The arrival of Sherika
The arrival of Sherika
After Anna left there was a space in the school for a
foreign teacher. |A few weeks ago I was
introduced online to Sherika, the new foreign language teacher for year two: I
teach year one. I was expecting Sherika
to arrive in Jiangkou on Friday30th and kept in touch with her via WeChat. I also asked my FAO to keep me informed of
when she would arrive as they were both together.
I finally finished my first week of teaching and decided to
go to town to pickup some shopping for Sherika.
She had given me a list, I kept the list on my phone. After a bout ten minutes in the supermarket,
I noticed there was a WeChat notification of a missed call and texts. It was Jamie, and in true Jamie style, there
was the message “GPS” which in Jamie talk means “Where are you? I told him that I was in the supermarket. “Get back to base, I am in the Deputy’s
office, we are eating together”. From
that I presumed that Sherika was on her way.
I finished shopping and went back to the vice principal’s office. No vice principle and no Sherika; she was
still an hour away. We cheated and drunk
tea. Then Jamie got up and we went out,
got in cars and drove to a restaurant.
 |
| The restaurant |
 |
| our room in the restaurant |
 |
| The restaurant courtyard |
 |
| Sherika arrives. Left to right Mr Dong (Vice principal), Jenny (FAO), Sherika, and the man with the bag, is Jamie's boss. |
After we had been given a room we were taken outside and one
of the teachers showed us a new spa that he was having built. It was early days, but it looked good and was
attached a big expensive hotel.
Eventually we went to the restaurant and met with Sherika, who
was a little bemused by it all. She had
a had a long flight and apparently nearly got lost as her phone had no data and
the airport had no wifi. However, she
was here, and we sat down to eat.
Sherika was not too keen on a lot of the food but seemed to like the
fish and the apple juice! After the meal
we bundled everyone and all the luggage, Sherika had a lot of luggage, into
three cars and headed to her apartment. When
we entered the apartment, it was obvious that it had not been thoroughly cleaned
and looked in need of a little tlc. I don’t
know why this was, because labour is cheap over here. Just perhaps forethought is missing. Anyway, the FAO stripped the bed of the old
linen and put on the new covers and stuck the old linen in the washing
machine. Practical help. We had a long chat with everyone, and then
the ‘bosses’ left. I stayed with Sherika
for a half hour or so, checked she had everything she needed, gave her shopping
and left her in peace. I went for a walk
to my singing group and then wandered to the park. It was empty early for a
Friday, there had been a powercut! I
wandered around town and then home to bed. On the way home I got a call from
Sherika “Can I borrow your broom?”.
Apparently, she was giving her apartment a good clean up and before
brushing her room up she had used the brush in the bathroom and it was now wet. I was not at home. I told her she would have it in the morning. I went home and went to bed.
Comments
Post a Comment