The day began like a normal Monday morning anywhere in the world – with a groan that time had not stood still overnight and I was still required to be up and at ‘em. Still, I wasn’t feeling too bad.
I had spent the weekend applauding my organisational spirit. My boss had asked me how a particular client was going and I’d given him an honest answer – I had concerns. “Send me an email,” he’d chortled and so I’d given at least half an hour of my time to not only document the challenges but to itemise the consequences and provide possible solutions. I should know better by now. I do know better. But every time a boss or manager asks for my opinion about something I’m still stupid enough to think they might actually want it. Earth to Mandy!!! They don’t. What they want is for you to tell them that there’s been some horrible misunderstanding and that rather than a problem rampant euphoria has descended and everything is right with the world.
So when I optimistically asked, ‘Did you get my email” his response of “I can’t send that to the client” somewhat dampened the self-congratulatory parade was happily marching through my mind. I blunder on, trying to explain my thinking. That’s when the storm clouds thundered and the hail pummelled said parade participants. “I got your email!” he snarled.
Right then. Note to self: When management ask for an opinion, what they want is an ego-trip. Second note to self: Save opinions for people who care – like the devoted folk reading this blog J
My first class of the morning started in the usual fashion- with only half my students in attendance. They at least, are eager, enthusiastic and wanting to learn. I perked up. Perhaps the day could be salvaged. After all, it was only 9am. Right. Fast forward another sixty-five minutes. I was leaving, riding my bike round the building as I had previously been instructed to do (apparently the driveway is one-way. Oh why not, almost every street in Dili is one-way, why not the driveways too?).
Here I should alert readers that there was a HUGE downpour the night before. So though the skies were now blue the potholes were full to overflowing. I really don’t understand why Dili doesn’t have more water fauna . . . .
So . . . there I was dodging the puddles. This was fine when they were just puddles, but inside the gate – the only entry and exit point – there were two veritable lakes, nay oceans! I had no floaties and so determined to skirt around the edges. Apparently I need skirting practice. Instead of the neat little dodge, dodge, dodge that seasoned riders ably accomplished I did more a splash, screech, accelerate, accelerate, accelerate . . . . eeeeeeeek . . . . crash. Pot plants went everywhere and the flora be buggered, the darling Timorese were more concerned with my well being and then the well-being of my bike.
If I’d been in Australia, I would have prayed for a hole to swallow me up but here in Dili holes that can swallow you up were the damned problem to begin with! So I thanked the Timorese men again and again, reassured them that yes, bike and I were fine and I slunk off, hoping that my students hadn’t seen and wouldn’t hear rumours of ‘that wild malae woman with the pink helmet’.
Back at the ranch I hunched over my laptop and pummelled the keys. It didn’t help. The day was not getting better. I gave two of my students an exam. They seemed to do okay. Then I prepared to go to my mid-afternoon class . . . except . . . except . . . big drops started falling . . . then more big drops, then bigger drops and then even bigger drops and even more bigger drops. But my class was meant to start in twenty minutes. Not for the first time in my life, I damned my conscientiousness. I donned the wet weather gear that one of the teachers who’d left recently had given me. Thank you Denise!!!! Then I poodled off. The puddles of the morning now stretched across the road – that very same road I have to share with big arse four-wheel drives that don’t seem to have weather challenges. They went just as fast, only this time they sprayed water in decorative arcs. Thank you Denise. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
I arrived decidedly drier than a mad woman on a motorbike in a moderately heavy rainstorm had any right to be. Shelter at last . . . except the roof of the classroom leaked, had leaked and formed another of those ubiquitous little lakes and was still, in parts, dripping. One of the students called in the big guns – a small woman with a broom and the water was soon dispersed. The lesson began – and then finished.
I rode back to the school and conducted an exam for my evening class. The exam was in three parts and they had ninety minutes in total – forty-five minutes for the vocab and grammar section, thirty minutes for the reading and fifteen minutes for the writing. At forty-five minutes I told them to move onto the reading and the writing. At sixty minutes I strongly suggested they move onto the reading and writing. At seventy minutes I all but told them to abandon the vocab and grammar ship and make for the good ship reading and writing. Some listened. Others didn’t. Even a novice like me could tell they weren’t going to make it. I warned them again at eighty minutes, at ninety minutes, at one hundred minutes, one hundred and five minutes and one hundred and ten minutes. At one hundred and fifteen minutes, I took their papers away. Yes, I am the teacher from hell.
I also have a conscience and I felt awful. Why hadn’t they listened? Why hadn’t they at least thrown down some answers? Given themselves a chance? But they hadn’t and all I could do was head to Dili Beach Hotel because, oh surprise! The electricity was off – again!!! This means there is no point in going home as 1) it will be as hot as hell and 2) it will be as black as
Hours later and high on two cans of coke (the smaller, 250ml ones), I took my leave. I stepped towards my bike which was still where I’d left it and as I swung around to get on, my butt connected with something . . . something that toppled over and spilt dirt on the path . . .
A young Timorese lad appeared from nowhere to make sure I was okay and to assure me that the pot plant was fine and that no harm had been done.
I sighed. No harm? Not to the pot plant at least. But me and my massacred ego were going to go and put a definite Dili day to bed . . . I rounded the corner into my street. There were once again huge mounds of rock and dirt. Yes, dirt . . . that mixed with the rain to create . . . yes, a huge mud pile into which I happily rode my bike and not so happily attempted to pull it out again. I sighed. Closed my eyes and counted . . . slowly . . . very slowly . . . once again reminding myself that Dili is a place to learn patience, a virtue I could clearly use more of.
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