A couple days off

As I approached my school this morning I could hear the students shouting louder than usual. These sounded like playful screams, yet they were still loud enough for me to hear a couple streets over. From previous experience I assumed this meant that school had been cancelled. Once inside the compound I greeted some of the teachers and my director and was told that as I had predicted, school had been cancelled for the next 2 days. The students, along with many of the teachers and myself had just found out. Of course the students were beyond thrilled. Why was school cancelled so suddenly? Well, for the past week we have not had typical November weather, as several of the teachers have informed me. The days have been mostly cloudy with occasional rain. This time of the year is important for harvesting. The bad weather we have been having however is not good for the crops. (I have not been complaining about the cool weather and have welcomed it, but of course it is not ideal for food security). Because of this, public schools in the region (at least in Butajira) have been cancelled. Students who have families with farms will take these extra days off to help their families harvest the crops as fast as possible so that the food does not get ruined by the weather. I thought this made an interesting post for this sort of problem would never occur in the public schools of America and I thought it might shed some more light on life here in Butajira. I may live in a town of over 30,000 people, but many of the students that attend the schools in this town come from rural areas and have to walk several kilometers each day to get to school.