Having signed on to do whatever was required of us, resulted in the Indonesian education system (especially grade three maths) being set back 10 years.
After morning prayers, it is expected that the medical staff will report to the hospital/clinic by 0800, Kevyn, tracks down the maintenance 'manager' to see what is on the agenda, and Andrew has ended up in the school. As there is s severe shortage of teachers here at the moment, Esther, the director, who is not a trained teacher, is trying to keep the school open.
Some of the Grade three class
With a three second briefing, Andrew was landed in a grade three class with 17 little souls. Mostly all by himself. His mission has ranged from maths concepts such as scale, measuring a tv (diaganolly) then order of the values. Then there was the bahasa Ingrish session. The children have amazing grasp of English. Why teach the children English? It was explained to us that if these children have another language they have an enormously greater opportunity to expand their studies and opportunities after school. Many of the students are orphans, some are children of the workers, and some are paying ( they'd want their money back for today) customers from the local village.
The food
As previously described, the food is local fare, but we suspect that the visitors are given the lion's share of the better quality stuff.
Breakfast is taken at the house and usually consists of sweet bread toast, with jam and fruit. Hot water is one of the taps from the water 'cooler' bottle. Tap water is a big no no. The water is imported in the big bottles from the bore at the mission.
Lunch at midday, is taken at the communal hall, and can consist of boiled rice, fish bits in hot water (soup Nathalie tells me)' fried chicken bits, beans with lots of spices, fresh cucumber, and fruit.
Dinner at 1800 hrs, in same place is pretty much same as lunch.
I'd be thinking that weight putting-on will not be a residual issue from this expedition.
The medical side
O. K the secret will be shortly out. Nathalie does not write all of this blog... So the medical side is somewhat brief.
And then
After teaching, Andrew and Kevyn, watched Anke, the maintenance manager and his team, pull up an immersion pump from one of the 35 m bores on the property. It was no easy task, but as easy as it could have been with a crane, winches, and a clear area, this was done with much enginuity and many hands, the full length of the galvanised pipe and pump was pulled up, pump replaced rewired, and the whole lot put back down the hole.
Then we finished fixing the linen cupboards in the hospital. If Jerry had a failed apprentice, he would have been the one to have built this cupboard. No two screws were the same, all the hinges were skewed, and the locks were all broken. Fixed as they are, I doubt that they will last 12 months.
We then briefed the boss about having the cupboards cleaned out properly. The wasp nests on the top of the cupboard was indicative of the scheduled maintenance in place.
There is little initiative in the system here, as one would expect in Melbourne, everyone has a very narrow job description, and does not see that things that need doing needs doing by them so it doesn't get done. Like whose job is it to clean the thick layer of dust from the bottom of the stores cupboard: like the need for contemporaneous complete and consistent patient notes. Sandie and Lisa, have tried for years to create a sense of initiative, but this seems to have fallen victim to lack of consistent close management and accountability of the staff.
Incongruous photo of Halmahera from the airplane
Another incongruous and non sequitur photo of Lexie.
No comments:
Post a Comment