HELP!

My latest home..

I guess the real adventure has just begun… the one into the teaching end of things. 

I can see it is going to be different here: step one- find the schools. Yes, everyone is doing what they can to help me but ultimately, this is a very unfamiliar environment. 

The major thing is I have no idea what the signs say.  There is no English.  God Bless lights.. I mean Red still means stop and Green is go.. they haven’t changed that.  Although.. there are those little arrows.. so while the big round light says you have to stop.. the little green arrow implores you to carry on.. it depends on which way you are travelling.  Got it. 

Speed zones use numbers.. that is good.  I am not sure if there is radar or not and so not all that certain if that sign that flashed as I went by was trying to tell me something or not. 

Mostly though.. everything is Malay.  The big sign at the first school I was taken to yesterday said Salamat Datang?.. something that apparently just means Welcome.. and wasn’t the name of the school.  Ok.. got it now.  I wondered when all of my schools had the same name.  It turns out the actual school names are about five words long.. each a confusing array of letters that have no file yet in my brain.  Very hard to remember. I was hoping maybe they were just saying something like You Are Very Welcome at This School Be Careful As You Drive That You Don’t Hit Any of The Small Children In Their Lovely Uniforms Wandering Around Here.. Something like that. 

And today, I am on my own.  I will have to go back to where I was so kindly taken yesterday.. by the paddocks and the foreign landmarks I was shown where my five new schools are tucked away: behind Mosques and alongside shopping centers.  One of them, a brilliant orange building on the side of the main highway, I am pretty certain I can find again.  In Malay the name means something like Orange School.. but the other’s? 

And there are going to be children.  Goodness.. been a while since I have been around little people.  Rather a frightening prospect at this point actually. 

So even if I make it past all the signs I can’t read along the Malay highway in my little car with the electrical problem and arrive at the school I have an appointment with this morning, the right school.. not a different one.. at the right time, although I didn’t write down what time and so will try to show up between 8:30 and 9:30 .. I am not sure what I will be doing when I get there. Even the English teachers don’t speak very good English.. like some of our Primary French Teachers.  Once there I have to explain the program and what I am doing there.

The biggest problem is I am not exactly sure what I am doing there… I have been focusing my energy on where 'there' is! 

Who’s idea was this?!!!