Fleas, back pain and sleep deprivation are the highlights of this week. I have a stunning collection of flea bites all over my right hip, probably from the chairs in our house. We have to spray the furniture regularly and usually Gill is the flea and bed-bug victim. Suddenly I seem to be tasty. After recovering from a week of tonsillitis, I woke up in the early hours of Monday morning with painful cramp all over my upper back. I couldn’t find a comfortable position and the pain just seemed to spread. I had to resort to a very hot shower which fortunately seemed to unlock my back muscles. Not for long however, and I eventually had to get up. Once I was up and about, my back relaxed. Gill reckoned there was a problem with our mattress, but turning it round and also sleeping on the floor last night made no difference: around 4am I wake up crippled with pain which only hot water will fix. So this evening I’m anxiously anticipating another sleepless night. I can only assume that the stress and frustration of working here is getting to me.

After a night of back-misery Monday started with the college experiencing the most wildly varying electricity supply I’ve seen so far. Unfortunately I only realized just how varying when I turned on the Cluster Unit PC only for smoke to waft out followed by the stench of burning plastic. Replacing the burned out PC power unit should have been simple, given the spares that Jordan (IT vol) has collected together, but my PC would have to be the only one in the college with a power unit with different connectors to all the other units in the college. Of course, the voltage surge protector that the PC was plugged into survived unscathed. The college lost another PC, a photocopier and several power lines as well. Apparently the electricity supplier was delivering 350V in some places!

Despite all that I have managed to achieve something. I visited Atse Bekafa school on Tuesday and observed one of the science lessons. After a shaky start the lesson turned out to be quite good with lots of encouraging signs. This teacher clearly wanted to try and put into practice what we had explored in the last batch of training. Today I visited Azezo Elementary School and observed a Grade 8 Physics lesson. Again, despite some rough edges, there was clear evidence of a teacher thinking and responding to the difficulties of the students. As usual, visiting schools is positive while trying to get anything done in the college is like pulling teeth. I’ve started another round of arranging-a-meeting-which-the-instructor-doesn’t-turn-up-for game. Two more days of training for science teachers are supposed to take place next Friday and Saturday, but trying to get together with college instructors to develop the training collaboratively is a real drag. Maybe we do actually care more than the college does. Still, Hiwot, who worked with me on the previous two days of science training, is consistently keen and helping me to retain some belief that there are people who do want to try and make a difference. Unfortunately our combined efforts today were thwarted by the non-appearance of a college lab assistant.

Steve dropped by this morning and I inflicted a cup of college tea on him. We had an interesting chat about the merits of aiming for individual capacity building compared to institutional capacity building. I increasingly think that VSO are aiming too high, and the institutional capacity building aim is not succeeding, even though many people on an individual level clearly do get something from working with us.

On the plus side, the kids at Azezo school today were great. While I was waiting in the Supervisors office, several small kids poked their heads in the room to get a look at the Ferenji. Their fascinated stares were transformed into excited and embarrassed looks when I looked up and noticed them. They would linger for a moment, break into a beaming smile and then run off giggling. They love it when a Ferenji visitor comes to their school. I suppose its like a semi-mythical creature dropping in from some mystical world they have only heard snippets about. All they want is the thrill of eye contact: the Ferenji noticed me!!