Whose Paying Money To Be Here?

Zam Zam, one of the teachers, comes into my class to send home all the children who have not paid their fees. They are supposed to leave and come back with the money. Half of my class leaves. I review homework and teach them the definition of the word “motivation.” As in, “When you don’t do your homework, I loose my motivation for being here.”

In my S2 class they were being a bit unruly. Exactly the same way middle schoolers are in the states. I was tired of talking over them so I just stopped and sat in my stool. Eventually I wrote on the board, “Whose time are you wasting?”

They get quiet. “Am I paying money to be here?” I ask.

“No.”

“Are you paying money to be here?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.. So it’s not my time you’re wasting, it’s yours? OK..”

That seemed to do the trick. Michael Clarke, the director of the Career Awareness Program that I worked for in New York, use to say the same thing. (not about paying..) “You can talk all day if you want, you’re not wasting my time. This camp is for you.”

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I get home and go straight to the nurses’ room to ask them how Mabel is. They are in the same clothes as last night; they just got back and are getting situated. They tell me that both of Mabel’s parents are watching after her in Kampala. They are happy with the doctor that is tending to her. They are testing her, but are pretty sure that she has pneumonia. They are also testing her for malaria and giving her a cat scan later today.