Exams are done!

EXAMS:
Well, we did it! The kids, Kim and I all survived our first set of exams in Eritrea. For the kids it meant learning a lot of things by heart as well as trying to figure out to do some math problems that they'd had very little practice with in class. They'll find out how they did on Saturday. We're proud of how hard they worked to prepare as I'm sure the whole experience was pretty stressful for them. These exams are worth 40% of their mark for the first half of the year.
Watching the exam process in my school was interesting. Here in Eritrea, you begin writing mid-year and final exams in grade 1! They mix up the classes so their are grade 1's through 11's in the same room writing hour long exams! Some of the little ones were writing on the seat because they couldn't reach the desk. I can't imagine kids back home sitting through 4 or 6 hour long exams. It's pretty amazing.
Kim and I didn't have to supervise exams but we hung around to answer students' questions when our exams were given. Most of our students did fairly well though several failed, not surprisingly as a few can't read and many rely on copying from their friends, during tests as well as in class. Cheating was pretty difficult during these exams as classes were small and grades were mixed up. I have a few girls who have under 50% as a final mark this term, so I'll top it up to 50 and offer them extra classes as I really don't want anyonen to fail.

THE ONGOING SAGA OF THE FRUIT TREES:
Here in Eritrea, many different fruit trees grow, including mango, papaya, orange, lime, and guava. But in our tremendously large yard, we have 4 fruit trees, with none of the fruits mentioned above growing on them. We have 3 gaba trees and one gwaza tree. The gaba and the gwaza are the two least appealing fruits I have ever eaten. The gaba is something like a crab-apple, only worse, and the gwaza is a small fruit that you peel open to get about 1/4 teaspoon of sticky sweet stuff out of. Unfortunately, these fruits are very appealing to the neighbourhood kids, who pester us endlessly to get into our compound and eat them. The first problem was with the gaba, because they grow next to our wall which the kids could climb on to reach the branches. The favourite pass-time of some of these kids is rock throwing, which, combined with coming into our yard all the time was very annoying. This all ended when I got hit in the back of the head with a rock thrown over the wall. The kids learned some very inappropriate words and Kim and I chased them but they got away. Then some neighbours tried to help us out by convincing our landlord that they could cut back the branches so the kids would stop climbing on our wall. Two local teenagers spent a couple afternoons hacking away then brought me proudly to see their work. They had chopped off all of the branches! We'll see if they grow back but we have our doubts, which is a real shame as they were nice trees. But at least no more kids are climbing on the walls. Now they just knock and knock on the the front gate and throw stones over the wall to knock the gwazas off the tree. With the gwaza tree we decided to try a different approach. In my horribly limited Tigrinha, I've told the kids that every day at three they can come together and collect gwazas, if they don't throw stones over the fence or knock and knock and knock on the gate all day long. We'll see how this works. Lukas really gets upset by it and doesn't want us letting them in at all and Simon has suggested that we get a BB-gun to deal with the problem. I'm hoping we can work it out in a more peaceful manner.

HOLIDAYS:
It's definitely cold now. Everyone is talking about it. A cold wind blows through town in the morning and at night. I wear a fleece jacket in the morning to get to school and at evening if I go out. I'm also appreciating for the first time how warm my headscarf keeps me! So it is a very good time for us to get away to the seaside where it is really hot. There have also been little things getting on my nerves that I'll be happy to have a break from. First there's , the time it takes to get everything done: picking through lentils for rocks, sifting flour to get out the worms and bugs, washing clothes by hand, sweeping the house several times a day to get out all the sand and dust that has blown in.... Second, there's those things that drive you crazy: like stepping on the round spiky things that get tracked into the house and that get embedded in your feet, putting up with the kids knocking on the gate and yelling "gwaza".... It really is time for a break I guess! We'll hopefully get the bus to Asab this coming Tuesday, if Saba is successful at getting tickets for us in Asmara today. (She's heading down to Masawa for a few days with her kids, the first time they'll see the ocean!) We may or may not have internet access in Asab next week, so you may not hear from us until we're back in Keren the following week.

KIM's JOKE: Kim has asked me to include a teacher's joke. A colleague of ours was asking about credit cards as he's filling out forms that ask for his credit card number. Of course, being a teacher with a salary that allows survival only, he doesn't have a credit card. We told him about how in Canada, many people are constantly in debt and live off their credit cards. He told us that the concept of credit doesn't exist in Eritrea. I asked about in stores, where sometimes you can ask to pay later for something you buy. He said that in many stores there's a sign that says, "There's no credit today. Credit tomorrow." When you come back the next day, the same sign is up.

THE MOUNTAIN: No, we still haven't climbed it!! Maybe this afternoon and maybe Sunday morning. When we get a chance to sleep it, it's always our first choice.

Guess that's all for now.

Barb