Written March 27, 2011
So I'm just gonna lay down a few random stories from the past few days.
Adult Learning:
This past Thursday I had my first Adult English Class. It was interesting... Out of a projected 17 participants only 6 showed up. I wasn't too disappointed because that Thursday was the first day of a school vacation so a lot of people had left the village. My class of 6 was however relatively high-profile! I had the 2nd in charge under the Mayor, the 3rd in charge, The President of the APE (basically the PTO/PTA), The Chief of the Village (well the administrative chief. My village has 2 chiefs, one a super old guy that has Chiefdom in his lineage and the other a young Gov't/village appointed Chief. The young one is the one that does all the administrative stuff for the village, the old one is kind of just there for show), and 2 women. Once the vacation is over I will also have the Mayor and the Director of the Secondary School as well as some teachers in my class. The first lesson we did was on basic greetings like How are you, I'm fine and you? etc. We spent almost 2 hours going over about a half a page of material. It is going to be very difficult teaching these people conversational English. The hardest to teach are the women because they are too shy to speak in front of the men, and thus won't repeat after me which is crucial for them to get the pronunciation right. It was actually very annoying when the women wouldn't participate. The Chief of the Village tried to explain that women are different from men and they are too shy to speak in front of groups. To that I was like "Um no... I am a woman and I am speaking in front of you just fine. If I can do it, they can do it." That didn't go very far. In the end I decided to give up on trying to get the women to speak because I can't make someone do something they don't want to do.
Hot New Shoe Fad:
So remember the Jellies I wrote about in older posts? Well forget about em! When it comes to Malian footwear, Jellies are the shoes of yesterday. Today everyone is wearing a bright new neon pair of Abibis! These are just plain hard plastic flip flops that come in a variety of neon colors: hot pink, lime green, bright blue, etc. Men are the ones who have really taken on this fad, and surprisingly the most popular color is hot pink! Dudes will cuff their jeans so you can see their bright new Abibis. One of my PCV friends recently bought a pair so he could be up on the fad, and he has informed me that they are more expensive than your regular pair of flip flops (1000 cfa, about $2, instead of 500-750 cfa, around $1) and that they are not even comfortable. I have no idea where this fad came from, it seems as if it hopped out of nowhere. I'm considering buying a lime green pair myself.
New House:
Well my new house is practically finished! The wall is halfway done and I am only waiting for Peace Corps to deliver the windows and doors! I am beyond excited to move into it! I have a huge hangar that I can't wait to sleep under and even a small area where I'm gonna plant a garden. This small area was something I had to fight for though! My homologue was gonna try and build me this little tiny wall that really only gave me the space under the hangar as my enclosed front yard. Totally not cool. The house is already tiny and I really didn't think it was fair for him to give me a small yard too especially since I have spent nearly 8 months now waiting for a house that was supposed to be finished in 3 months at the latest. To get a more spacious yard I basically had to throw a hissy fit. My homologue had already laid the stone foundation for the tiny wall he wanted when I walked upon the building site. He asked me if it looked nice, and that's when I laid down the law. I told him it was small and then tried the whole pouty face- I'm really sad routine. He was like 'fine then where do yo want it?' I showed him a spot about a meter away from where the stones were already laid and he started to laugh. He said there was no way the 500 bricks they already made would be enough to fit what I wanted. To that I was like 'Can't you just make more?'... a bunch of stuff was said in Senufo amongst my homologue and his friends who were helping him and it sounded like they were arguing, but then my homologue took out his measuring tape and said 'Where do you want it?'... So yea I got my way. While they were changing the foundation I was trying to hide the smug smile on my face. I even helped move a few of the stones to try and not seem like a total spoiled brat.
Bike Trip:
This past Friday my homologue and I took a little day trip to a nearby village. The village is only 6k from mine and the ride was super picturesque. I had no idea that there were so many hills behind my village and all kinds of different flora. This village was like the quaint version of my. Life seemed a little slower there and all the house were a lot closer together. There was even an old town and a new town. The old part of the village is gradually being abandoned for the new part which is a couple hundred meters away. The old part looks like an ancient city with runes. It was pretty cool. While I was in this village I also got to see a man give out Polio vaccinations. It was comparable to a mail man going door to door with letters in a big sac, but in this case they're weren't letters but instead little bottles of clear liquid. All the small children lined up in front of the man and stuck their tongues out ( I assume they'd done this before because the children got right up without being told what to do). All it took was 2 drops of the vaccination on each tongue and that was it. I really liked this village and I was excited to find out that they might be putting a PC volunteer there in the near future!
Noises:
So There are a ton of different and very distinct noises Malians make. My favorite noise has to be the ehh eh? It is used in instances of shocked surprise. For example Aminata is pregnant and we don't know who the father is, response: Ehh eh!? A very close second favorite of mine are all of the animal calls ,or rather noises to shoo animals away. I've been told that everyone makes the same noises for each particular animal, but I'm not sure if this is all over Mali or just the noises Senufo people make. For chickens it is a sort of Shhhh shhh which is sort of like shushing but more choppy. For donkeys it's Tru tru and for sheep it's chet chet. There is also a very loud kissing sound that is often used after making any one of those noises. When Malians make these noises they look and sound like they are having a Tourette's induced fit. It took me quite some time to get use to all of this.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Camel!
Written March 23, 2011
So there was a camel in my village today... very strange. I live in the south of Mali where it is semi-tropical, so being a desert animal a camel isn't something you would expect to see here. I was biking home from drinking tea in the market with my homologue and his friends when I passed by the camel. I left my homologue and his friends after only round two of a typically three round tea session because I had already been sitting with them in the market for two hours; another round would've probably meant another round of me sitting bored out of my mind. So anyway I decided to say that I was tired and I that I was going to go home and rest as a way to get out of staying for the third round. This is basically something I do every Wednesday. Every Wednesday is market day, and every Wednesday my homologue likes to bring me to the market with him to have tea with his "Grein." A Grein is a group of friends who have grown up together, hang out together, dress alike for Fetes (special occasions or holidays), and drink tea together. My homologue's grein is made up of a very tall man that they have nicknamed Dangereux, a Fulani man, a guy that has teeth that are really spaced out, and a really sweet woman named Abi, although Abi isn't so much apart of the grein as much as she is the grein's mother (i.e. servant who does everything while all the men sit around doing nothing). Anyway... back to the camel. So I was leaving the grein when I saw in a distance a camel with a turbaned man on top. I got kind of scared at first and stopped my bike because I saw a black thing in the man's hands (the reins) and thought it was a gun. Why this was my first thought I have no idea. I guess I just got scared because I was seeing something out of the ordinary. Once I got over my fear I kept on biking towards the man on the camel and once I got to him I said I ni ce (basically hi in Bambara) and kept on going. I did notice that all the villagers surrounding the man and his camel did not look the least bit surprised. It was as if seeing a camel was no big deal to them. It was a huge deal to me! Once I got back to my house I thought 'Damn it! I should've asked for a ride!'
Things have been pretty good in village. I am spending a lot less time at home and way more time out and about with my homologue. We spend a ridiculous amount of time playing cards (uno), but it's all good because I'm getting to know more and more people. Yesterday was one of the few times I've ever truly been upset in village. It wasn't because of anything anyone had done to me in village, but rather a phone call from my APCD (my Peace Corps supervisor). He called to say that he was upset about something I did, it all turned out to be a misunderstanding, but it upset me nonetheless. I then went from being upset about that phone call to having to sit through a meeting that took literally all day. I believe I wrote in a previous blog post how much a HATE meetings here. I honestly don't understand why my homologue keeps bringing me to them when I've told him more than once that I don't like them because I understand nothing that is going on. This meeting just added to my frustrations of the day, but it was all alleviated when one of the guys who works at the mayor's office walked into the meeting wearing jeans that had two GIANT Nokia phones embroidered onto each pant leg! Funniest pants I've ever seen in my entire life, second only to a pair I saw a month or so ago that were embroidered with all different types of guns with "Welcome to the Hood" stitched on the bottom of the left pant leg. Oh Mali...
Yesterday may have been the first time I was really upset in village, but I wouldn't go as far as saying it was the only time I've ever been upset in Mali. I will go as far as to say that a few days ago I was the maddest I've ever been in Mali, and I mean I was furious. The way to tell when a Peace Corps volunteer is so incredibly mad is when they revert to yelling in English because they are so mad that they can only express themselves in their maternal tongue. I reached exactly that point. It all began when I was already somewhat annoyed because I had been waiting for a bus to take me back to village for an hour before I actually caught one. This bus was particularly crappy by Mali standards, but I decided to take it anyway because it was past 5pm and I needed to get to Helen's village before 6:30pm when the sun went down and it would be too late to bike my 8k back to my village. It normally only takes 45 minutes to get from Sikasso to Helen's village, but lately it has been taking an hour plus because the road is being repaired. Knowing this I figured I would still be able to make it in time, so I got on the bus and handed the Prentigi (the driver's apprentice; there are usually 3 of these guys on every bus and they are usually the ones who collect your money and give you a ticket) 5 mille (about $10). My ticket was only 1 mille ($2) so I asked the prentigi for my 4 mille in change ($8), to which he said it was coming. I didn't want to annoy the prentigi to make him do something like pretend to not notice my stop or even to make me get out way before I'm supposed to, so I patiently waited for him to bring me my change. Except he didn't. This prentigi got off the bus when we reached the Sikasso check point (about 25 minutes later) and never got back on. I immediately thought 'aw crap, did I seriously just lose 4 mille???' This may not sound like a big deal, but 4 mille is a HUGE amount of money to me, and I am currently trying to save up to go on a big vacation so it would do me no good to lose any amount of money. Anyway I sulked for a bit and then decided that I wasn't going to give up on my change. I then called another prentigi and told him that I was owed 4 mille. This prentigi called up to the front of the bus a couple of times to ask about my change, but I suspect he was just doing this to shut me up because no 4 mille came of this. I continued to sit patiently hoping that my change would come eventually, but also thinking that I wouldn't get off the bus without my 4 mille. The bus also kept making a bunch of stupid and very long stops, so by the time they reached the village before Helen's and decided to take a 5 minute prayer break it was already dark. This mad me even more annoyed because not only did I not have my change, but now I was going to have to spend the night in Helen's village. Once everyone got back on the bus after the prayer break I asked the prentigi again for my change and told him that I needed it now because I was getting off at the next village. He did the whole yelling up to the front thing again, and again nothing came of it. By the time the bus stopped in Helen's village I still didn't have my change. This was when I started to yell. I screamed out I WANT MY CHANGE (up to this point every verbal exchange had been in Bambara), to which several prentigis told me in French that I should just get off the bus and my change would be given to me. I replied : NO I CAN NOT GET OFF THE BUS, GIVE ME MY 4 MILLE (in Bambara) I NEED MY MONEY, I NEED 4 MILLE (in French). IF I GET OFF THE BUS YOU WILL JUST LEAVE (French). GIVE ME MY MONEY NOW!! A woman sitting in front of me turned to the person next to her and said "This girl can scream!" I continued to yell for them to give me my money and several other people on the bus yelled out "Just give her her money!" All the while all of the prentigis had gotten off of the bus and were all laughing hysterically at me. I was finally handed my 4 mille by a prentigi who said "is this how much you need?" with a big smile on his face. I snatched the money and climbed down the stairs relieved that I got my money but also very distraught by the whole situation. I was so distraught that the only thing that I could think of to say was THIS IS BAD (Bambara) over and over again and then THIEF (Bambara) while pointing to each of the prentigis. I also unfortunately tripped as the last Zon (Bambara for thief) was coming out of my mouth. This made them laugh even harder. A prentigi then came up to me and asked me in French, "Madame are you finished?" This was what set me off. I was beyond furious when I yelled SHUT THE *$&^ UP! at him. As you can see I could only express my true extreme anger in English and with a expletive (I almost never curse, so me cursing is another indication of how truly angry I was). The bus pulled away and I could still hear the laughter in the distance. I was fuming as I walked to Helen's house, but then some kids came up to me and offered to take my bags. By the time I made it to her house I was fairly calmed down because of the kindness of the villagers around me. I realized that those prentigis were jerks and that village Malians are nothing like them, and that I was just glad to be back in village.
So there was a camel in my village today... very strange. I live in the south of Mali where it is semi-tropical, so being a desert animal a camel isn't something you would expect to see here. I was biking home from drinking tea in the market with my homologue and his friends when I passed by the camel. I left my homologue and his friends after only round two of a typically three round tea session because I had already been sitting with them in the market for two hours; another round would've probably meant another round of me sitting bored out of my mind. So anyway I decided to say that I was tired and I that I was going to go home and rest as a way to get out of staying for the third round. This is basically something I do every Wednesday. Every Wednesday is market day, and every Wednesday my homologue likes to bring me to the market with him to have tea with his "Grein." A Grein is a group of friends who have grown up together, hang out together, dress alike for Fetes (special occasions or holidays), and drink tea together. My homologue's grein is made up of a very tall man that they have nicknamed Dangereux, a Fulani man, a guy that has teeth that are really spaced out, and a really sweet woman named Abi, although Abi isn't so much apart of the grein as much as she is the grein's mother (i.e. servant who does everything while all the men sit around doing nothing). Anyway... back to the camel. So I was leaving the grein when I saw in a distance a camel with a turbaned man on top. I got kind of scared at first and stopped my bike because I saw a black thing in the man's hands (the reins) and thought it was a gun. Why this was my first thought I have no idea. I guess I just got scared because I was seeing something out of the ordinary. Once I got over my fear I kept on biking towards the man on the camel and once I got to him I said I ni ce (basically hi in Bambara) and kept on going. I did notice that all the villagers surrounding the man and his camel did not look the least bit surprised. It was as if seeing a camel was no big deal to them. It was a huge deal to me! Once I got back to my house I thought 'Damn it! I should've asked for a ride!'
Things have been pretty good in village. I am spending a lot less time at home and way more time out and about with my homologue. We spend a ridiculous amount of time playing cards (uno), but it's all good because I'm getting to know more and more people. Yesterday was one of the few times I've ever truly been upset in village. It wasn't because of anything anyone had done to me in village, but rather a phone call from my APCD (my Peace Corps supervisor). He called to say that he was upset about something I did, it all turned out to be a misunderstanding, but it upset me nonetheless. I then went from being upset about that phone call to having to sit through a meeting that took literally all day. I believe I wrote in a previous blog post how much a HATE meetings here. I honestly don't understand why my homologue keeps bringing me to them when I've told him more than once that I don't like them because I understand nothing that is going on. This meeting just added to my frustrations of the day, but it was all alleviated when one of the guys who works at the mayor's office walked into the meeting wearing jeans that had two GIANT Nokia phones embroidered onto each pant leg! Funniest pants I've ever seen in my entire life, second only to a pair I saw a month or so ago that were embroidered with all different types of guns with "Welcome to the Hood" stitched on the bottom of the left pant leg. Oh Mali...
Yesterday may have been the first time I was really upset in village, but I wouldn't go as far as saying it was the only time I've ever been upset in Mali. I will go as far as to say that a few days ago I was the maddest I've ever been in Mali, and I mean I was furious. The way to tell when a Peace Corps volunteer is so incredibly mad is when they revert to yelling in English because they are so mad that they can only express themselves in their maternal tongue. I reached exactly that point. It all began when I was already somewhat annoyed because I had been waiting for a bus to take me back to village for an hour before I actually caught one. This bus was particularly crappy by Mali standards, but I decided to take it anyway because it was past 5pm and I needed to get to Helen's village before 6:30pm when the sun went down and it would be too late to bike my 8k back to my village. It normally only takes 45 minutes to get from Sikasso to Helen's village, but lately it has been taking an hour plus because the road is being repaired. Knowing this I figured I would still be able to make it in time, so I got on the bus and handed the Prentigi (the driver's apprentice; there are usually 3 of these guys on every bus and they are usually the ones who collect your money and give you a ticket) 5 mille (about $10). My ticket was only 1 mille ($2) so I asked the prentigi for my 4 mille in change ($8), to which he said it was coming. I didn't want to annoy the prentigi to make him do something like pretend to not notice my stop or even to make me get out way before I'm supposed to, so I patiently waited for him to bring me my change. Except he didn't. This prentigi got off the bus when we reached the Sikasso check point (about 25 minutes later) and never got back on. I immediately thought 'aw crap, did I seriously just lose 4 mille???' This may not sound like a big deal, but 4 mille is a HUGE amount of money to me, and I am currently trying to save up to go on a big vacation so it would do me no good to lose any amount of money. Anyway I sulked for a bit and then decided that I wasn't going to give up on my change. I then called another prentigi and told him that I was owed 4 mille. This prentigi called up to the front of the bus a couple of times to ask about my change, but I suspect he was just doing this to shut me up because no 4 mille came of this. I continued to sit patiently hoping that my change would come eventually, but also thinking that I wouldn't get off the bus without my 4 mille. The bus also kept making a bunch of stupid and very long stops, so by the time they reached the village before Helen's and decided to take a 5 minute prayer break it was already dark. This mad me even more annoyed because not only did I not have my change, but now I was going to have to spend the night in Helen's village. Once everyone got back on the bus after the prayer break I asked the prentigi again for my change and told him that I needed it now because I was getting off at the next village. He did the whole yelling up to the front thing again, and again nothing came of it. By the time the bus stopped in Helen's village I still didn't have my change. This was when I started to yell. I screamed out I WANT MY CHANGE (up to this point every verbal exchange had been in Bambara), to which several prentigis told me in French that I should just get off the bus and my change would be given to me. I replied : NO I CAN NOT GET OFF THE BUS, GIVE ME MY 4 MILLE (in Bambara) I NEED MY MONEY, I NEED 4 MILLE (in French). IF I GET OFF THE BUS YOU WILL JUST LEAVE (French). GIVE ME MY MONEY NOW!! A woman sitting in front of me turned to the person next to her and said "This girl can scream!" I continued to yell for them to give me my money and several other people on the bus yelled out "Just give her her money!" All the while all of the prentigis had gotten off of the bus and were all laughing hysterically at me. I was finally handed my 4 mille by a prentigi who said "is this how much you need?" with a big smile on his face. I snatched the money and climbed down the stairs relieved that I got my money but also very distraught by the whole situation. I was so distraught that the only thing that I could think of to say was THIS IS BAD (Bambara) over and over again and then THIEF (Bambara) while pointing to each of the prentigis. I also unfortunately tripped as the last Zon (Bambara for thief) was coming out of my mouth. This made them laugh even harder. A prentigi then came up to me and asked me in French, "Madame are you finished?" This was what set me off. I was beyond furious when I yelled SHUT THE *$&^ UP! at him. As you can see I could only express my true extreme anger in English and with a expletive (I almost never curse, so me cursing is another indication of how truly angry I was). The bus pulled away and I could still hear the laughter in the distance. I was fuming as I walked to Helen's house, but then some kids came up to me and offered to take my bags. By the time I made it to her house I was fairly calmed down because of the kindness of the villagers around me. I realized that those prentigis were jerks and that village Malians are nothing like them, and that I was just glad to be back in village.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Curse you Hot Priest
Written March 12, 2011
Hot Priest struck again. I was having such a good day, until I was walking into my concession after spending the entire day at the secondary school and it was his face that I saw. Ugh he is so annoying!!! Every time he is around he basically forces you to spend time with him. He makes it seem disrespectful if you even try to leave his presence. This time he came for a visit and brought a few guests with him, two women and a man. Turns out they were two nuns and a priest, all Anglican. Also turns out Hot Priest told them that I was also Anglican (same thing as Episcopal, the church my family attends back home) and that I have not been attending mass (Catholic mass and an Episcopal service are basically the same thing, so I very well could be attending mass here, but I have chosen not to because it is held in Bambara and French and I have no desire to spend 2 more hours of my life a week not understanding anything, also I don't like Hot Priest, so I really don't want to spend 2 hours with him either). Because Hot Priest let that info slip, I was given a 10 minute lecture about how I am Anglican and I can go to a Catholic Church, and that it is important to go to Church and that I shouldn't lose my faith. I can't stand lectures like this (My dad, my real dad back home, knows this already). I pretty much just sat there with a blank look on my face until it was all over, oh and I couldn't help but curse Hot Priest for bringing this upon me. He ruined such a great day!
So anyway today was so great because it was the first time I had my English teacher's meeting. My homologue came up with the idea for me to meet with the 3 English teachers of the secondary school so that we could exchange ideas and so I could give them tips on how to better run their classes. This is sort of a way that I can teach all of the students of my village without actually being there in class and teaching them. The secondary school desperately needs teacher training, so I feel as if I am doing my part. I however am not a trained teacher, so I make no claims to know everything, but I do feel as if I myself was given a very good education, so I am sort of trying to replicate the classroom learning that I experienced growing up. My homologue helped me set it up so that the 3 teachers and myself will meet together every Saturday morning for two hours. I have asked that they bring their lesson plans for the week to come with them to each meeting. Today they just had their plans for just one class period next week since we only just started this weekly meeting. The two hours were first spent discussing how time in class is normally spent and then how I think it should be spent. Then we went over the class period plans for the 9th, 8th and 7th grade English classes, which basically meant me correcting all of their example sentences that were full of grammatical errors and also me explaining the need to have everything that is said or written on the board in English translated in French, and Bambara or Senufo if possible. At the end of the two hours I asked the teachers if they thought the meeting was productive, and they happily agreed that it was. I think that these meetings are really going to be beneficial to the students of my village because now English isn't just going to be spoken at them, but now it is going to be translated, broken down and explained to them, all in the hopes of their comprehension... I'm sure your thinking 'that doesn't exactly sound fun, and you said your day was so great,' well you're right, that wasn't the fun part. The fun part was spending the entire day playing very competitive Uno.
A couple of days ago I thought the teachers of the secondary school and my homologue how to play Uno. They absolutely loved it! Uno is very similar to a card game that is very popular here called Cent Cinquante et Un (151), so Uno was very simple for them to understand and pick up very quickly. The teachers her are SUPER competitive! We started keeping a tally of how many times each person won a round of Uno to then see who was the overall champion. It was so much fun making them draw four or skipping them and having them genuinely get upset and then turn vengeful on you. Who knew a simple game like Uno could make someone bloodthirsty!
Oh and if you read my last blog post I assume you are wondering how my little test for the 7th, 8th and 9th graders went. Well, it went terribly. But that was expected. I expected that the students would pretty much all fail my tests because in all honesty they don't know English. This is especially sad because English is one of their core classes, like math or science. Each grade had their own 15 question test. I graded the tests on a 30 point scale. I gave a correct response 2 points (well sort of correct, for example if the spelling was off by a letter or two I still gave them the 2 points), a response that I could sort of understand and see what they were trying to say 1 point, and then a response that was completely wrong 0 points. The tests all started out with the question What is your name, and then either Where are you from or what is the name of your village? The other 13 questions were all translation questions: 6 words given in French that they should translate into English and then 5 words given in English that they should translate into French. These words were ridiculously easy too. For example two of the words from the 9th grade test were nothing and sugar. No one knew those words. There was a ridiculous amount of scores of 0, 1 and 2 amongst all three grades. I was, however, very easily able to find the top ten students (well 11 for the 8th grade because there was a 3 way tie of the score 21) for each grade to be the members of my advanced English class which will begin as soon as my house is done.
As for my house, all the remains now is building the fence and putting up the hangar, oh and installing the doors and windows. Peace Corps decided it was going to pay for my doors and windows. My supervisor ( my APCD) came to my village a few days ago, a sort of surprise visit, to tell me that the doors and windows were going to be paid for by Peace Corps! I was so happy to hear this because he had originally told me that Peace Corps was only going to provide me with 5 bags of cement, so him coming to my village and giving me this news was great! I have no idea where the doors or windows, or rather the money to buy the doors and windows was going to come from otherwise.
Oh and as for the adult English class, we set a date for our very first class, the 24th of this month! So far we have 21 people signed up and they are all very excited to begin learning!
Hot Priest struck again. I was having such a good day, until I was walking into my concession after spending the entire day at the secondary school and it was his face that I saw. Ugh he is so annoying!!! Every time he is around he basically forces you to spend time with him. He makes it seem disrespectful if you even try to leave his presence. This time he came for a visit and brought a few guests with him, two women and a man. Turns out they were two nuns and a priest, all Anglican. Also turns out Hot Priest told them that I was also Anglican (same thing as Episcopal, the church my family attends back home) and that I have not been attending mass (Catholic mass and an Episcopal service are basically the same thing, so I very well could be attending mass here, but I have chosen not to because it is held in Bambara and French and I have no desire to spend 2 more hours of my life a week not understanding anything, also I don't like Hot Priest, so I really don't want to spend 2 hours with him either). Because Hot Priest let that info slip, I was given a 10 minute lecture about how I am Anglican and I can go to a Catholic Church, and that it is important to go to Church and that I shouldn't lose my faith. I can't stand lectures like this (My dad, my real dad back home, knows this already). I pretty much just sat there with a blank look on my face until it was all over, oh and I couldn't help but curse Hot Priest for bringing this upon me. He ruined such a great day!
So anyway today was so great because it was the first time I had my English teacher's meeting. My homologue came up with the idea for me to meet with the 3 English teachers of the secondary school so that we could exchange ideas and so I could give them tips on how to better run their classes. This is sort of a way that I can teach all of the students of my village without actually being there in class and teaching them. The secondary school desperately needs teacher training, so I feel as if I am doing my part. I however am not a trained teacher, so I make no claims to know everything, but I do feel as if I myself was given a very good education, so I am sort of trying to replicate the classroom learning that I experienced growing up. My homologue helped me set it up so that the 3 teachers and myself will meet together every Saturday morning for two hours. I have asked that they bring their lesson plans for the week to come with them to each meeting. Today they just had their plans for just one class period next week since we only just started this weekly meeting. The two hours were first spent discussing how time in class is normally spent and then how I think it should be spent. Then we went over the class period plans for the 9th, 8th and 7th grade English classes, which basically meant me correcting all of their example sentences that were full of grammatical errors and also me explaining the need to have everything that is said or written on the board in English translated in French, and Bambara or Senufo if possible. At the end of the two hours I asked the teachers if they thought the meeting was productive, and they happily agreed that it was. I think that these meetings are really going to be beneficial to the students of my village because now English isn't just going to be spoken at them, but now it is going to be translated, broken down and explained to them, all in the hopes of their comprehension... I'm sure your thinking 'that doesn't exactly sound fun, and you said your day was so great,' well you're right, that wasn't the fun part. The fun part was spending the entire day playing very competitive Uno.
A couple of days ago I thought the teachers of the secondary school and my homologue how to play Uno. They absolutely loved it! Uno is very similar to a card game that is very popular here called Cent Cinquante et Un (151), so Uno was very simple for them to understand and pick up very quickly. The teachers her are SUPER competitive! We started keeping a tally of how many times each person won a round of Uno to then see who was the overall champion. It was so much fun making them draw four or skipping them and having them genuinely get upset and then turn vengeful on you. Who knew a simple game like Uno could make someone bloodthirsty!
Oh and if you read my last blog post I assume you are wondering how my little test for the 7th, 8th and 9th graders went. Well, it went terribly. But that was expected. I expected that the students would pretty much all fail my tests because in all honesty they don't know English. This is especially sad because English is one of their core classes, like math or science. Each grade had their own 15 question test. I graded the tests on a 30 point scale. I gave a correct response 2 points (well sort of correct, for example if the spelling was off by a letter or two I still gave them the 2 points), a response that I could sort of understand and see what they were trying to say 1 point, and then a response that was completely wrong 0 points. The tests all started out with the question What is your name, and then either Where are you from or what is the name of your village? The other 13 questions were all translation questions: 6 words given in French that they should translate into English and then 5 words given in English that they should translate into French. These words were ridiculously easy too. For example two of the words from the 9th grade test were nothing and sugar. No one knew those words. There was a ridiculous amount of scores of 0, 1 and 2 amongst all three grades. I was, however, very easily able to find the top ten students (well 11 for the 8th grade because there was a 3 way tie of the score 21) for each grade to be the members of my advanced English class which will begin as soon as my house is done.
As for my house, all the remains now is building the fence and putting up the hangar, oh and installing the doors and windows. Peace Corps decided it was going to pay for my doors and windows. My supervisor ( my APCD) came to my village a few days ago, a sort of surprise visit, to tell me that the doors and windows were going to be paid for by Peace Corps! I was so happy to hear this because he had originally told me that Peace Corps was only going to provide me with 5 bags of cement, so him coming to my village and giving me this news was great! I have no idea where the doors or windows, or rather the money to buy the doors and windows was going to come from otherwise.
Oh and as for the adult English class, we set a date for our very first class, the 24th of this month! So far we have 21 people signed up and they are all very excited to begin learning!
Ants in my Sallidaga
written March 2, 2011
There really are ants in my Salidaga and I have no idea why. First off I'm not sure if I've ever explained what a Salidaga even is, so let me go ahead and do that: A Salidaga is a sort of large plastic kettle that holds water that Malians bring into the bathroom with them to use instead of toilet paper. I however ONLY use my salidaga as a part of my hand washing station. I still have, to this day, NEVER had to go without toilet paper (knock-on-wood)! Okay, back to the ants. So yea, for some reason ants love to commit suicide in my salidaga. Everyday I find hundreds if not thousands of dead sugar ants floating in my salidaga, it's really very gross. The first time I discovered this I almost died. I was attempting to wash my hands when these large black clumps were poured over my hands. At first I thought they we clumps of dust, like cobwebs or something, but then upon closer look I realized they were tiny ants! Ridiculously disgusting! Anyway I'm now back in village after having been gone for about 2 weeks in SENEGAL!!! Amazing trip! but I will get to that later. When I first got back to village on Monday I was really really really annoyed. I came back expecting for my house to be entirely finished since on the day I left all that was left to be done was cement the floors, add the doors and windows, dig the hole for the negen, put on the tin roof and build the fence, all of which could be done in less than a week. Turns out only the roof was put on and the hole dug! I was so pissed. Now I won't be able to move into my house for at least another week if not more. I just want my privacy!! I want to be able to walk to my bathroom without having to greet anyone, I want to be able to chill in my house without hearing my homologue's TV, and I want to be able to do my chores without having everyone watch me. I honestly can't wait for my new house, and I'm going to bring it up everyday to try and annoy my homologue so that maybe the process will be expedited.
Today in village we had another meeting with this Malian education NGO that comes and kind of does a diagnostic of all your education problems. I'm not sure yet if they actually plan on doing something about the problems or if they are just here to point them out. Anyway, this is the fourth time they have held a meeting in my village. I've ...(If this was a live journal writing you would know that I was just called away by some dude, I have no idea who it was because it is dark outside, but he yelled out my name twice, once I got to my door and stepped outside we said the normal greetings and then he started to say something in Senufo to which I had to tell him that I didn't understand and he then translated and said that he came to greet me. Sooooo annoying!! If I had my own house this wouldn't happen... well actually it probably would, but on a more controlled basis because this dude really came to see my homologue and not me, but just also decided to call me outside too) where was I... oh yea, I've always hated attending meetings in village just because I never understand anything until it is translated in French for me and they are always really long and boring. I especially hate these meetings though. The people who work for this NGO, one woman in particular, are always very condescending towards me. I like to be a silent observer in meetings and not have all the attention placed on me, but on whatever everyone came to meet about. The people of this NGO always like to draw me to the center of attention by pointing out something dumb like me not understanding or something. One time the woman saw me writing in my journal (I was particularly bored that meeting and decided to pull out my journal and write) and she came and stood over my shoulder and said "So you're writing in English."
Me:Yes
Annoying NGO Lady: What are you writing about?
Me: My life, my experiences
Her: Why don't you write in French?
Me: English is my national language, it's what I speak so I write in that
Her: Is it because French is hard to write in?
Me: No. I write in English because that's what I speak.
Her: So you can write in French, you just don't want to.
Me:Yep.
So basically this woman just wanted to be nosy and read what I was writing, but can you see how condescending she was being? Another thing that made me really dislike this woman was that she took the one and only Youki, my favorite soda here (it's fruit cocktail flavor), and only drank half of it while I drank nothing because all that was left were cokes and I hate coke. I'm not saying it's a good reason to dislike someone, but it's a reason nonetheless, especially since the only thing that keeps me going through these meetings is knowing that I'm going to have a yummy lunch (i.e. something besides Toh) and boissons (soda) provided, and that particular day I felt like I was shafted. Today's meeting however was relatively okay. I was able to steer clear of the annoying lady, and was actually able to meet two really cool women from a village that's like 45 minutes from mine. There was this man from their village who was hitting on me hard-core (he was saying thing like I am sooo beautiful and charming and nice, and that he was going to come to my village everyday to chat with me), and the two women kept saying that he had no chance with me, and kept joking with him to help alleviate the awkwardness that he was creating. It was really funny because after I would tell him no for something, for example I told him I was only interested in American men, they would shout out DISQUALIFIED!! There was also a point where he found out how much I loved mangoes and one of the woman pointed out how his village has no mangoes and then burst out into laughter. It was really a fun afternoon with those women, and I hope to meet them again.
SENEGAL- So my vacation in Senegal was AWESOME! I loved every moment of it. Being in Dakar, the capitol, was basically like being in America. There were high rise apartments, city buses, and garbage trucks!!! There were also legit grocery stores, Aldos (the shoe store), and I even saw a Curves!!! (the exercise place for women). Not only is Dakar like a mini-America, it also has the beach!!! I hadn't seen the ocean in 8 months, and God did I miss it! We got to go to two Islands while in Dakar, Goree and Ngor. Goree was really cool because it use to be a slave hub, so it wa scool to see all of the historical things, and Ngor was cool because it is a beautiful Island right off of Dakar where Akon, or so we were told, has a house! We also got to eat some amazing food while in Dakar. They have an ice cream shop called N'ice Cream that is honestly comparable to if not better than Coldstone back in America! I had a flavor called Obama that was rich chocolate ice cream with hazelnut fudge mixed in and little crunchy chocolate pieces as well. SOOOO GOOD! We also had amazing Cape Verdian food that my friend Melissa, who is from Cape Verde, got us for free just because she could speak their language with the owner. I also had yummy pizza and Mexican food!! All in all it was a great trip! Oh and as I mentioned in the previous blog how I wasn't going to play softball, I stuck to that and didn't swing a single bat.
I'm really excited right now because tomorrow I am going to test all three grades of the Secondary school. My host dad, the director of the school, came up with this idea when I came to him and told him I was ready to begin teaching his students English. I already give informal lessons everyday when I go to have lunch with my host family, but now I want to give legit structured classes. However, I am aware that it would be impossible to teach all 300 something students, so I have decided that I want to give advanced classes to the top 10 students in each grade. I originally just went to my host dad to have him pick the 10 kids, but he felt like the village parents would accuse him and my homologue of just choosing kids that they wanted, and would accuse him of not being fair. So he came up with the idea for me to create a small test for all of the students and for me to correct them and then select the 10 highest scorers, and for those to be the members of my advanced English class. I haven't quite decided what I am going to put on the tests yet, but I'm thinking of just having them translate a bunch of vocabulary words from French/Bambara to English and vice versa. I'm going to continue having the informal classes everyday at lunch for the other students, but I am really excited to start up this Advanced class. I am also going to start, sometime very soon, a Adult English class. I am going to teach them conversational English one evening every week. The adults of my village are very excited for this to begin, especially my homologue, and so am I.
There really are ants in my Salidaga and I have no idea why. First off I'm not sure if I've ever explained what a Salidaga even is, so let me go ahead and do that: A Salidaga is a sort of large plastic kettle that holds water that Malians bring into the bathroom with them to use instead of toilet paper. I however ONLY use my salidaga as a part of my hand washing station. I still have, to this day, NEVER had to go without toilet paper (knock-on-wood)! Okay, back to the ants. So yea, for some reason ants love to commit suicide in my salidaga. Everyday I find hundreds if not thousands of dead sugar ants floating in my salidaga, it's really very gross. The first time I discovered this I almost died. I was attempting to wash my hands when these large black clumps were poured over my hands. At first I thought they we clumps of dust, like cobwebs or something, but then upon closer look I realized they were tiny ants! Ridiculously disgusting! Anyway I'm now back in village after having been gone for about 2 weeks in SENEGAL!!! Amazing trip! but I will get to that later. When I first got back to village on Monday I was really really really annoyed. I came back expecting for my house to be entirely finished since on the day I left all that was left to be done was cement the floors, add the doors and windows, dig the hole for the negen, put on the tin roof and build the fence, all of which could be done in less than a week. Turns out only the roof was put on and the hole dug! I was so pissed. Now I won't be able to move into my house for at least another week if not more. I just want my privacy!! I want to be able to walk to my bathroom without having to greet anyone, I want to be able to chill in my house without hearing my homologue's TV, and I want to be able to do my chores without having everyone watch me. I honestly can't wait for my new house, and I'm going to bring it up everyday to try and annoy my homologue so that maybe the process will be expedited.
Today in village we had another meeting with this Malian education NGO that comes and kind of does a diagnostic of all your education problems. I'm not sure yet if they actually plan on doing something about the problems or if they are just here to point them out. Anyway, this is the fourth time they have held a meeting in my village. I've ...(If this was a live journal writing you would know that I was just called away by some dude, I have no idea who it was because it is dark outside, but he yelled out my name twice, once I got to my door and stepped outside we said the normal greetings and then he started to say something in Senufo to which I had to tell him that I didn't understand and he then translated and said that he came to greet me. Sooooo annoying!! If I had my own house this wouldn't happen... well actually it probably would, but on a more controlled basis because this dude really came to see my homologue and not me, but just also decided to call me outside too) where was I... oh yea, I've always hated attending meetings in village just because I never understand anything until it is translated in French for me and they are always really long and boring. I especially hate these meetings though. The people who work for this NGO, one woman in particular, are always very condescending towards me. I like to be a silent observer in meetings and not have all the attention placed on me, but on whatever everyone came to meet about. The people of this NGO always like to draw me to the center of attention by pointing out something dumb like me not understanding or something. One time the woman saw me writing in my journal (I was particularly bored that meeting and decided to pull out my journal and write) and she came and stood over my shoulder and said "So you're writing in English."
Me:Yes
Annoying NGO Lady: What are you writing about?
Me: My life, my experiences
Her: Why don't you write in French?
Me: English is my national language, it's what I speak so I write in that
Her: Is it because French is hard to write in?
Me: No. I write in English because that's what I speak.
Her: So you can write in French, you just don't want to.
Me:Yep.
So basically this woman just wanted to be nosy and read what I was writing, but can you see how condescending she was being? Another thing that made me really dislike this woman was that she took the one and only Youki, my favorite soda here (it's fruit cocktail flavor), and only drank half of it while I drank nothing because all that was left were cokes and I hate coke. I'm not saying it's a good reason to dislike someone, but it's a reason nonetheless, especially since the only thing that keeps me going through these meetings is knowing that I'm going to have a yummy lunch (i.e. something besides Toh) and boissons (soda) provided, and that particular day I felt like I was shafted. Today's meeting however was relatively okay. I was able to steer clear of the annoying lady, and was actually able to meet two really cool women from a village that's like 45 minutes from mine. There was this man from their village who was hitting on me hard-core (he was saying thing like I am sooo beautiful and charming and nice, and that he was going to come to my village everyday to chat with me), and the two women kept saying that he had no chance with me, and kept joking with him to help alleviate the awkwardness that he was creating. It was really funny because after I would tell him no for something, for example I told him I was only interested in American men, they would shout out DISQUALIFIED!! There was also a point where he found out how much I loved mangoes and one of the woman pointed out how his village has no mangoes and then burst out into laughter. It was really a fun afternoon with those women, and I hope to meet them again.
SENEGAL- So my vacation in Senegal was AWESOME! I loved every moment of it. Being in Dakar, the capitol, was basically like being in America. There were high rise apartments, city buses, and garbage trucks!!! There were also legit grocery stores, Aldos (the shoe store), and I even saw a Curves!!! (the exercise place for women). Not only is Dakar like a mini-America, it also has the beach!!! I hadn't seen the ocean in 8 months, and God did I miss it! We got to go to two Islands while in Dakar, Goree and Ngor. Goree was really cool because it use to be a slave hub, so it wa scool to see all of the historical things, and Ngor was cool because it is a beautiful Island right off of Dakar where Akon, or so we were told, has a house! We also got to eat some amazing food while in Dakar. They have an ice cream shop called N'ice Cream that is honestly comparable to if not better than Coldstone back in America! I had a flavor called Obama that was rich chocolate ice cream with hazelnut fudge mixed in and little crunchy chocolate pieces as well. SOOOO GOOD! We also had amazing Cape Verdian food that my friend Melissa, who is from Cape Verde, got us for free just because she could speak their language with the owner. I also had yummy pizza and Mexican food!! All in all it was a great trip! Oh and as I mentioned in the previous blog how I wasn't going to play softball, I stuck to that and didn't swing a single bat.
I'm really excited right now because tomorrow I am going to test all three grades of the Secondary school. My host dad, the director of the school, came up with this idea when I came to him and told him I was ready to begin teaching his students English. I already give informal lessons everyday when I go to have lunch with my host family, but now I want to give legit structured classes. However, I am aware that it would be impossible to teach all 300 something students, so I have decided that I want to give advanced classes to the top 10 students in each grade. I originally just went to my host dad to have him pick the 10 kids, but he felt like the village parents would accuse him and my homologue of just choosing kids that they wanted, and would accuse him of not being fair. So he came up with the idea for me to create a small test for all of the students and for me to correct them and then select the 10 highest scorers, and for those to be the members of my advanced English class. I haven't quite decided what I am going to put on the tests yet, but I'm thinking of just having them translate a bunch of vocabulary words from French/Bambara to English and vice versa. I'm going to continue having the informal classes everyday at lunch for the other students, but I am really excited to start up this Advanced class. I am also going to start, sometime very soon, a Adult English class. I am going to teach them conversational English one evening every week. The adults of my village are very excited for this to begin, especially my homologue, and so am I.
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