At the University

The university is pretty small as far as infrastructure is concerned although there are 13,000 students. It has an "upcampus" at the top of the hill and a "downcampus" about a mile away at the bottom of the hill. The upcampus was built by the US as a land grant college. I don’t know the year but the buildings look 70s era. The buildings are really solidly built but are slowly crumbling away since there is no money for maintenance. Everything is dirty, mostly due to the very dusty dry season. Many things are broken and left unrepaired (cabinet doors, broken tiles, dangling light fixtures). The American builders also never finished the job since they were accused of spying (on what I can’t possibly imagine) and left. My office is located upcampus although all my classes are downcampus. Fortunately, where I live is about halfway between them and it is an easy walk to either place.


It is a challenge to teach here. The most annoying thing is that there is no water on either campus except for a spigot outside the main building upcampus. Even though there are toilets, you must flush them with a bucket from a 55-gallon drum. The toilets have a sign on the door "Sanitaire," a misnomer if I ever heard one. They are also unisex and locked for faculty use only. The students have no access to toilets that I know of. Guys have it easy, they go anywhere but I don’t know what the girls do.


The other really annoying thing is that the power goes out for at least some period of time every day. At least once a week, it is out for the entire day. This week is has been off more than on. If the power is out, it is out over the entire city. This usually happens when I am settling down for a productive time of writing or course preparation or when I am intending to go to the faculty internet room to do email and such. Can you imagine FPL getting away with that? A former Fulbrighter told me of this so it seems to be a chronic problem. They seem to take it all in stride.
Once reason I chose to live at the "resort" is because they have their own water source. Anyplace else, the water can be shut off for hours, days, or weeks. I can live without electricity but not water. I see people bringing containers up the hill to get water from the campus tap or doing laundry. The Centre Climatique also has a generator but they only fire it up at night. So while the rest of the city is dark, we have lights and I am grateful for it.