I forgot to put on the electric blanket!

Dammit!   It's 9.04pm.   We've finished a bottle of wine and I've forgotten to put on the electric blanket. 

Not to worry, I'll pick a number out of a hat to find out what  the temperature is.   We're not sweating, the fan is keeping us cool and I'm wearing a pair of shorts, a t-shirt and bare feet.  I guess it must be about 32`C!
We won't need the electric blanket after all.

Our friends from Tasmania and England will totally understand the gist of this bizarre piece of writing.  ( I hope.)

A Bit about the School and my Students.

Photos of the school grounds taken from both ends of the soccer ground which takes up nearly all of the playing area.

Glenn is teaching Grade 5 with 17 kids and I'm on Grade 4 with 16 students so far.   Our classrooms are next to each other behind the goal post and next to the toilets, which on days when the water has been cut off, get very stinky. The school day starts at 12am, we have a break for 20 minutes recess at 2pm and finish at 5pm.  

The day is divided into 40 minute lessons and a hand pressed bell signifies the change-over.   We have 3 to 4 lessons a day which we don't have to take and it works out really well.  It gives us preparation and marking time and generally we don't feel exhausted at the end of the day.

      

Here are my 16 delightful children.    

The girls are gorgeous and the boys are scatty but are easily encouraged to do the right thing.   They are dressed in the sports uniform.   I'm wearing the mandatory blue pants, white shirt and a red scarf.

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Some of my students eating their lunch in the classroom at 2 pm. 

 

It's so hot outside but inside the classrooms the four fans in the ceiling keep the room cool, so the girls and the non-soccer playing boys, eat inside for the whole of the 20 minutes Recess break.   Some of the parents arrive at the door with their hot meals on plates.  Plenty of food shows both love and wealth to these people.  The soccer players arrive back inside dripping in sweat at the end of recess.

Attacking the Mosquitoes!

Glenn was tired of me complaining about all the mosquito bites I was getting in our home both day and night, even when I was sleeping.     There were gaps in the walls  above the windows where you could fit your fist and the mosquitoes where flying through in swarms.   We spent hours filling up the gaps with newspaper and and then covering holes in the flyscreens with grey electrical tape.

Glenn, hammering flywire over the front screen door.     

Glenn went off on his bike early one morning and found a shop nearby where they repaired flyscreens and a man called Melvin, who turned out to be Vanessa's cousin, ( they're all related) followed him back home the same morning before 9 o'clock to see what we needed and gave a price of $30 for 6 new screens. 

He brought a young boy with him and they took out all the delapidated flyscreens, ripping out all the grey tape from the gaps. I stood by with my mouth ajaw feeling devestated after all the work we'd done with the tape, remembering our experience with our window in Cofradia. ( That took a weekend to get fixed and we were left with a huge hole in our bedroom wall for 2 days!) 

Melvin promised he'd be back with the flyscreens in an hour.   He returned very close to the time and his boy, who worked while Melvin talked, had them replaced in a very short time.   We found another screen that needed repairing which the boy then carried back to the shop on his bike.  The next day he and another boy arrived to  fix our back flywire door  and replace the other flyscreen for $8.   That included putting aluminium round the frame of the door to cover up the gaps and a new latch .   We've now replaced the grey tape around the other gaps in the windows and the door now closes perfectly keeping out most of the mosquitoes( except for those that sneak through when we open the door.)  

 The two young men measuring up the aluminium on our kitchen floor. 

They were very happy with  several drinks and some watermelon and a tip of $1 extra a day.  Their income would be $25 a day normally for their work.

I'm now sleeping more easily at night with far less mosquito bites.  I'm only attacked by mosquitoes in the classroom now and I keep those away with my bottle of Australian Rid!