The Drag

Drag…it’s a physical phenomenon. If you have ever driven a very old model of car or ridden a bicycle against the wind you know what I’m talking about. Without starting a discourse on the scientific explanation of how it works…it should suffice to say that drag is that invisible force that resists you when you are trying to gain momentum. Its why it takes a while to reach a cruising speed on the highway and why it requires so much effort and input  (in this case through the design of the car and it’s engine) to get to that speed. The faster you are trying to move forward the stronger the drag. As for me and my life in Africa it relates this way: I’ve started on my journey…I’ve gotten to the ramp onto the highway leading to my goals and it’s time to pick up speed….but true to the laws of physics, I am starting to feel it…the drag. That subtle resistance… 

I came out of the starting gate rearing to go. Just over the past few weeks I’ve started and English club, which fully 1/3 of the school has joined, introduced a new lesson plan format and held a mini workshop on it, drafted a plan and preliminary proposal to build a library in room now full of junk and started giving additional English help in grades 1-4, and am working on organizing a substitute teacher program and drafting a new disciplinary code.  I’m excited. I’m motivated, some days I feel like super woman because of the endless array of issues I can help to fix. It is just the sort of thing I have always dreamt of doing….but then there is the drag. It looks like this…watching the 3^rd grade English lesson in which most students struggled to formulate basic sentences in the simple present (mind you, next year all of their subjects will be taught in English!) Not to mention hearing teachers themselves also struggling with the same basic sentences! It’s the SGB (School Governing Body- comprised of teachers and parents which is responsible for many of the most important school related decisions) listening to my library proposal and wanting to wait until after the next SGB election a month from now to approve it though time is of the essence… it’s the fourth grade class failing miserably on their first vocabulary assessment after showing such understanding during the review….it’s the brand new copy machines at both schools breaking down simultaneously 3 weeks into the school year…it’s the frequent absence and apparent disinterest of one of my supervisors in either functioning of the institution he’s supposed to manage or the projects I’m attempting to implement…and it’s the inability to work in support of teachers as planned because there’s so much slack being left by others that we who are dedicated must spread ourselves very thin. 

To return to the analogy: In the physical world, some serious measures have to be taken to overcome drag. Things have to be redesigned…reshaped…remolded… Drag cannot be eliminated, it can only be reduced they call it aerodynamics in English. The question that now remains is how can I be more aerodynamic given the drag I’m facing here? What needs to be reshaped and how? Do I need to give more effort? Push harder (i.e. more horse power)…Do I need to change my shape? Take a different approach? As an American speed is everything. Making good time and not wasting a moment is everything…always we feel the clock ticking in our very souls and it provokes an endless drive. It is part of what makes us successful in many things…I wonder, however, could that be what needs to change? Perhaps I’m feeling the drag so strongly because I’m try to go to fast…who knows…