Yet Another Departure

Once more, I have broken a contract; yet again, I have found myself in a boss's office muttering something along the lines of, 'it's not you, it's me'. The sort of barely audible drivel that nobody really listens to – they tuned out after the 'I'm leaving' part of the sentence and started silently cursing you for causing them recruitment issues. Ultimately it makes little difference why you're leaving: even if you think there are problems within the establishment the bosses will obviously disagree, given that there isn't a sudden mass exodus.

I've had a frustrating year in Swaziland – or Swaziville, as I've taken to referring to the place. The country is the size of Wales, and the implications of the term 'ville' are accurate to a disturbing degree. There is more gossip here than in the tiny village in Yorkshire where I used to live. I've heard a member of staff ask another where she was the previous evening: 'I saw your car about five o'clock heading out of town...'. Nosy sods. It is even more impossible to find privacy on the hilltop I've been confined to for thirteen months now. Since absolutely nothing of note happens up here, your personal life becomes public property, something that can be discussed either in your presence or absence.

I am tired of the levels of bitchiness up here. I'm tired of the back-stabbing; people constantly looking for scapegoats, blaming everyone but themselves for a 'crisis'; the dramatic elevation of a minor incident into a major, staffroom-dividing event; the seemingly endless stream of utterly pointless meetings where everybody speaks but nobody listens (actually, a few have given up speaking and taken to napping in the corners). I'm tired of the passive-aggressive notes pinned almost daily onto the various notice boards dotted around campus; the frequently-voiced delight that we are 'making a real difference' up here as teachers (whatever makes you sleep); the eternal quest to discover just exactly what the hell ToK is. And what 'UWC' means, truly means, to Waterford. Blimey.

Wherever I have lived in the past, I've had different groups of friends: those I work with (on the odd occasion I'm actually working, that is) and those I drink with and those I row with and those I mull the mysteries of the world with. Up here, they all come as one frustrating package deal. Nothing can be expressed that won't be endlessly repeated – naturally with the 'now don't tell anyone else this but...' clause attached to it.

I miss rowing. Hell, I just miss boats and messing about on the water. I miss the possibility of meeting new people. I miss sitting in a bookshop with an impossibly large slice of cake and my laptop. I miss people-watching. The freedom to have a thought or an idea that isn't immediately pried out of me and hijacked by others.

I also miss having a freezer and decent ice-cream, come to that.

Since coming up here I've discovered there are some aspects of teaching I genuinely enjoy, but since I've recently started burying my nose in books again and have started a Masters in Education I realise that this is where my true interest lies. I'm the academic and the theorist rather than the 'do-er'... I have established that I have the most effective glare ever dispatched in a classroom, and that I have the ability to make those who were previously totally disinterested in my subject actually want to do well in it. More importantly, I've realised there are some kids who, for whatever reason, just don't want to be interested in literature and will always dig their heels in. I'm learning to be okay with that; they're the ones missing out.

Come December 3rd, at something like 10 o'clock in the morning, I'll be leaving the hilltop. I have 56 days left in this random little mountain kingdom (before you pedants note, yes I know this is an expression most commonly used in association with Lesotho), a place that leaves me with decidedly confused feelings regarding Africa. Okay, the south-eastern corner of Africa. I think using Swaziville as a template for the whole continent might be slightly ambitious.

Where to next? Johannesburg, is the surprising answer to that question. And more on that move in another post on another day.