Tom's Seventh Letter

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Good Morning !

I have reached the end of term 2. Seems like only yesterday when Dan and I got back from Christmas holidays. I have just finished exams with all my classes so now I’m depressed because the marks were awful. There’s one or two in each class who do well but all the others are rubbish! I can’t feel too much of a failure though because all the other teachers get the same results. It’s purely that the kids have a different attitude to school than in England. What’s the point of staying in school when you can drop out and work on a tractor for G$1000 per day?! I guess they just don’t see the bigger picture.
Term ends on Wednesday next week. I will have to write schemes for next term between now and then, not fun. I’ll have to do maths ones too because Dan has left so I’m teaching maths and science next term.
Before he left, we added a new leader to the meals chart. Scoring a 9 out of 10, Roast pigeon is the best meal we have cooked in Wauna. It took us 3 hours to kill, pluck and gut 2 pigeons and peel and chop bora, carrots and potatoes. I asked a guy to kill the first one then I killed the second. Dan didn’t want to cough girl cough.
We borrowed the head master’s oven and in 30 minutes our feast was ready. The smell was amazing and the taste is so unique. Of all the meats I’ve tasted, it most closely resembled duck. I think I will have to take a trip to Trafalgar Square with a net...
The regional science fair has just passed. I was asked to make a biogas experiment, but on the morning of the fair, all the balloons popped. Even so, I managed to tag along with the grade 5’s project. They were displaying all the by-products of toro - a palm. We are still awaiting the results and if we win, we get to go to Georgetown!

The weather is awful! Today has been the first day of sun for 8 days. It really puts a dark cloud over the whole place! I need some sun to finish casting the cement on the basketball court but it isn’t coming. I may stay during Easter to put on the finishing touches. The court has already seen a few days playing in the rain. So many people come by to play, it’s great!

Until next time, and happy Easter,

Tom

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