sketched out some activities and it will be interesting to see how they work out. I invented a game called Blind man handshake. You blindfold a kid, put four or five others around the room and get the others to shake their hands by saying step forwards, turn left, shake hands etc. Tomorrow read how Simon`s blind man handshake was scrapped and we played other, far more fun and educational game designed by coordinator.