David Hasselhoff and marking in the dark

The T-shirts that find their way to Rwanda are fantastic. They certainly give me something to smile about when I’m crushed on some dying matatu bus, speeding by on a moto or simply stuck somewhere. They also remind me that there is still some work to do on teaching English out here. Some true jems that either myself or others have seen include ‘the village has lost its idiot’ (Stephen and Mary in Rwamagana); ‘drunk girls love me’ (me – Remera bus park) and ‘I am the Grinch who stole Christmas’ (me – Kimironko market). I also find it very funny when I see some big suited and booted guy walks past me with a tiny pink ‘Dora the explorer’ rucksack. Ah these cultural references...they have a lot to answer for. 

One of my favourite games recently has been to go to the market and try to find the most interesting/weird/outrageous t-shirt possible. So me, Lindsey and Kathy played this game at the weekend. Now one that caught my eye was David Hasselhoff . He was lying crumpled in a heap under an ‘I’m Irish’ t-shirt that I could have done with for St Patrick’s day. His cheesy grin and dodgy hairstyle just jumped out at me. Now I did bargain hard but I still think I was slightly ripped off. I tried to walk away but when the stall holder shouted ‘don’t leave David here!’ I crumbled. Poor guy, there’s no telling how long he had been there. And it’s quite weird walking around in a t-shirt that I wouldn’t be seen dead in back in the UK as no one other than me realises what a cheesy and ridiculous thing it is to wear. I have included a photograph just so you can see it for yourselves.

But alas that was the most fun I was to have all week. The rest of the time has been consumed by marking no fewer than 600 exam scripts. It took me three days of solid work to finish them and gave me a splitting headache. To make matters worse the power kept going off so I did quite a lot of it by torch light. And finding some of the names on the class lists in no mean feat. Rwandan names can be the best part of 10 syllables long and almost impossible for me to pronounce. And they are often spelled differently by the student to how they are written on the class list so there is definitely some guess work involved when it comes to identification. However, I’m all done now, just have a short meeting with the principal then I am a free woman for three weeks ;-)