Brick Walls

I'm not sure what kind of impression I've been giving of life here so far, but it hasn't been without difficulties.  Being sent to teach without any training or experience in a culture that I didn't (and still don't) understand has had a few set backs.  It's fairly standard procedure for me to do everything all of the wrong ways until I eventually find the right way, or at least a less painful way.  Sometimes it feels like I am trying to get through a brick wall by pounding my head against it only to find out there is an open gate around the corner that someone failed to mention was there.  Assigning homework without text books, writing tests on the board to save paper, and setting up labs without materials or attention spans longer than two seconds give me troubles from time to time.  But I have a hard head and recover pretty quickly, so things are getting better.  Not to worry, this weekend I found another brick wall, and instead of just pounding my head against it, I ran face first into it at full speed.  The drama club, of which I am the patron, wanted to perform.  Demanding aren't they.  Well, they don't have much experience with scripted plays and wanted an example to follow so we invited a drama group to perform with them so maybe they could learn something.  The preparations leading up to the event actually went really well...too well, perhaps.  The students planned and rehearsed a few songs to perform.  While they were rehearsing, I managed to get the sound system in the hall working after the Sisters intsisted it was beyond hope.  It wasn't really much of an accomplishment.  I didn't do any more than plug everything in and turn it on which left me confused as to why everyone else deemed it a lost cause.  Everything was set with the drama club from Blantyre, posters were delivered to prominent locations, an announcement was made at a town meeting the night before, and the students even prepared mendasi, doughnuts, to sell before and after the show.  The problem came when the day of the performance arrived...and people didn't.  We waited 2 hours pasted the scheduled starting time which  even accounted for Malawian Time and only 8 people from outside the school showed up.  The other drama group was anxious to start so we went ahead and performed for the Bakhita students and the 8 people from town.  The delayed starting time must have thrown everyone off because after that everything was disorganized at best.  But I ran around trying my best to keep it moving hoping that it would end soon.  We had a deal with the Blantyre group to share the money with them, but when we only made enough to cover their transportion costs, I gave it all to them.  The girls weren't really happy about it especially since they didn't think the play was even worth the money we paid, but as I said, I just wanted it to end.  Plus, they mananged to sell most of the mendasi to the students and made money that way.  After it was all over, I recovered pretty quickly and wasn't down about how it went espcially when I found out later that we were trumped by a football game in town and a wedding featuring the Alleluya Band (I'll explain later).  Plus, we performed like we wanted and even made some money for the club.  The students seem resilient so I'm sure they'll recover too.  I have my "You did your best, you should be proud, it was out of our control speech" all ready to go.