I had my last weekend of marathon teaching this weekend. At least until May or later. I know that there are many cultural differences that it is my job to adapt to, but I still can't help but feel frustrated when a student wanders up to the front of the class to me in the middle of my lecture, to ask to borrow my pen. On the whole though, most of the students are not like that- they are quite respectful and keen to learn. It is just a few of them that baffle me. Another baffling thing- whenever I give them an assignment to do (as I do in the last 3-4 hours of class when they work in pairs to do an exercise that is usually a hands on activity to practice the material I have lectured on), I literally have to TEAR the assignments out of their hands to get them to turn it in. And trust me, this is not because the assignment is too long or they didn't have enough time to do it. I've never had to literally go up to student after student after student (this is at 7pm when the class is over and I want to go home!) and tear their work from their clinging hands. And the thing is that when I grade them, it's not that they didn't finish. Nearly everyone has finished and done a fine (or good enough) job. There's just something about relinquishing their work that they struggle with! But as I have said, the students are very engaged and generally very interested in learning and so I feel privileged to teach students with this level of enthusiasm.
We are off to Nyungwe tomorrow! I'll be bringing up some of my equipment since it all won't fit in the car in one trip. Looking forward to finally seeing parts of the forest and meeting some of the other researchers. Just hope it doesn't storm like it has been storming here in the afternoon (close to 5cm of rain in an afternoon!) We even had some hail!
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