It appears that the school where I am working may have been struck by an outbreak of swine flu (or "gripe A" as it is known here).It's not entirely clear that it IS swine flu that has caused a large number of teachers and students to call in ill over the past week, but given the frequent and slightly apocalyptic reporting on the illness by the media (which is just as bad here as in the UK) that is the first conclusion pretty much everyone has jumped to. Although it could well be right!
Either way, yesterday there was a particularly large amount of staff and students off sick. One of the classes I had in the afternoon normally consists of twenty-seven students, of which I usually teach half each week. Yesterday, however, I ended up taking all of the class. Or at least the seven of them that weren't off sick...
I should point out that this class was an exceptional case and that most classes were nowhere near as badly depleted as this one!
(If you are wondering about the picture, then it happens to be the first thing that came up on Google Image search for "swine flu"!)
