Bitterjug’s blog

Im in an internet cafe in Nairobi (one KES per minute). In most (but not all) browsers you should be able to hold the mouse over the Swahili words (they should be green and italic) and the English translation will pop-up, don’t click, it doesn’t do anything. Try it heer: nzuri sana!.
I’m in Nairobe this […]

I’m writnig this one from the VSO office in Nairibi. Today is my first trip back to the city since I was here two weeks ago for my In Country Training. Got a lift here wtih Sister Euphemia who was, I think, going to visit the auditors. I travelled in the back of a […]

Im happy!
I just had my first class. I talked to the four girls in the “Advanced PC Maintenance” class about their tests, we went through the first few questions. I talked about the non-volatile ram inside a computer, what it stores and what that information is used for; I talked about booting a computer […]

This is just a quick one to make sure I have set the timezone properly now. Its just after five pm here now, everyone with a life has left the computer lab. I’m off next.

I just had a disagreement, though a very plesantly handled one, wiht one of the staff here about how to mark a continuous assessment test (CAT) that the girls had taken.
The test content was derived from a past exam paper. The exams are set by the university who accredit our diploma course. The situation […]

Thought it was time to stop blogging about what I miss and talk a bit about what I am enjoying out here.
Last night I enjoyed a walk to the market with James and his wife Pauline (not to be confused with Sr. Pauline) two other IT teachers at the college. Tuesday and Friday are market […]

And another thing…
Cuddles

Its not culturally appropriate even for a man and his wife to walk holding hands in public. Men walk together holding hands some times, men and women never. I get to shake the hands of many of the male teachers each morning. Apart from that physical contact isn’t obviously approipriate and neither would […]

I miss the accent

British English. I have managed to tune in to the BBC World Service at last. The signal is weak so I have had to attach a piece of wire (the power cable from my walkman with the power plug cut off, in fact, but more of that later) to the antenna […]

This morning I was visited by a small snake. Everyone seems to think I should have killed it to prevent it from coming back when it is bigger, but I did not.

In the ‘more’ section below is a map of the countries in the world that I have visited. I got it from Thaths, we […]

No visitors last night, neither at my dor nor down my chimney. Unless you cound the small ants who crawled over my copy of The Guardian Weekly while I completed one clue from the cryptic crossword (of which, alone, I feel more proud than of completing all bar two words in the quick one).
This morning […]