More rain–two days of good weather are history. This morning I saw the grey sky and thought, “Good, back to normal.” After all, who wants sun? Who needs a bright day? This is just another new things I must get used to, I guess.

I had a word with the headmistress of the primary school. I went in with the intention of dropping my hours in classes V and VI. As might be expected, things got a little more grey than I was hoping for. Here is the situation: The Minister of Education requires eight hours of English in classes V-VIII. Because of the current situation, the Ministry has said that only four will do for now. I took those hours but now am having second thoughts, particularly about V and VI (see 16 September entry). So I talked to Pani Dyrektor about this and here is a summary of the outcome:

Those two hours (V & VI) would have to be picked up by someone, namely Danuta. It is not acceptable for VII and VIII to have English and V and VI not to have it. So if I drop those hours and Danuta doesn’t pick them up, the whole English program would have to be dropped and replaced with Russian. Never mind that there is no one here to teach Russian; rules are rules.

Now Danuta cannot possibly pick up those hours: She’s already teaching five more than she agreed to. With her studies it is impossible. Danuta assures me, though, that Frank will insist that she take those two hours. And if she refuses she could be fired.

That would make for an interesting situation. Instead of needing one teacher they would need two; instead of lacking two hours, they would lack twenty-five. Additionally, if Danuta left I would have to change sites because I must have a counterpart teacher–Dierdre already had to change sites because of a similar problem. So they would have to find three English teachers and they would lack forty-seven hours of English.

I made the decision to continue on the current plan until December. I didn’t want to drop this whole load on them at once, so I’m giving them time to intensify their search for a teacher. (Considering that my light still isn’t fixed, I doubt they’ll meet with much success.)

I hate the way this is turning into a power struggle. If I unload the preceding bomb (and that’s really what it is) on Frank, I risk angering him, for it has the feel of (maybe genuinely is) a power play. I don’t want to anger him so early–I need all the friends I can get at this point.

What I am afraid of is that once these four hours (only two really–I’ll continue with VII and VIII) are covered, the hunt for a teacher will not be as much of a priority. This is only a temporary fix; those lacking two hours should serve to stoke their efforts, to increase the sense of urgency. “Well, we do have Gary and ____ covering those four hours now . . .”

This whole thing is turning into a nightmare. I fear that once I drop these two hours Danuta will be pressured to take these to hours, and she will cave to the demands. “Can’t you live with this? Can’t you solve this problem instead of running away from it? Isn’t that part of the reason I joined PC to begin with?” I don’t know what I’ll do. I’ll survive–we’ll survive. It’s just the method of survival seems so vague–cloudy, like the typical sky here.