Teachers' Strike

This morning I was asked to pray about the teachers' strike, which is a sore point for parents because many students are supposed to write exams starting next week (i.e. grade 7 exams, which determine where kids will be able to attend high school). Teachers are requesting $16.7 million/month, up from their current $3million (note: I met a teacher last week who was still getting $30,000/month, so I guess things are even more desperate the rural areas!) This is quite a rise, but keep in mind that we have the highest inflation in the world and that in real money, this pay hike would still amount to less than $35us.

Paying teachers is quite an important justice issue - at least paying them enough to feed their own children and send them to school. Zimbabweans are always bragging to us about how ours is the best education system on the continent. I would guess that in order to keep it that way, we would need teachers who need to be slightly motivated to keep on teaching. Before the strike, some teachers were refusing to teach during regular school hours, and then charging their own rates for after-school tutorials. Everyone in Zimbabwe has some form of business. In fact, it was one of the first questions people asked us when we moved here - "what's your business going to be?" They meant outside of our full-time jobs, of course.

About those jobs... my new job is challenging but great, and I'm trying to learn as much as possible in a short space of time. We're still going strong at $350,000 each, but we get housing/electricity/water/phones, etc. paid for. Well, when there IS electricity, and hmmm, when was the last time our phone worked?