Adios April!
Bienvenue May!
May means I have one and a half weeks of teaching followed by exams, followed by grade calculations and meetings to discuss the school year. 3 weeks total. Then I’m done with school until the 1st of October.
I was trying to remember what I was doing on April 30, 2009. I can’t come up with specifics but I do know that there was a lot of sitting going on and a lot of eating—a lot of “This will be my last opportunity to eat (enter tasty delight here) for a year or two.” I have fond memories of this time.
But this April 30, I’m in Burkina handing back exams and discussing plans with students for our school’s culture day that’s coming up in about a fortnight. There will be traditional dancing, singing, theater and bissap. The theme of this year’s culture day: Les grossesses indesirees en milieu scolaire, or, Unwanted pregnancies in middle school. I’m putting together a sensibilization for this theme and I’ll probably work in HIV/AIDS prevention strategies using my handy-dandy male and female wooden anatomical parts provided by the PC.
When I was talking to the students about the program for Culture Day and the subject of a soccer match came up, I suggested having a girls’ game in addition to the boys match. I told these students (all boys) that girls have the ability to play soccer every day, not just on 8 Mars International Women’s Day. They agreed to allow the girls 30 minutes of game time, the dears. Hopefully we’ll make it happen.
Well, with this hot season (115 degrees, give or take a few) I’ve sweat my body weight each day and got a lovely case of heat rash just about everywhere on my body. But the rain has come! Sort of. It’s rained twice in the last two weeks and both times I’ve thanked the rain gods with a dance. Mom and Remus, do you remember the one where I stomped around in circles whilst holding my left arm at a ninety degree angle and shaking my hand back and forth in a rapid motion? Anywho, that’s the dance and I believe it pleases the rain gods. They decided not to strike me with lightning, which I find encouraging.
And I just heard thunder. Must dance pronto.
Riddle me this: When is Cinco de Mayo?
Friday, April 30, 2010
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Water for Elephants
Entertaining book, by the way.
Being in Africa, I expected to see African wildlife such as donkeys, pigs, goats and cows. But elephants! And 5 of them, too! Running wild in Burkina just outside of Leo, these wonderful creatures were encountered by yours truly. Here are some pictures (only a few because it's taking forever to upload):
Being in Africa, I expected to see African wildlife such as donkeys, pigs, goats and cows. But elephants! And 5 of them, too! Running wild in Burkina just outside of Leo, these wonderful creatures were encountered by yours truly. Here are some pictures (only a few because it's taking forever to upload):
you and me and the satellites
I’ve had an odd and disturbing week at school.
On Wednesday morning at 7:45, Jillian (who was at my house at the time) and I heard a lot of noise coming from my school, which happens to be right down the road from my house. The noise was a mixture of cheers and angry screams. Jillian biked to the school to talk to 6eme kids about HIV/AIDS while I headed in the opposite direction into town to get gateau and a coke for breakfast. It being a Wednesday, I didn’t have class until 10. Jillian calls me while I’m en route to tell me that there’s some sort of student protest going on, a violent one.
Fast-forward a few hours. After waiting and watching as trucks filled with police and gendarmes pass my house over the course of the morning, I come to find out that what occurred was not a student protest. Here’s what went down:
There existed some disagreement between a teacher and a student which resulted in rocks and fists being thrown. Teachers got upset, the students a little more so. The teachers barricaded themselves in the office so as not to get struck by rocks, but then the police/gendarmes arrived and after a 7-hour conference all hostilities were at an end. The student who threw the first rock at one of my colleagues was expelled and classes resumed on Thursday.
Of course I didn’t know any of this until I showed up at school at 7 on Thursday morning. I was the only teacher not present during these events, and so I wasn’t present during the 7-hour meeting which took place immediately after. Nope. I stayed in my house all day reading Sense and Sensibility, hoping that my homologue would return my calls.
Thursday morning came and I inquired after Wednesday’s events. Then all of the teachers (myself included), the director, secretary, econome and surveillant went to speak to all the classes to lament what happened on Wednesday morning and to demand the students’ agreement that those events were indeed regrettable. Their forced agreement was a little unsettling.
But now everything is back to normal, and I delved right into math lessons and homework and talk of tests in two weeks. Everything’s fine now. I asked if something like this ever happened at our CEG before, but it never has. It is one isolated incident that got out of hand. Mob mentality is a scary thing.
And to add to this, I found out yesterday that one of my students died over the spring vacation. Though I have 70-80 students in each of my classes, I remember this student well because he sat in the front of my class and I’ve argued with him over points on his tests. I was sad when I found out that he died, but it was the way I found this out that made me even more wretched.
I was taking attendance when I asked the class where this particular student was. I was in a good mood, joking around, and I asked if he was outside eating or drinking or chatting up the ladies. No one answered me. So I asked his neighbor particularly where he was, and he replied, “Il est decede.” I meant to say something in response, but I was so surprised and ashamed of my behavior and that I didn’t know what had passed, that no sound came out of my mouth. I then turned to the board and started my math lesson.
All I can think about now was the last time I saw him; I told him he received 8.63 in my class (out of a possible 20). “Insuffisiant” as the Burkinabe educational system calls it.
What a sucky week.
On Wednesday morning at 7:45, Jillian (who was at my house at the time) and I heard a lot of noise coming from my school, which happens to be right down the road from my house. The noise was a mixture of cheers and angry screams. Jillian biked to the school to talk to 6eme kids about HIV/AIDS while I headed in the opposite direction into town to get gateau and a coke for breakfast. It being a Wednesday, I didn’t have class until 10. Jillian calls me while I’m en route to tell me that there’s some sort of student protest going on, a violent one.
Fast-forward a few hours. After waiting and watching as trucks filled with police and gendarmes pass my house over the course of the morning, I come to find out that what occurred was not a student protest. Here’s what went down:
There existed some disagreement between a teacher and a student which resulted in rocks and fists being thrown. Teachers got upset, the students a little more so. The teachers barricaded themselves in the office so as not to get struck by rocks, but then the police/gendarmes arrived and after a 7-hour conference all hostilities were at an end. The student who threw the first rock at one of my colleagues was expelled and classes resumed on Thursday.
Of course I didn’t know any of this until I showed up at school at 7 on Thursday morning. I was the only teacher not present during these events, and so I wasn’t present during the 7-hour meeting which took place immediately after. Nope. I stayed in my house all day reading Sense and Sensibility, hoping that my homologue would return my calls.
Thursday morning came and I inquired after Wednesday’s events. Then all of the teachers (myself included), the director, secretary, econome and surveillant went to speak to all the classes to lament what happened on Wednesday morning and to demand the students’ agreement that those events were indeed regrettable. Their forced agreement was a little unsettling.
But now everything is back to normal, and I delved right into math lessons and homework and talk of tests in two weeks. Everything’s fine now. I asked if something like this ever happened at our CEG before, but it never has. It is one isolated incident that got out of hand. Mob mentality is a scary thing.
And to add to this, I found out yesterday that one of my students died over the spring vacation. Though I have 70-80 students in each of my classes, I remember this student well because he sat in the front of my class and I’ve argued with him over points on his tests. I was sad when I found out that he died, but it was the way I found this out that made me even more wretched.
I was taking attendance when I asked the class where this particular student was. I was in a good mood, joking around, and I asked if he was outside eating or drinking or chatting up the ladies. No one answered me. So I asked his neighbor particularly where he was, and he replied, “Il est decede.” I meant to say something in response, but I was so surprised and ashamed of my behavior and that I didn’t know what had passed, that no sound came out of my mouth. I then turned to the board and started my math lesson.
All I can think about now was the last time I saw him; I told him he received 8.63 in my class (out of a possible 20). “Insuffisiant” as the Burkinabe educational system calls it.
What a sucky week.
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