First Day on the Job

Last night our principal hosted a dinner at her house as a chance to have the returning staff meet the newbies. It was a nice chance for us to put some faces with the names we had been hearing about and corresponding with via e-mail for the last several months. It was also a great opportunity for us to sample a local pizza joint which delivers called Papa Ron's. I am not quite sure if trademark protections extend to Sumatra but Ron seems to be avoiding litigation. It reminds me of MacDonald's in the movie "Coming to America." The pizza was good so I guess it all worked out.

Today we had to be at school for meetings and to get our classrooms ready for the start of school. Everyone we have met has been very nice and there seems to be a sense that everyone helps one another out. One amazing thing about the school is that every class has a full time assistant that works with the teacher to help you with whatever is needed to make class run well from making copies and getting bulletin boards in order or working with students individually during the day. Early last week we hired two new assistants and since one of them was to be my new assistant I was able to sit on the interviews.

While you would think that it may be hard to find qualified people to work here in Sumatra that is not the case. In fact the quality of candidates we interviewed actually had me taken aback. The two assistants we hired were absolutely overqualified for these jobs. My assistant works teaching English to adult students in Pekanbaru and just recently returned from Iowa where she studied for two years at a college there on a Fullbright scholarship. The assistant we hired for the art class graduated from a graphic design college in Melborne, Australia. I am amazed that our children will be surrounded by so many highly qualified and dedicated individuals.