Course work

It's the end of semester two, and with that, we've got a week off to catch our collective breaths. This semester flew by, and was comparatively easier than the first semester, but also proved to be more fulfilling.

Loïc and I split our courses down the middle at the beginning of this semester. So while we trucked on with CSS with half the available time, the students started learning programming fundamentals in JavaScript in the other half. As a result, I had more time to prepare for courses, research, and take it easy. A welcome respite from the intensity of the first semester.

The students are over the big hump in the learning track when it comes to HTML and CSS. We've moved on to building webpages from mockups, and started applying responsive design techniques to our work.

The students have started asking more in-depth questions now, which shows they've reached an understanding of sorts. Colour me proud, but damn it felt good to have some of the students ask me questions that junior developers would.

Some of the students are working during their week off on their JS projects. I'm not too happy about it, as it defies the point of a holiday, and means the students won't have a chance to recover their strength.

Coronavirus

Mahanoro has so far been spared from Coronavirus, but we've heard from the local doctors that it is present in Madagascar's larger towns or cities such as Tamatave, Antananarivo, etc.

The buses are slowly re-opening services between unaffected towns, as people here are desperate to keep their income flowing.

Apparently the police have been seen instructing locals to wear masks, and certainly masks are becoming more visible in town.

People are becoming complacent though. I too forget my mask sometimes, but I fear a lot of locals can't acquire masks, or just don't care.

The not-too-distant-future

I've got one semester left to go and need to think about my next steps. It looks like by the end of September or early October I need to find a way back home to Wellington. The trip might involve quarantining twice, depending on the strict lay-over rules in Australia, hopefully that won't be the case. 🤞