Substitute Teaching Vanuatu

In Vanuatu teacher absenteeism is a regular problem so if i was filling in everyday that a teacher decided to just take a single day off i'd most likely find myself stepping in to teach 3 or 4 days a week. Knowing this i made it my policy that i will not step in to replace teachers that have decided not to teach as i am here to build up their capacity to teach and filling in for them constantly only build dependency. In Vanuatu they take any holiday or celebration they can have very enthusiastically. Schools days are cancelled, every government thing shuts down, and no one works in anticipation of need plenty of time to celebrate. The 30th of july is vanuatu's independence day. This unfortunately occurs during the middle of our second term of school. So the week leading up to the 30th of july the school finished on a wednesday so that people could get ready to party. Two of my teachers left back to their home island of Ambae. Going in to the weekend i had a bad feeling about this because travel can be a pain and teachers are notorious for coming late at the start of terms. Sure enough the 30th of july came and went and come monday morning the teachers were not back yet. My headmaster tried calling both of them and after he was unable to get a hold of them he approached me and asked if i'd be willing to take their class until they showed up. A bit leery about doing it i asked what materials the teacher had so i could pick them up to follow his lessons to continue where he left off. Turns out he didnt have any! So i told the head master i would talk to the students, find out what they were learning and then the next day actually run a lesson in the instance that the teacher didnt come by the end of monday. Sure enough monday night rolled around with no teachers in sight so prepared my lesson and taught math the next day. Tuesday finished no teachers, Wednesday finished no teachers, Thursday finished no teachers, Friday finished and what do you know the teachers showed up! So after having started the term two weeks late because of the teachers not coming we also had a week of school that would have not happened at all during the middle of the term. It makes it hard to feel hopeful about all the teacher training work i do if the teachers don't even show up to teach.