TEA COSYS AND DRESSING GOWNS!

November 27th 2008

Nearly every local here wears a hat, no matter how hot it is.They all look good too, however tatty, dirty or bizarre. They range from pink, wide brimmed straw ones with fruit and flowers sported by men young and old, to brightly coloured angora ones. The other day a man had one on that looked like a Christmas cracker hat - no joke attached!! If they haven't got a hat, they drape something over their head, from a sweater to a plastic bag!But I saw the ultimate yesterday, a gorgeous yellow and orange striped tea cosy, perched jauntily!I could tell by the holes for the handle and spout, which provided ventilation for the ears!Then there's the dressing gowns, which I suspect the local people think are coats, and obtain from the second hand clothes market.Pink quilted three quarter ones on men look the best, with full length candlewick coming a close second - very fetching!

When we have mildly commented about how many dogs there are around the compound and how noisy they are at night with the barking, the answer we usually get is that they are a good security measure, but we are confused by this, because they bark all the time.The other morning, Mr Notaclue said the previous night he had had some trainers taken from his veranda by a 'stealim man'.We asked him why the dog didn't bark to alert him.The answer was that because the dog barks all the time, he couldn't tell whether it was because of an intruder or not!!! DOH!!!

School is virtually non- existent at the moment.Most in the province have closed, through lack of money (how they cover the syllabus I don't know) and though we are open, there's hardly any teaching going on at all.Students are being used to lay concrete, so that the graduation hall will be ready on time, or not, as the case may be (let's get the priorities sorted out here!).We're being kept busy preparing for next year, as we are planning to run several head teacher conferences with pretty intensive follow-up work in the schools (when we can get to them!) and a new graduate teacher induction conference, soon after we return from Christmas holidays.

We had a bizarre procedure the other day, where all class lists were gone through to check who had been attending school and who hadn't, as Mr Incompetent hadn't a notion.During this ridiculous process, which took forever, a discussion ensued about a girl who had been absent for a while, had returned, and was then absent again.Apparently she had been 'messing around' with the pastor.Wife of pastor had promptly broken the student's jaw and put her into hospital.Apparently, she had no sooner returned to school after recovering, when the wife 'bashed her up' again, leading to more absence!!I'm wondering what happened to the pastor and whether he got 'bashed up' or not, but, as a man of god, he was probably exempt!

Finally on school matters, we were told to-day that two schools in the province have been accused of cheating in the final school exams.Will the heads be suspended?Probably not, just moved to another school where they can continue their good work.It looks as though Rev Weakness will be moving on, though we don't know about the other two prize monkeys, but we know what we think!!We heard of a situation the other day where a teacher had been employed at a school, who was the husband of an existing teacher at the school.He taught there until it was realised that he was claiming pay from his previous job as well as his current one!! Nice!!No wonder schools are short of money!

The exchange rate has deteriorated here considerably.We booked our tickets home about a month ago.The money was only taken out of our account last week-end and the amount had increased by nearly £700.00 - whew!!That was rather a blow, to put it mildly!However, we are looking forward to coming home.It's going to be a long trek though.We leave here early morning on Wednesday 3rd to catch a PMV to Goroka.If all goes well, we catch a plane from there to Port Moresby, where we overnight.Thursday afternoon, we catch a plane to Singapore where we have a 7 hour wait before catching a plane to Doha, 2 hours to wait there and then finally, the last plane to Heathrow, to arrive around midday.We decided it would be safer to fly from Goroka as the planes are usually more reliable from there.We were glad we weren't trying to get off last Tuesday from Kundiawa.We heard the plane arrive, but were a bit confused as it seemed to come from the wrong direction for some reason, then it turned to approach the landing strip (we can see all this from our balcony).However, it passed over the runway and proceeded to circle around.This was repeated 4 times before it eventually landed.It was still on the runway early evening.We later heard there was a technical fault and because it was likely to be a dicey landing, the pilot flew around several times to try to get rid of fuel in case of fire.So, we were very glad we weren't waiting to take off from here last Tuesday!We hope it won't be too cold when we come, as we have no warm clothes to speak of, so hope we can beg, borrow and steal.

Last Sunday morning, nice and early, we went for a walk, to avoid the heat and get some exercise.A lie-in is out of the question, as either Vitus (neighbour) is grizzling, his sisters are screaming, their father (Mr Incompetent) is bawling, or there's a gang of youngsters outside the house playing a lovely game together and yelling at the top of their voices!Walking is exhausting though - we responded to 193 'good morning' greetings!We didn't even walk through town, it was early, it was Sunday and we were only out for about 45 minutes!The people are so friendly, but sometimes, a bit of solitude would be welcome!

We have made considerable progress with the Senior Secondary Inspector, who has been somewhat elusive for the past year.We met with him to-day, but he was an hour late and we feared the worst and resigned ourselves to his not putting in an appearance.We knew that his vehicle was somewhat unreliable.He parks it on a hill facing downwards, because he has difficulty starting it.He explained that the steering is very 'wobbly' and the reason he was late was that his fuel gauge does not work and he had run out of fuel and had to walk to the meeting!However, he approved all our plans for next year and even suggested that it would be a good idea if we could put in some training for the education officers, inspectors etc.He's going to run some conferences with us and come with us when we visit some schools (it means he gets a free ride!) so that's looking positive for next year.However, he will have to learn that if we say we are leaving at 6am, we mean 6am and not midday, otherwise, he's going to miss his ride! We are a tad worried though, as he has a heart condition.We envisage getting stuck in some remote place when he decides to have a heart attack!!That's something we really could do without, so I hope he won't turn out to be a liability.I think we'd best brush up on our CPR, never mind the reform curriculum!

Yesterday, we walked to a special school resource centre.It was a very long way and coming back there were definitely more uphills than down.We returned in the midday heat and I thought I was going to explode!!When we got back, I leapt into a bucket shower - what a joy!Then, an animated yell issued from the nether regions, 'We have water in the taps!'It doesn't take much to get John excited these days!!We've been without for the best part of a week, so it was quite an occasion.

I had a bit of a shock though the other morning.It had just got light and the bed started shaking and when I looked over at John he was jerking all over the place - I thought he was having some sort of fit.But all was well, it was just an earth tremor!! One never knows what one will wake up to these days!!

Well, I think this will be the last blog until we return, but our hope is that we will get to see many of you whilst we are home.If we don't see you, then we hope you have a marvellous Christmas and a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.

We're now well and truly on countdown - Suffolk here we come!!!!!

Much love from those about to take to the skies!!

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