Saturday, 16 May 1987: Exams Are Over and I’m Leaving Soon
5:00 PM, U.B. Environmental Science computer room
A couple days ago, I finished grading the last of my final examinations and turned them over to the external examiner from the University of Lesotho’s Geography Department for evaluation. External examiners are a very formal feature of university examinations here – I think it’s borrowed from the British. Essentially, a professor from another university evaluates final exam papers to verify that they have been fairly graded. He or she doesn’t know the individual students and is, therefore, presumed to be impartial. Another feature is the use of “invigilators”, faculty members who walk around the examination room to ensure that no one is cheating. There are two invigilators per exam which enables them to take bathroom, etc. breaks one at a time which is helpful given that the exams last three hours. I invigilated several exams in our Environmental Science Department recently – not exactly stimulating work but a good idea.
16 May farewell party:
University of Botswana Environmental Science faculty, 1986-87. L to R:
Will Mahoney, Lecturer; Professor John Cooke, Chair; Berneck Makwiti, Cartographer;
Professor Susan Ringrose; Professor Robson Silitshena, Deputy Chair; Masego
Mmputakwane, lecturer; Cornelis Vanderpost, lecturer; Goitse “Peace” Kerutwe,
Assistant Cartographer; Professor Paul Shaw.
I’ve just returned from a department party at our chairman’s home. As the memo from Department Chair John Cooke’s memo read, the purpose was “to meet the External examiner, Professor Schmitz from Lesotho, to celebrate the end of the academic year, and to say thanks and farewell to Will Mahoney who, unfortunately, will be leaving us soon.”
Yes, it’s official. The two-year appointment that I applied for went to a Ph.D. from Ghana with 20 years’ experience. It’s hard to compete with those credentials. Therefore, I will be leaving here – June 10 to be exact, if my reservations from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe to London on British Airways are confirmed. My ticket will allow unlimited stopovers for one month all the way to Colorado assuming I keep travelling west. Although there are direct flights from Gaborone to London, it’s much cheaper for me to take the overnight train to Bulawayo and fly from Zimbabwe. I plan to spend a couple days in London (my first time there), then on to Belfast, Northern Ireland, to get a feel for the country and see if the journalistic approach I used in South Africa might be applicable in Northern Ireland. After all, I have a some personal connections that may help – my last name is Irish Catholic courtesy of my Irish-Italian father and my mother, who died in 1981, was ½ Scots-Irish Protestant. Then back to the U.S. starting with Philadelphia to see my friend, Barry Kohn, who is dying of AIDS (if I’m not too late). From there, it’s on to Florida to celebrate my dad’s 70th birthday on July 1 and meet his new wife, Leila. I expect to be back in Denver around July 3.
And, oh yes, my visa to South Africa was not renewed. They said I could apply again once I had proof of my new teaching position in Botswana. So, no teaching contract, no visa, no travel to Namibia.
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