This morning we went straight into town to buy stationery. We were joined by the DoS, and a local Mr Fix It, and went on with them to get SIM cards for telephones. I’d already got one a few days ago, but management believes that ones you can buy over the counter are dodgy – the ones we got today needed the production of a passport, a form, and of course, a photo.

Back at the college, we had a pow-wow with HD and DoS. The latter is a small unassuming bloke, but carries some indefinable air of authority and meaning business.

He gave us some background. This college is part of a big picture of modernisation here. Millions of immigrant workers have been lately expelled. Quarter of a million civil servants have been made redundant. The idea now is, to retrain the workforce to deal with the rest of the world.

The current educational system is acknowledged to be woefully inadequate, and has no FE system. Our college will address that, giving training in key skills, business, management, and engineering. Crucially, all of this will be done in English. So our department, whilst fundamental, is not the rationale. In other words, it’s and English-medium FE college, which naturally entails English teaching: it’s NOT a school of English.

Despite the cynicism which is the stock in trade of an experienced EFL teacher, I felt rather buoyed up by my role in giving this place a leg-up to the 21^st century.

Then we got down to the nitty-gritty. Our lack of internet connexion at the accommodation is being addressed as a matter of urgency.

The current site manager, I’ll call him Ahmed, is on his way out. He’s worked in England for several years, he says, and indeed has good idiomatic control of the language. But he’s full of shit. He keeps on about the internet connexion, and how he chases the people responsible – whereas we’ve learned it’s nothing to do with him.

The security situation has also been lamentable. Somebody locks the gate in the early evening, and then goes off to one of the apartments to sleep until nearly eight the next morning. No amount of shouting will wake him. Two nights running, T2 and KST have gone out for a stroll and been unable to get back in through the gate – KST climbed in through a gap in the fence.

We’re to get either a van or a car, and the services of a driver. I asked about driving it ourselves, and the legal situation is to be looked in to.

The site’s “guard dog” has its days numbered. It’s actually just a stray who Ahmed’s befriended, and that would be ok if the bastard didn’t bark nonstop all night. LM was assured that he’d go to some friends of Ahmed’s “who have a nice big farm”. Yeah, right. Ahmed should seek some work there too.

Tellies and more furniture are subject to some kind of budget review in the UK. I said nowt, but I can live without the box for now.

LM had wondered whether it was ok for me to start a wee garden at the back of our house. I was assured today that I should go ahead. This has cheered me immensely.

After the meeting there was a bit of frantic activity to make sure we were ready to actually do some English-teaching related stuff tomorrow – placement tests – at last. It’ll be good to get them done, and then get some structure into the day when we start teaching next week.

When we got back a grim, silent, fat, mirror-glasses wearing African was introduced by Ahmed as Sinousi. He’s to do with the Internet. Maybe he looked so grim because Ahmed was getting on his nerves. Anyhow, still no internet tonight. There are guards on the gate though. And no sound of a dog barking.