And even more "holidays"

As kind of an addendum to the school holidays, there is one more instance where kids will not go to school, and that's if a teacher dies.

The government has long bemoaned the problems of HIV/AIDS among public servants, especially in professions that are heavy on training and you can't just hire new folks whenever you want. Jobs like teachers and police are the most visibly effected by this epidemic.

It's hard to know just how much HIV is a factor because it never revealed is someone has the virus. If a teacher dies suddenly because they got hit by a car or their house collapses, everybody will know that it was obviously not HIV. However, if a teacher is sick, you will just hear that they died. It's never disclosed what the illness was or how long they suffered. The HIV rate is somewhat ambiguous and disputed here. (The gov't claims it is a remarkably low 5%. The UN claims it to be above 16% while other observers peg it as just over 20%. The true value is probably between the 16-20% figures. That is about one in every six people.)

Anecdotally, however, teachers are a philandering bunch and the rate of infection among them may be much higher. From what I hear from my teacher friends, it's not so much because teachers are involved with students, but because they are getting it on with each other—left and right and all over the place. It's that prominent.

When a teacher dies that same day is often given off for all the kids, along with the day of the funeral. In both the primary or secondary school in our area loses a teacher, the other will inevitably shut down also to allow the other teachers to attend the funeral. This happens about once a month.

I've touched on it before, but just to say again: Where there is a death of a teacher like this, it is sad. However, because of the high death rate (life expectancy is not even 50 years) there is also a sense that it is commonplace. It is not like a death in a western school or American school where grief counselors show up and it is talked about and there are memorials all through the year. When teachers die at a rate of about one a month, it starts to wear off after a while.