day 12
I attempted to cook a lasagne for the frenchies today. It was all going very smoothly and as we were finishing off I started pre-heating the gas oven. Ten minutes later I checked to see if it was hot enough but the flame had gone out. Being a reasonably well educated chap (and having watched many an episode of 999 Lifesavers, back in the day), I turned the gas off and left the oven door open to air it out and let the gas escape before attempting to light it again. What I conveniently forgot was that between the flame and the rest of the oven lies a metal panel which I had forgotten to remove. So, a few minutes later I got the lighter out, lifted the metal panel, lit the lighter and BOOM!! A raging fireball came flying out of the oven as I leapt backwards to avoid burning my eyebrows off (again… some of you may remember that embarrassing story which I won’t go into here).
Luckily no one was seriously injured and my eyebrows are still in tact. I burnt my fingers but not too badly.
So what did I learn from this experience?
1. Always try to use an electric oven, if possible. If you have no choice but to use gas, never put it on maximum as this will cause too much gas to come out and actually put the flame out.
2. If you do get burned, don’t bother putting ice on it, use Vicks (yes, the stuff you put on your chest when you have a cold. It works!)
3. If you can’t cook, don’t cook.
It has to be said that the end result was actually quite tasty but the making of was frankly very dangerous. Next time I’ll stick to electricity, although they don’t seem to know what that is in this country.
Other than that, I’m having a wonderful time but I miss you all very much. Also, the blog officially reached 4000 hits today so thank you very much to all of you who are keeping up with my progress.
Happy reading and buenas noches!
day 7
Last weekend I went to the capital to buy five new computers for the school. The old ones – which looked like were made by cavemen – were in a sorry state and only two of them still worked, so these new machines, with their sexy flat screens, have put a smile on everybody’s face including mine.
I’ve started teaching the older classes how to create a web page from scratch using HTML. They were all surprisingly enthusiastic and the results prove it. Everyone was able to create a basic page using different colours, incorporating images and formatting text. As boring as this may sound, it is actually a very rewarding feeling you get when you type what appears to be gibberish into Notepad and it turns into a nicely rendered page when viewed in a browser. My reward was that they enjoyed it, so I couldn’t be happier. Philippe says he’ll send me back to the capital next month to buy five more computers. This is great news because at the moment I take my classes in two separate groups and they still have to share a computer as there aren’t enough to round.
Life at Sophie’s is also hunky-dory. I get on so well with her daughter who, it has to be said, is the cutest two-year-old I’ve ever met. It’s been decided that I’ll be living with Sophie for as long as I’m here as it’s cheaper for everyone and it means I have some company in the evenings. It also means I’m in a fully furnished and well-equipped apartment with everything I need at my disposal, including a room with a view, a petrol-powered generator for when the power goes (la planta) and a washing machine.
Having said that, I’d probably be better off washing my clothes by hand because when I got home today I put a load in the machine and washed them with floor cleaner by accident. Thankfully Sophie noticed that my wash didn’t smell quite right and she added some washing powder. Next time I’ll read the label before throwing in half a pint of the first liquid I see. I do hope my clothes aren’t ruined, but if they are, at least they’ll smell good.
dominican journal v2.0 –– day 1
I woke up this morning feeling surprisingly in sync but completely unprepared. Nevertheless, my first day went as well as could be expected. I spent the morning with the younger classes revising things they already knew which, to be fair, wasn’t much. When I asked them what they’d done with the old computing teacher they all yelled in unison: NADA! This made me laugh at first as it’s a fairly typical answer from a class of six-year-olds. Maybe my next class will remember what they’ve learned, I thought to myself as I walked in and repeated the question. “NADA!”, they shouted.
Still unsure as to whether this scarily blunt response was true or not, I walked into my third class and once again got the same answer. At this point I thought it might be worth asking Philippe (my boss/headmaster) as surely he knew what they’d been up to. I think by now you can guess what he told me. Turns out they’re all world champions at Solitaire and Minesweeper, but when it comes to computer-related activities that don’t involve games, they’re utterly clueless. I’m not surprised they fired the other guy.
In other news, I’m staying at Sophie’s apartment with her boyfriend, their two kids and the maid. It’s very close to the school and in a quiet little area which makes a change from two years ago. The maid stays in all day looking after Sophie’s youngest which affords me (and my belongings) a little extra security.
On the whole, life is good and I’m looking forward to the next four months. I won’t even bother to mention the weather because it’s obviously freakin’ awesome!!
That’s all for now folks.
P.S. Thanks to all of you who came out on my last night in Brussels. We had a good laugh (especially when Kevin went to the wrong toilet and woke the landlord!). The pasta incident was also hilarious. Kevin, can I hire you as an entertainer? Although for the full effect I would have to hire Wheeler too. Apologies to Gina for the all noise and chaos we caused. It was totally worth it though, n’est-ce-pas?
