My stay in Scotland

It's been nearly three months since I left Scotland and, as I catch up on some posts I wanted to do, I decided to write a little about my experience in Edinburgh.

I first lived with a great friend of mine from my time in Ghana. It was staying with Sena and his family, and to play uncle for several months. I also enjoyed my experience at Harmeny School immensely, and I believe it'll help me a lot as a teacher in New York.

Cramond Island, Edinburgh, in February 2009

Part of the idea of moving to Scotland and not back to DC was to see how I liked life in the UK, and to have a quieter existence after finishing up in The Gambia. I made some good friends from my Sunday football group, Papa, Sena and Delali, my Wolof student and fellow West Africa aficionado, and my coworkers.

While in Edinburgh I was fortunate to have several visitors from the U.S., as well as a couple of friends staying around London. As Ousainou was in the UK, I had the opportunity to practice Wolof on the phone often, and during his visits. Since Harlem has an area called Little Senegal, so hopefully I'll get to keep up on Wolof.

For the last eight months or so of my stay I moved into a flat closer to work. This allowed me to bike to work, or take the bus, in 30 minutes - a nice improvement over the old 75 minute commute. Plus it was a little more spacious. Just before Christmas I discovered a weekly pick-up basketball game. Great fun, although I was surprised how popular basketball is with Polish people (or "Polanese" as Ousainou puts it) - of our 15 regulars, 6 were from Poland.

One major downside of living in Scotland was a general inability to pursue a teaching certification there. This was principally due to my unwillingness to spend several hundred Pounds (and a couple of evenings a week) on a couple of English courses, which would help Scottish universities establish that I had sufficient command of the English language to teach in Scotland. Bachelor's degrees from fairly reputable American universities, plus experience in Scottish schools and attendant recommendations, don't suffice. As a result I was beginning to disengage from life in Scotland and very relieved to get into the teaching programme in New York.

Other disadvantages included the weather and my second job at TESCO three nights a week. The latter helped me to save a little money, though.

Cramond Island on a sunny day in May

So I had a good stay in Edinburgh, although I didn't manage to travel as much as I'd have liked. Plus I mostly missed the festival as I visited the U.S. in August 2008. It's possible I'll return again, assuming a U.S. teaching degree has some value there, and enjoy the luxury of government provided healthcare!

Moonlighting

A quick aside. Hips Don't Lie confronted me on the TV the other night, and I noticed that Shakira seems to be running through a room of mosquito nets - really nice ones like the expat girl had when we went to Dakar for WAIST (West African Invitational Softball Tournament). I couldn't tell if Shakira's also had sequins...


A few months ago (12 weeks to be exact - I just had my review!) I started a part-time job to help pay the bills. So three evenings a week I stock shelves in a supermarket cum big box store.

The work is relatively painless as most of the customers are cordial, and I've thus far avoided being trained to work checkouts so mostly operate in my own little world, with occasional reminders that we need to get through the dairy/meat backstock.

The chain gives us prescribed space to show our individuality on our nametags, where you can have a piece of clipart (the beer/wine ones are only available to employees over 18) and a fact about you listed. I went for a basketball but, as it was not on the list of languages, "I speak Wolof" did not make it onto the badge. Other entertaining features are the random searches, our clocking in/out cards (with the Orwellian phrase "Supporting Your Attendance" emblazoned across it), and weekly briefings where I learn how much money we've made and the value of products which are 'wasted' (it all goes straight into the compactor instead of being given away).

All told it's not a terrible place to make a few extra Pounds, although I am bewildered by the fact that we have literally hundreds of types of yoghurt available. My coworkers are all pretty nice, although the teenage boys never seem to do any work at all. Plus at the end of the shift I sometimes manage to sample some nicer items when they've been reduced in price as they approach their due date. And the work's not too mentally taxing.

There's all manner of formal avenues of communication, from the weekly status reports, surveys and so forth. So at the 12 week review my major input was to request that we get better newspapers in the staff room, perhaps even the Economist. My manager wasn't very encouraging but did say he'd put in a word with the higher-ups.

A Comedy of Errors

Adventures in Job-seeking

My search for fairly humble employment in Scotland took six weeks, but not before a few misadventures.

The principal mishap was when I went for a group "supply" (i.e. substitute) pupil support worker interview in West Lothian, to the west of Edinburgh. Given that my knowledge of the regional geography is terrible, I probably should have taken more care than simply relying on online mapping and trip planning websites.

It seemed simple enough. My bus dropped me off at the predetermined point, and I was armed with a printed map showing that I was less than a kilometre from the interview location. Alas, the roads had no pavements/sidewalks, so I was forced to take to pedestrian paths that took me behind rows of identical houses. Since it was only 7:30AM it was still quite dark. Lacking my familiar directional indicators - mosques and the sun - I wandered into a vast expanse of shopping centres and parking lots asking locals for Owen Square, which they had never heard of.

Eventually I called the interview hosts and discovered that I had somehow come quite close to the building. I beat a direct path to it, and only turned up about 15 minutes late, although covered in mud after abandoning the walking paths. An upside to my tardiness was that I got to stay on a few minutes after the group interview concluded, which afforded me the opportunity to ask naive questions about the education system and terms of employment in front of a smaller audience.

The following week I had interviews closer to home, and did the necessary research and staking out to prevent a late arrival. That morning as I moved to button my suit trousers, I discovered that the dry cleaner had melted off the button. Luckily I had another ill-fitting tailored suit (the jacket is snug, the trousers more of a zoot suit style) from Ghana to wear, so I managed. It turns out that some buttons are not meant for dry-cleaning, although the dry cleaner did agree to replace the button. I will have to warn Inusa about the buttons...

My other difficulty with interviews here is that they often turn into talks about my life in The Gambia. It is not always easy for me to frame these experiences in a manner that highlights my credentials, and employers then don't grasp how my work in Peace Corps will help me at a school in Edinburgh. Of course, people here have no idea what Peace Corps is; in the U.S., at least there is some familiarity with the program. I am doing better at this, though, and at one primary school I managed to link my achievements and challenges in The Gambia to the work I will do for them next year.

A hike in Carlops area

In the beginning of December I went on a hike through an online group posting. It was in nearby West Lothian, about an hour on the bus. The hike was nice but very windy. I had thought that walking around would keep me warm, and my thin jacket with a broken zipper was not up to the task. I am wearing the red backpack.



Still, it was fun to get out in the countryside and admire the wind-towers in the distance, and VERY healthy looking farm animals. I will have to photograph the sheep sometime and send them to my friends in Njau.



The ride back was a bit of a challenge as we misread the bus schedule once (waiting half an hour for a bus that doesn't come on Saturdays), then missed the subsequent bus as the timetable was off by 10 minutes. Fortunately we got lifts from some hikers who drove.



I got a little lackadaisical over the next few weeks so didn't make it to any further group events. Plus I was trying to save money as I didn't yet have work, and a follow-up hike was postponed. Then there was some dispute between members that I was not party to, featuring much flaming and the eventual departure of the group head (who I never met). So in January I will relaunch my social endeavours!