I've been teaching in the Burkina Faso school system now for three weeks. The three schools that I teach in are private. I don't really think that means much more than they cost more to go to. One of my classes has 62 students in it while the other two each have about 20.
Some of my students do quite well in class and actually appear to belong there. The others are incredibly far behind and to be honest I don't have a clue how to catch them up. I see each of my classes for three hours a week one day during the week.
The large gap in ability is thanks to the system these students are coming up in. You can completely fail English every year and as long as your other subject scores are good then you move up in level. That means you move up in every level, including the subjects that you fail. Oh well, doesn't matter at least I'm still getting paidohwaitthat'sright I don't.
Spent the weekend up in the north again...The landscape is changing rapidly. Sometime this "winter" I'll get back up there so you can see what the dry season really looks like. Also had to ride the bus back after sun down slightly un-nerving. Not nearly as bad as my trip up which consisted of a driver that was much more in love with the horn than the breaks.
He was a big fan of laying on the horn from about a mile away from his target. Once we were roughly 10 feet from whatever it was we were passing (mostly donkeys) he would rapidly turn then immediately over correct at about 50mph in a Greyhound size bus. Good times especially on unpaved bridges with 30 or so foot droops to either side.
I have thirty more exams to correct (most of which are illegible) and a lesson plan to finish, i shall update you soon. The high today is only about 97F/35C and it feels GOOD!
Peace,
Ben
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Learning is fun!
Interesting week this week. First off we celebrated a friend’s birthday and headed out to one of the dance clubs. At the end of the night I got to learn a new dance. This one is older, from 1992, but it still gets a big reaction on the dance floor.
First take a tissue and hold it with you thumb and fore finger. Then commence waving the tissue with one hand moving only the wrist in a flicking motion. Form a type of conga line that moves in a circle. Proceed to have individuals jump into the middle of the circle to do a quick solo dance. Do this for roughly 30 minutes. There you have the whole dance (can’t remember the name at the moment). The waving of the tissue, I came to find out later, is to chase off bad spirits. I originally thought it was a competition to see who could hold out the longest before using the tissue to wipe off sweat.
In other events, I have no idea what I’m doing in one of my new schools. The administration hasn’t given my internal goals of any sort so I have no idea what to prepare my students for. That ordeal is at my Monday school. My Tuesday school I am a “co-teacher” with a local hired/paid teacher. I thought that I would be assisting that teacher with the class. I went to work this morning expecting not to be in charge only to find myself in charge. So an impromptu lesson commenced (p.s. I have a bit of a cold or something so I’m afraid that my students will all sound “stuffed up” on any words I thought today). I go to my third school on Thursdays and will sport my white lab coat for the first time in two days.
Sunday night was very interesting for me. It was a cross between a biology class, a lesson on what to do with gifts from friends in West Africa, and a murder/dinner. First the gift; my friend from Peace Corp was given a gift from a business partner in her village. It was a small white and gray rabbit (we all know where this is going). Let the learning begin, this was not meant to be a pet, it was of course meant to be dinner. One issue we had was that no one knew how to prepare a live rabbit for dinner other than making it dead (and how could we kill him, he was so cute).
As none of us knew how and had never before skinned a rabbit we were stuck and one member of the group threatened to cook beef instead. We couldn’t have that this rabbit was meant to be dinner and dinner he would BE! So I went on youtube to find out how to skin, gut, and butcher a rabbit. So with my 10 minute crash course on preparing rabbit for dinner we had some leverage in the negotiations for what to do about dinner. The hook went like this “I brought someone who can skin the rabbit if someone else will kill it” my friend reported making me sound like some sort of expert. With hesitancy the murder stepped forward.
So many choices for how to kill “pot-roast” (should have named him stew it would have been more befitting his fate). I’ll spare you the details but needless to say he ended up dead, the murder was on the balcony using a glove and some precise pressure. So my turn came to act like I knew what was doing. Again I’ll spare you the details but I cut that sucker up pretty good and he was tasty mixed up with some veggies and spice. No one got sick (other than the guy that got malaria, but that’s not because of the food) so I would say that I did a pretty good job at guessing how to skin and gut Thumper.
Any way I am enjoying learning all kinds of new things during my stay. I believe the next item on the menu is hedgehog, I’ll keep you updated.
Peace,
Ben
First take a tissue and hold it with you thumb and fore finger. Then commence waving the tissue with one hand moving only the wrist in a flicking motion. Form a type of conga line that moves in a circle. Proceed to have individuals jump into the middle of the circle to do a quick solo dance. Do this for roughly 30 minutes. There you have the whole dance (can’t remember the name at the moment). The waving of the tissue, I came to find out later, is to chase off bad spirits. I originally thought it was a competition to see who could hold out the longest before using the tissue to wipe off sweat.
In other events, I have no idea what I’m doing in one of my new schools. The administration hasn’t given my internal goals of any sort so I have no idea what to prepare my students for. That ordeal is at my Monday school. My Tuesday school I am a “co-teacher” with a local hired/paid teacher. I thought that I would be assisting that teacher with the class. I went to work this morning expecting not to be in charge only to find myself in charge. So an impromptu lesson commenced (p.s. I have a bit of a cold or something so I’m afraid that my students will all sound “stuffed up” on any words I thought today). I go to my third school on Thursdays and will sport my white lab coat for the first time in two days.
Sunday night was very interesting for me. It was a cross between a biology class, a lesson on what to do with gifts from friends in West Africa, and a murder/dinner. First the gift; my friend from Peace Corp was given a gift from a business partner in her village. It was a small white and gray rabbit (we all know where this is going). Let the learning begin, this was not meant to be a pet, it was of course meant to be dinner. One issue we had was that no one knew how to prepare a live rabbit for dinner other than making it dead (and how could we kill him, he was so cute).
As none of us knew how and had never before skinned a rabbit we were stuck and one member of the group threatened to cook beef instead. We couldn’t have that this rabbit was meant to be dinner and dinner he would BE! So I went on youtube to find out how to skin, gut, and butcher a rabbit. So with my 10 minute crash course on preparing rabbit for dinner we had some leverage in the negotiations for what to do about dinner. The hook went like this “I brought someone who can skin the rabbit if someone else will kill it” my friend reported making me sound like some sort of expert. With hesitancy the murder stepped forward.
So many choices for how to kill “pot-roast” (should have named him stew it would have been more befitting his fate). I’ll spare you the details but needless to say he ended up dead, the murder was on the balcony using a glove and some precise pressure. So my turn came to act like I knew what was doing. Again I’ll spare you the details but I cut that sucker up pretty good and he was tasty mixed up with some veggies and spice. No one got sick (other than the guy that got malaria, but that’s not because of the food) so I would say that I did a pretty good job at guessing how to skin and gut Thumper.
Any way I am enjoying learning all kinds of new things during my stay. I believe the next item on the menu is hedgehog, I’ll keep you updated.
Peace,
Ben
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Consider This a Live Update
So I’m pretty sure I almost died roughly hour ago…I took my malaria medication and it didn’t quite make it all the way down. Before I could drink some more water I burped and the powder, not the capsule, came back up into the back of my throat, nose, and mouth. I’ll save you the guessing this is apparently not a good thing and I don’t recommend trying it out.
Any way there I was trying to get into the shower when this whole episode started. After the burping I was left standing naked in my bathroom unable to breath and with a body that was freaking out trying to get this powder out of my mouth, nose and throat. I started trying to get water in to flush it out, not working. So I grabbed a towel and ran to get my nose spray to try and get it from that end, to little avail. All this time my body is making me try to puke while not really breathing, suffice it to say it wasn’t pretty. There was lots of wheezing, sneezing, snotting, puking, crying, gasping, and falling over (Dear Andy Fallon, after reading or hearing a sentence, such as the one preceding this aside, it would be the perfect time to say, “That’s what she said”)
After this marvelous exhibition of the human body trying to figure out what the hell is going on and correct all problems, I attempted to get away from the shower to reduce the risk of drowning. Thankfully that whole episode was loud enough for my housemates to hear it and they came to check on me.
Happily they found me on the floor sitting up or laying down or something by the bathroom door with a towel on, I don’t honestly remember you’d have to ask them. At this point I unwillingly decided that it would be a good time to go into some full on shock. That was almost as much fun as the wheezing, sneezing, puking, crying, gasping, and falling over. So bring on the big giant brown bag for me to breathe into. That felt like it went on for a solid half-hour, most likely 5-10 minutes. Good times, not. Then my arms and face went numb, and please allow me to add that it hurts to grab a pillow with numb/tingling hands. They got me calmed down and it’s been about an hour and a half since this all went down and I am feeling better.
Right, now that that is out of the way, I started working at 3 (so far, waiting on a 4th) local “high schools” this week teaching English. One school has given me free reign over the classroom (so far my favorite), one wants me to co-teach (could be fun), and the other wants me to wear a white lab coat when I teach (little weirded out by that I literally laughed at the guy when he told me all the teachers wore them for class, oops).
In any case, I’m feeling better, also feeling like I’m working more which is just good for my mental state. I promise to let you know if anything else goes horribly wrong.
Peace,
Ben
Any way there I was trying to get into the shower when this whole episode started. After the burping I was left standing naked in my bathroom unable to breath and with a body that was freaking out trying to get this powder out of my mouth, nose and throat. I started trying to get water in to flush it out, not working. So I grabbed a towel and ran to get my nose spray to try and get it from that end, to little avail. All this time my body is making me try to puke while not really breathing, suffice it to say it wasn’t pretty. There was lots of wheezing, sneezing, snotting, puking, crying, gasping, and falling over (Dear Andy Fallon, after reading or hearing a sentence, such as the one preceding this aside, it would be the perfect time to say, “That’s what she said”)
After this marvelous exhibition of the human body trying to figure out what the hell is going on and correct all problems, I attempted to get away from the shower to reduce the risk of drowning. Thankfully that whole episode was loud enough for my housemates to hear it and they came to check on me.
Happily they found me on the floor sitting up or laying down or something by the bathroom door with a towel on, I don’t honestly remember you’d have to ask them. At this point I unwillingly decided that it would be a good time to go into some full on shock. That was almost as much fun as the wheezing, sneezing, puking, crying, gasping, and falling over. So bring on the big giant brown bag for me to breathe into. That felt like it went on for a solid half-hour, most likely 5-10 minutes. Good times, not. Then my arms and face went numb, and please allow me to add that it hurts to grab a pillow with numb/tingling hands. They got me calmed down and it’s been about an hour and a half since this all went down and I am feeling better.
Right, now that that is out of the way, I started working at 3 (so far, waiting on a 4th) local “high schools” this week teaching English. One school has given me free reign over the classroom (so far my favorite), one wants me to co-teach (could be fun), and the other wants me to wear a white lab coat when I teach (little weirded out by that I literally laughed at the guy when he told me all the teachers wore them for class, oops).
In any case, I’m feeling better, also feeling like I’m working more which is just good for my mental state. I promise to let you know if anything else goes horribly wrong.
Peace,
Ben
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
My Backyard
This week there are a number of visitors in the house mostly from Texas. Some have come for business others just to see what’s up with the project. Yesterday we took a trip to two places in Ouga that are run in part of in whole by Catholic Relief Services/charities.
The first place, whose name in Mooré means “Lean on God”, is a compound for women. I’m going to liken it to a battered women’s shelter although that it not the reason these women are living there. These particular women are living in the shelter because they were at some point accused of being witches. Let’s stop for an explanation.
For those of you think “I knew it there’s all sorts of witchcraft in Africa”…STOP IT…yes there are some people here that practice things that could be construed as witchcraft, mainly there are some who will kill a chicken or something of the sort to make sure god is hearing them. The particular women we went to see do not necessarily fall into the category of “actually being witches”.
Normally what happens here is that if you are in the village and have a problem with someone, specifically women, you call them a witch and kill them or run them out of town. Happily these women were not killed; sadly they were run out of town. Again in most cases these accusations are false and are made in order to either get rid of problematic women...here’s a list of what might qualify one for being considered problematic if you’re a woman; any evidence or appearance of mental illness or unstableness, having someone else’s baby, people dying in the village and you looking like a scapegoat, perhaps an argument with a man…you know reasons that are complete bull shit.
In any case some of these women find their way to this shelter or the annex that is in the center of town. Let me remind you that the shelter is in Ouga these women come from all over the country there just aren’t many shelters like this, and by many I meant to say there’s roughly two. At the compound the women work with cotton...everything is done by hand, picking out seeds, combing it, and putting it onto spools in thread shape. They sell the cotton at the market so they can buy food. The flood of roughly a month ago hit their compound as they are located very near the lake. In the flood they lost their pigs, a large source of income for the community. It now sounds like one of our friends from Texas will be doing a pig campaign. So hopefully sometime near Thanksgiving I’ll get to go buy a pig from the market to hand over to the community.
Our other stop was at an orphanage near run by the Catholic Church and right beside the Catholic Cathedral in down town. That facility is quite nice in comparison to the compound where the women live. The orphanage handles children from less than 6 months to about 2-3 years old. From what I saw there were about a total of 30 kids living in the place. Those children who are there of course fall into some of the same categories as the rejected women (i.e. handicaps ect.) On a brighter note they do look well cared for.
I wanted to be more torn-up about what I saw yesterday but sadly or happily the women and children I saw yesterday are at least alive with some where to live. The other not so uncommon out come ends with dead babies in ditches or latrines and murdered women in the bush. Better days ahead one can hope.
Peace,
Ben
The first place, whose name in Mooré means “Lean on God”, is a compound for women. I’m going to liken it to a battered women’s shelter although that it not the reason these women are living there. These particular women are living in the shelter because they were at some point accused of being witches. Let’s stop for an explanation.
For those of you think “I knew it there’s all sorts of witchcraft in Africa”…STOP IT…yes there are some people here that practice things that could be construed as witchcraft, mainly there are some who will kill a chicken or something of the sort to make sure god is hearing them. The particular women we went to see do not necessarily fall into the category of “actually being witches”.
Normally what happens here is that if you are in the village and have a problem with someone, specifically women, you call them a witch and kill them or run them out of town. Happily these women were not killed; sadly they were run out of town. Again in most cases these accusations are false and are made in order to either get rid of problematic women...here’s a list of what might qualify one for being considered problematic if you’re a woman; any evidence or appearance of mental illness or unstableness, having someone else’s baby, people dying in the village and you looking like a scapegoat, perhaps an argument with a man…you know reasons that are complete bull shit.
In any case some of these women find their way to this shelter or the annex that is in the center of town. Let me remind you that the shelter is in Ouga these women come from all over the country there just aren’t many shelters like this, and by many I meant to say there’s roughly two. At the compound the women work with cotton...everything is done by hand, picking out seeds, combing it, and putting it onto spools in thread shape. They sell the cotton at the market so they can buy food. The flood of roughly a month ago hit their compound as they are located very near the lake. In the flood they lost their pigs, a large source of income for the community. It now sounds like one of our friends from Texas will be doing a pig campaign. So hopefully sometime near Thanksgiving I’ll get to go buy a pig from the market to hand over to the community.
Our other stop was at an orphanage near run by the Catholic Church and right beside the Catholic Cathedral in down town. That facility is quite nice in comparison to the compound where the women live. The orphanage handles children from less than 6 months to about 2-3 years old. From what I saw there were about a total of 30 kids living in the place. Those children who are there of course fall into some of the same categories as the rejected women (i.e. handicaps ect.) On a brighter note they do look well cared for.
I wanted to be more torn-up about what I saw yesterday but sadly or happily the women and children I saw yesterday are at least alive with some where to live. The other not so uncommon out come ends with dead babies in ditches or latrines and murdered women in the bush. Better days ahead one can hope.
Peace,
Ben
Saturday, October 3, 2009
The Dog Mafia
So at night there are loads of dogs on the streets in my area of town. They roll in packs and at roughly midnight or later they are a little creepy. I’ll say the same thing about the dogs as I said about the ants that run my kitchen after 11pm, “they are smart and they are organized”. There is one pack of dogs that I have a particular problem with.
This one pack of dogs has managed to cut off the main intersection between my house and a friend’s house. I am convinced that the dogs strategically placed themselves at the particular intersection to cause me anxiety in the middle of the night. You try and do something nice for a friend and walk them home at 2 in the morning but not without crossing paths with the dogs. There are normally 6 of them, 5 sit together while the 6th is a few yards down the road on guard duty. So of course he wakes up the other 5 so that I have to walk through them to a chorus of growls.
Not in the least bit unnerving considering the nurse who gave me my vaccinations told me not to get bit by anything (That was her advice on how not to get rabies). Any way there’s no way around the dogs they cut off the only intersection on the walk that we actually need. It was bad enough one night I actually carried a large rock in my hand in-case I needed to bash in someone’s face. Good times but the real fun is with the people.
My friend Greg lost one of his own personal dogs the other day, little guy ran out the door, sadly he does not know his way home like the other dog. So we had been on the lookout for this for about two days. Greg put up some flyers with my phone number (because he needed someone who spoke French to answer the phone). Yesterday at 6am I got a phone call about the dog.
First of all, my French ok but not on the phone, secondly my French is even worse at 6am. This is where it gets sketchy. The person on the other end sounded like they were using one of those voice changing devices or something. They ended up sounding like they had just sucked down a tank of helium. They did say that have the dog though so that was good news.
Later the guy stopped by Greg’s house, once again Greg’s French not wonderful so when he came to get me the dog was either dead or alive we really weren’t sure. Any way I get to the house the guy is gone so I have to make a call to the helium monster again. He comes over, again without the dog, and surprisingly sounds normal in person. Now the negotiations start, why we needed to negotiate to get the dog back I’m really not sure other than this is Burkina. I’ll do my best to put the conversation in to a script form.
Me: Do you have the dog or have you just seen the dog?
Dog mobster: Yes
Me: Yes what?
DM: I saw the dog the other day, it fell in the canal.
Me: Is the dog dead?
DM: No he’s not dead.
Me: Well, where is the dog?
DM: It’s with my cousin. How much are we getting paid?
Me: We can pay, but can I see the dog?
DM: No.
Me: Is the dog dead?
DM: No.
Me: Then I want to see the dog make sure it’s ok then we’ll talk about payment. Can you bring the dog here?
DM: No.
Me: Wait here. (I went and retrieved Greg from the shower he was trying to take) Greg they have the dog but don’t want to show it to us.
Greg: What are they holding it for ransom?
Me: Pretty much.
So we roll out I tell the guy we’ll follow him to his cousin’s house to get the dog. When we arrive at the complex, a court yard with three small mud-brick single room houses, we are greeted with the faint smell of poop and chicken, of which there were plenty of both. Negotiations round # 2. The dog exits one of the houses and runs to Greg, a good sign considering we thought he was dead.
DM 1: Here’s the dog.
DM 2: We have had the dog for two days now.
Me: Yes, thanks so what do you think is a good price to pay you? (This is a cultural thing here,
no one will give a price they will normally just ask the customer what price they think is good then tell them they’re wrong until we arrive at the correct price)
DM 1: Well it wasn’t me who found the dog; it was these two other guys down the street.
DM 2: Yes there were two more people who found the dog we just watched it here.
Me: Great (not important and most likely not true) so how much, how about 8,000 CFA (about $17).
DM 1 and 2: Well it wasn’t us who found it there’s more people, 8,000 CFA isn’t enough.
Me: Then how much?
DM 2: Ok, how about 5,000 CFA a person because there are more people.
Me: How much in total then?
DM 2: 20,000 CFA.
Me: High pitched screeching sound (a local move denoting disapproval and/or surprise at a statement), that’s too much, no, we’ll do 15,000 CFA but that’s it. Greg grab the dog let’s get out of here.
We grab the dog hand over 15,000 CFA, most likely half or all of a monthly salary for these guys unless of course they this dog ransom thing ever week. In any case it was fun although completely ridiculous.
This one pack of dogs has managed to cut off the main intersection between my house and a friend’s house. I am convinced that the dogs strategically placed themselves at the particular intersection to cause me anxiety in the middle of the night. You try and do something nice for a friend and walk them home at 2 in the morning but not without crossing paths with the dogs. There are normally 6 of them, 5 sit together while the 6th is a few yards down the road on guard duty. So of course he wakes up the other 5 so that I have to walk through them to a chorus of growls.
Not in the least bit unnerving considering the nurse who gave me my vaccinations told me not to get bit by anything (That was her advice on how not to get rabies). Any way there’s no way around the dogs they cut off the only intersection on the walk that we actually need. It was bad enough one night I actually carried a large rock in my hand in-case I needed to bash in someone’s face. Good times but the real fun is with the people.
My friend Greg lost one of his own personal dogs the other day, little guy ran out the door, sadly he does not know his way home like the other dog. So we had been on the lookout for this for about two days. Greg put up some flyers with my phone number (because he needed someone who spoke French to answer the phone). Yesterday at 6am I got a phone call about the dog.
First of all, my French ok but not on the phone, secondly my French is even worse at 6am. This is where it gets sketchy. The person on the other end sounded like they were using one of those voice changing devices or something. They ended up sounding like they had just sucked down a tank of helium. They did say that have the dog though so that was good news.
Later the guy stopped by Greg’s house, once again Greg’s French not wonderful so when he came to get me the dog was either dead or alive we really weren’t sure. Any way I get to the house the guy is gone so I have to make a call to the helium monster again. He comes over, again without the dog, and surprisingly sounds normal in person. Now the negotiations start, why we needed to negotiate to get the dog back I’m really not sure other than this is Burkina. I’ll do my best to put the conversation in to a script form.
Me: Do you have the dog or have you just seen the dog?
Dog mobster: Yes
Me: Yes what?
DM: I saw the dog the other day, it fell in the canal.
Me: Is the dog dead?
DM: No he’s not dead.
Me: Well, where is the dog?
DM: It’s with my cousin. How much are we getting paid?
Me: We can pay, but can I see the dog?
DM: No.
Me: Is the dog dead?
DM: No.
Me: Then I want to see the dog make sure it’s ok then we’ll talk about payment. Can you bring the dog here?
DM: No.
Me: Wait here. (I went and retrieved Greg from the shower he was trying to take) Greg they have the dog but don’t want to show it to us.
Greg: What are they holding it for ransom?
Me: Pretty much.
So we roll out I tell the guy we’ll follow him to his cousin’s house to get the dog. When we arrive at the complex, a court yard with three small mud-brick single room houses, we are greeted with the faint smell of poop and chicken, of which there were plenty of both. Negotiations round # 2. The dog exits one of the houses and runs to Greg, a good sign considering we thought he was dead.
DM 1: Here’s the dog.
DM 2: We have had the dog for two days now.
Me: Yes, thanks so what do you think is a good price to pay you? (This is a cultural thing here,
no one will give a price they will normally just ask the customer what price they think is good then tell them they’re wrong until we arrive at the correct price)
DM 1: Well it wasn’t me who found the dog; it was these two other guys down the street.
DM 2: Yes there were two more people who found the dog we just watched it here.
Me: Great (not important and most likely not true) so how much, how about 8,000 CFA (about $17).
DM 1 and 2: Well it wasn’t us who found it there’s more people, 8,000 CFA isn’t enough.
Me: Then how much?
DM 2: Ok, how about 5,000 CFA a person because there are more people.
Me: How much in total then?
DM 2: 20,000 CFA.
Me: High pitched screeching sound (a local move denoting disapproval and/or surprise at a statement), that’s too much, no, we’ll do 15,000 CFA but that’s it. Greg grab the dog let’s get out of here.
We grab the dog hand over 15,000 CFA, most likely half or all of a monthly salary for these guys unless of course they this dog ransom thing ever week. In any case it was fun although completely ridiculous.
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