Take the Bad with the Good

So this week I worked with two wonderful teachers for four days at Chimutu Full Primary School. I thought we had a great time, and we did. We talked about some really serious issues and debated everything from gender roles to teaching methods. We also talked about our families, personal goals, and present realities. The standard 7 teachers assured me they would continue to teach what they’d learned with World Camp this week.

But today, after getting home after our final day, one of our translators told me the teachers thought I didn’t care about them. They had wanted to be paid for their time but weren’t. They were upset I hadn’t checked in with the headteacher every morning when we arrived and every afternoon when we left. They also wanted me to update him on our daily activities. (In my defense, they pointed this out to me on the second day and I checked in every time after that but he never asked about our activities and I never told him). They also thought I served them Sobo from the same cups we used for our deforestation demonstrations, the same cups that hundreds of kids have touched and sit on the dirt floor of every classroom they’re used in.

Yet they told me none of this. They didn’t ask me for money (which I wouldn’t have given but would gladly have explained why we didn’t provide a stipend), they went to a Field Staff. They didn’t tell me they’d wanted me to keep the headmaster up-to-date on our program. They didn’t ask whether the cups were the same or not, they just assumed. And they concluded I hadn’t respected them enough to bring clean cups for Sobo.