Y'all look cooollldd in the states

December is nearly half finished which means protest season is in full swing. That also means I have only been to work once in the last week and that trend does not appear to be changing any time soon. Here’s a rundown of the events.

Last Monday I awoke unaware of what my schedule would be for the day. Normally I have class from 9 am until noon. I woke up very early that morning to have some coffee and breakfast. While sitting in the kitchen I could hear not so distant cheers arising from a nearby school, my school (just over a 10th of a mile away). This happened to be the day that my “proviseur” (head master or principal) had told me he would text me to say if it were safe or not to come to work. At that time I had received no indication via text to say what the situation was at the school. I walked on to work not knowing what I was about to find when I turned the corner or entered the gate at the school.

The cheering had stopped so that was at least comforting. All the schools here have uniforms for their students, and not like the SNL skit catholic school girl style uniforms. These uniforms are generally just a collard t-shirt with pants or LONG skirts for the girls, most schools are easily identifiable by their uniforms. There were loads of my school’s uniforms walking around the street (with students in them) when I was approaching. Now it was time for my imagination to take off.

“Have the students deposed of the proviseur, security guard, and other teachers? Will the school be in a blaze when I round corner? Will there be random small children with AK’s and frozen bisap (comparable to Kool-Aid) waiting for me? Are these kids walking the street going to realize that ‘Hey that’s that white guy that teaches at our school once a week, GET HIM!’? Could I have more absurd and ungrounded thoughts than this?”

When I did arrive at the school I found the gate slightly open and the guard waiting. I gave my morning greetings and moved on to the copy room. In the courtyard of the school it was of those, “oh crap it’s too quiet” situations. Upon arriving at the copy room one of the administrators (the guy who runs the copy room) came out. He informed me that that morning we gave the students the week off. Great news but it would have been nice to know beforehand.

My Tuesday school did meet on their normal schedule. My Thursday school did not meet but luckily I was feeling sick that morning and rather than riding my bike out to the school to find out, I just texted a colleague to say I wasn’t coming. He just told me not to worry about it because no one else was either, bonus.
Last Friday was Independence Day (part two). I say part two because it used to be August 4th but the current President, Brother Blaise, changed it to December 11th, he’s a big fan of change kindoflikehowhechangedtheconstitutionsohecouldrunforofficeagainnextNovember,Imeanwhat?

Anyway, there was a concert last Friday night that I accidently stumbled upon with my friend Siddo and some of his buddies. There, along with an acrobatic team from Ghana who liked to stick flaming torches down each other’s pants, I saw a fellow teacher who informed me that “no school, students are on strike”. So that’s fun because that was the only school I had left that was still working. So today there was no school and I’m pretty sure the strike is spreading because I received a message from a friend who works in a village saying “a group of high school kids just walked by my house blowing whistles” and just being generally annoying. Good stuff, their reaction was the same as mine which was, get off the soccer field and go to the mayor’s house or something.

In any case I will continue to wait out the “strike/protest” so I can begin work again. While it is still ranging from 91-90F for the highs during the day I am aware that Christmas is next week, at least that’s what the calendar says. So next week I’ll be taking my temporarily unemployed-self to the beach in Ghana, I’ll be sure to have lots of pictures for you.
Peace