First Day of "Work"

Considering school starts on Monday, I still know very little about what I’m actually going to be doing here. I wake up each morning and have no idea if I’m going to be needed at work or not. I still don’t know how many hours per week I’m teaching, how many classes I have, what level they’re at, and what days and times they are.

So today, when Redi walked in after lunch and said “Come, Professora Helena, we’re going to school to go make the curriculum for the first trimester,” I followed, feeling quite apprehensive. I have no idea how to plan a curriculum, and the official books of Mozambique are of little use. What grammatical points are you supposed to teach when the only prompt is “common problems with traditional and modern agriculture in Mozambique”? (And that’s for a beginner class – I think that’a tad optimistic.)  I was having horrible visions of me sitting in front of an empty paper with an equally empty brain, while other teachers furiously plan away, my director thinking disappointedly “Why is the Peace Corps wasting our time with this useless excuse for a teacher?”

That fear is still very much alive, but I got through the day and it went all right. Turns out “planning the curriculum” means “copying last year’s curriculum and changing the dates.” And even though the dates all say school starts next week, all the teachers were seemingly ignoring that fact because apparently, no one comes to school during the first week of classes. That takes some of the pressure off – at least I can ease into teaching.

I’m still very nervous though. What am I going to do with a half-empty class for the first week? How am I going to plan productive lessons around the very un-productive national curriculum? What if my students never show up? What if they don’t like me? What if I don’t like them? What if no one understands my weird American accent? What if no one understands my Portuguese when I try to explain my weird American accent?  What if they ask questions and I don’t know what they’re asking? What if, what if, what if?

I have a feeling the next couple of weeks are going to be incredibly stressful and exhausting. I keep telling myself that I’m lucky. They say the first three months at site are the hardest, and so far it’s been very manageable. No major curveballs yet. So if it’s only going up from here, well, I think I’ll be OK.  

 I hope.