New teacher

Written 4/1/10

We got a new Sri Lankan* computer teacher this week named Kenneth. He’s 28, was educated in Sri Lanka, speaks English very well, and has been a pleasure to get to know this week. His brother (Fernando) runs a few businesses in Majuro, and Kenneth came to the country just on vacation to visit him for a couple of weeks. When he heard that they were in dire need of computer teachers here, he applied for a job and was quickly accepted as an employee of the RMI Ministry of Education. JHS was the lucky school that got him. Teachers here are paid much better than teachers are in Sri Lanka. He had been living on about $250 per month before coming here.

Kenneth is the sort of guy who enjoys watching Family Guy and Arrested Development, which means Morgan and I have been getting along very well with him.

*Major industries of Sri Lanka: tourism, tea, and rubber. To harvest rubber, they cut spiral grooves down the rubber tree, and the sap drains down them into a bucket placed at the bottom.