Bitterjug’s blog

Had a better day yesterday; made a student cry in my class.

It’d been a Javascript class and it had gone fairly well. I asked my students if they had any questions for me. Of course they did not, so I said I’d ask them questions (I like to do something at the end […]

My friend from Nguluni told me there was a church carved out of the rock at Koma. I’d already spied the grotesque statue of Mary and Jesus on the hill from the road. Last weekend we headed out with a few extras who invited themselves on the trip.

It’s about 17 km to Koma rock I […]

Another semi-random snapshot from my inbox today:

This one from Theresa: the Peace Corps volunteer associated with the college. It shows me and Katie (Peace Corps volunteer located in Tala) outside the humungous Ngong Hyper Nakumatt supermarket in Nairobi. We’re there, naturally enough, between the giant Lucosaid bottle and the rusty elephant. Karibu Nairobi.
Thanks Theresa!

Guess what turned up in my inbox today:

a lucky escape!
I gave the key itself to Prof Mungbean some time in the past and he just forwarded it back to me (as it were). It has made me very happy: I could do with an escape from this place.

I’ve had a couple of temper tantrums this week, rather out of character for me. I’m wondering what it was all about.

The first was on wednesday after doing a warm up and dancing through the shim sham song I asked who was going to join in and, despite a thick deposit of sudents round the […]

Thats what I told Lily today.
My class sat with their notebooks open at the first page waiting for me to say or write something they could write down. I was trying to engate their brains but some of them had their pens in their hands and were just sitting quietly letting me do the […]

Term has started again. In fact it started last week. Despite efforts there were either timetables or students unavailable. This week I had a short conversation with the students I will be teaching the Cisco course to and finally today, right now, my first class…
… but the timetable changed again and my first class is, […]

Its common for matatus to be plastered with little stickers containing “witty” or religeious phrases. I saw one yesterday which said:
HE WHO THINKS THERE IS A PROBLEM GET BUSY SOLVING IT
At first I took this to be an encouraging exhortation to problem solving.
Then I thought again.

Problem-solving is a precious comoddity in Kenya and, […]

Lake Nakuru, famous for its pink birds.

Masai Mara
Mark and Rena get aboard a flip-top Nissan van and head for the Mara with all the other safari vehicles.

“Only in Kenya — We’ve got Lions!”

Someone took a whole bag of lions and emptied it under a tree. There are about fourteen here; I didn’t get out and count […]