Model School and such

Alright, model school is in full swing now. I am teaching 4 classes a week of biology at a 7th grade level and Aaron is teaching math to the older kids. I don't remember ever taking biology in school, so I have been learning a lot about non-flowering plants. (I'm sorry to biologists out there, but this stuff is boring!)

It seems like the priorities in school here is discipline first, teaching second. We have a lot of rules that we are supposed to enforce in order to keep control of our class. For example, if a student comes late, you do not let them in; if a student's phone rings, take it from them; if a student is being distracting or annoying, kick them out of class, etc. I am actually finding it easier than I thought to be strict in class. I haven't kicked anyone out of class yet but I have yelled at them to shut up (which is totally exceptable here). My first class was with the older kids who aren't as well behaved and only half the class stood up when I entered the room so I told them all to stand and made them wait while I put down my bag, took out my notebook, arranged my chalk, and took a sip of water; then I told them they could sit.

The students seem to be hard workers. If you give them a definition, they will have it memorized by the next class. The trouble is critical thinking: if you ask them to give you the same definition in their own words, they are stumped.

So last week I was talking to Steph (are most devoted blog commenter) and she asked me a really good question and of course I gave her a really lame answer because, like all good questions, you can't think of a good answer until later. I am going to try and answer it now, though. Her question was: what do you like the most about being there?

I think what I like the most is the change of pace and priorities of life here. Right now, I have no idea what the price of gas is, I don't know what the summer fashions are (not that I ever had much style), and I have no idea which young actress is being arrested these days. I feel like despite the new food, clothes, people, language, etc. my life has been simplified. Also, it seems that there is nothing so important that it cannot be postponed for a wedding, baptism, funeral, etc. The sense of community above self, is a new concept for a lot of Americans. It has also been nice to get to know the other volunteers in this setting, without the pretext of our cars, or clothes, or jobs that we left back home. We always joke that if we were to meet in America, we would not recognize each other.

Okay, I think that is better than my original answer which was something about liking this yogurty-millet stuff I get for breakfast sometimes.

In other news, thanks so much to Steven for the package!! You totally made our week, buddy. We will try to sneak some action shots of us teaching this next week to post on the blog.

Aaron Speaks

This is kind of long. Here goes.

We started model school this week. Model school for the students is summer school to help prepare them for the upcoming school year (October). For us PCTs it's practice to learn how to write lesson plans, deliver effective lessons, and discipline the students. Today I taught my first class to the quatrième group (like 8th grade, only some of the students are probably in their 20s). I taught the first lesson in the PC book (physics and chemistry) on solids and liquids. 4eme is where they first see physics and chemistry topics, so we start out easy with the differences between a solid and a liquid, what is volume, and how do we measure the volume of liquids.

The 4ème class is the biggest class in model school; next week it will be split into two groups. There were about 50 students and they were a bit noisy. Helping me teach is one of the current PCVs. When the students get too rowdy the PCV can step in and tell them to shut it. I suppose it went alright today, no one threw anything at me, no one walked out, the lesson plan itself was fine. The hard part is getting excited about defining a solid and a liquid--pretty boring stuff to be honest.

Next week I'll start teaching one of the 4ème sections either algebra or geometry. I think that will be a bit easier and perhaps more fun to teach.


In other news. As Amy mentioned earlier, we went to our future site, Titao, last week. The trip was stereotypically Peace Corps. As the events of the trip unraveled, I felt like I was more of an observer than a participant, comparing what I saw to what I had read or been told should be happening in a given situation. This position of observer was possible because we were being chauffered by PCVs or our homologues the whole time and all I had to do was smile and nod. An example follows in the form of dinner plans one of the nights:

The Plan

Jill and Marcus informed us on Friday that we were to have dinner with the proviseur, the principal of the school, and a bunch of the big wigs at the school. The dinner was a big deal, as the proviseur is probably only second in status in the community to the mayors and chiefs, and the dinner was sponsored by him. Also, the dinner was specifically for Jill and Marcus for the school staff to say their thanks and goodbyes and give Jill and Marcus recognition for their work. We were to meet at 7 pm at the "Garage" which is a local buvette/bar with outdoor and indoor seating. Moussa, the resident factotum of Titao, was to bring the chickens and guinea fowl for dinner.

The Reality

Jill, Marcus, Amy, and I arrived at the Garage just before 7 and just as it was getting dark. At the same time a storm was rolling in and we were glad we just missed it. When no one had arrived by 7:05, we realized there must have been a change of plans that someone had forgotten to inform the guests about. Thus started an exchange of broken telephone calls between Jill and Marcus's two phones and probably everyone else who was supposed to be at the dinner. With the storm, the cell signals of the three providers in town were cutting in and out so that Marcus would get reception back only to be calling someone with another provider whose service just went down, etc. By the time we deduced that everyone else had gone to Moussa's, in the other direction from which we had come, and another km or so from the house, the sky was dark, the frist drops were falling, and the wind was blowing dust sideways. The proviseur was on his way to Moussa's, in a car of course.

We would have asked about moving to one of the local restaurants that has an actual tin roof, but of course the phones were totally dead by now. Therefore, we got on our bikes and headed straight into the storm, using our little lights, riding on dirt roads and watching out for the occasional dog, goat, donkey, guy on bike with no light, drop-off, etc. At this point I smiled--"So this is the 'Peace Corps Experience' " I thought. We couldn't see. When we could see we had to close our eyes because the dust was being blown straight into us. When we could open our eyes we were about to crash into something. And we were going about 5mph because the wind was so strong. And then there was Marcus answering a phone call from his mom, "Umm, this isn't the best time..."

We arrived just as the rain really started coming down and we headed to "shelter" immediately. Of course that was halted by everyone coming out into the rain to greet us. Half-wet, we walked into the shelter expecting shelter. Of course this was an old, poorly thatched room. We sat down in the pitch black, moved around two or three times to find a new stream of water to sit under, and got drenched. I actually shivered. At this point I smiled again, "So this is the..." We commenced with the meal of chicken, guinea fowl, beer, and soda and under using our bike lights. The chicken, actually, was great. The beer was warm and bubbly.

After a bit, the proviseur said some words--thanks, good luck, and even a good luck to Amy and I for the future. A couple of the others spoke and they gave Jill and Marcus some fancy local cloth as a gift. Then we shot the shit for the bit in French.

Once the beer (they only have the big bottles here) had worked its way through a bit and I really had to go, I went out and after a few steps found myself in the middle of a field, animal bones everywhere, dark, low, ominous clouds covering the sky, lightening and thunder non-stop, and the rain. I smiled for the third time, "Awesome!" I went back in, rubbed my belly, and we left shortly thereafter.


I think my training--via the books I read before leaving for Africa, stories I heard from RPCVs, PCV blogs, and the official training of the past 6 weeks--has desensitized me. I'm not likely to get too worked up about anything now. Everything that happened that night would have been very frustrating normally and I was aware of that while it was happening, yet it didn't bother me in the least. That's the Peace Corps. More precisely, that's Africa.

Thanks for listening.

Titao ("Teetow")

We finished our site visit this week to Titao. Our site seems pretty cool and our house is bigger than our old apartment in the States. We have a market where we can get meat, fruit, and veggies all year round and while there's no electricity yet, you can still get cold drinks at some places. Currently, there are 6 cats residing at our house, but we are hoping to get that number down to at most 2 when we return in September. Not that I haven't always wanted to be a crazy cat lady, but I think 6 is a bit much.

Honestly, the most memorable part of our 4 day site visit was the actual travelling. I would compare Burkina transportation to a ride at Disney World. The wait was longer than the ride itself (in our case, the bus was 3 hours late for a 1.5 hour ride), all the little details seem so exaggerated that they are fake (the music was a few notches above enjoyable and seemed to be playing at 1.5 times the normal speed and the old man next to us decided to dedicate all of his time to staring unblinkingly at us), and as with all popular amusement park rides when all is said and done you have to ask yourself if it was worth all the wait and effort.

We actually had an extra element of fun on our ride: since this is the rainy season there were huge puddles in the road. When you combine that with our driver who must have been preparing for the Daytona 500, I felt like Harry Potter on the night bus swerving all over the road.

This week we start 5 weeks of model school, which is a summer school that we put on to give us practice in the classroom and extra lessons for the students. This week I will be observing Burkinabé and PC teachers and on Friday I am teaching a physics class. While I am nervous about teaching to actual students in French, I think it will help the rest of training go by faster.

Aaron and I have been listening to this program in the mornings called Voice of America. Has anyone heard of this show? We find it both funny and a little troublesome that this one program has decided to represent our country to all other countries in the world, especially since most of it's programs are obviously biased propaganda. Our favorite one comes on a few times a week when they highlight international students who are attending "one of America's great universities". They interview the student and talk about how awesome America is and every now and then they will mention what that student is studying or something about their home country. By the time we are done praising America, there normally isn't much time left to discuss what is happening with the election or economy or things like that. But we still listen because it is nice to hear English and we need a good laugh.

Mom and Val and Keith thanks for calling this week. We were so excited to get a call! Jenn we haven't gotten your letter, but we'll keep looking.