Tea with Teachers

Yesterday afternoon I spent 2 hours after class drinking tea. Normally during this time I would be doing reports, reviewing the day, preparing for the following day, or other such useful things; however, this time it seemed more beneficial to drink tea. One may not generally think of tea as being beneficial, but I have since learned its true value, even if it is not the healthy green tea that many talk about these day. How did this all come about in the first place, you may ask; and why do I care? Both of these are very good questions; let me attempt to answer them.

 

After class yesterday, I had to make a teachers' account on the computer that sits between the two classrooms. Eventually these are to become part of the language lab for the students, but we have to wait for the rest of the computers to come for that to happen. In the meantime, since the Afghan contract instructors are unable to bring their own laptops onto base, I have decided that they can get some use out of these computers and use them to plan lessons, prepare other activities, and all the other things they need to do that does not require Internet access (which is unavailable to them). I will have to find someway of transferring this information to another computer that has the ability to print, but that is another problems that will just have to wait.

 

 During this time, I made plans to go and observe my non-intensive class instructor, which I managed to go and do today. I didn't realize where I had to go to do the observation, and I went with just him and myself. This was NOT a smart idea. I had to walk through Afghan National Army territory and into their headquarters. They were supposed to search me but decided not to. It appears that I was supposed to remove my sidearm, but I did not do this. I went upstairs to the Chief of Staff's office which doubled as the classroom. When I was leaving (halfway through the class), a guard was sitting at the end of the hall. He was holding a machine gun and there was what looked to be a 50 caliber, belt-fed machine gun on the floor. It came into my mind that perhaps I shouldn't be in this environment as the lone armed American. At least I had tea just before class started; I will never do it again! I am not sure what I am going to do about observing the other class, though I think that one is in one of the tents. I guess we will have to see what happens tomorrow. It definitely isn't so important that I need to do something that is dangerous; I will just teach!