Lesson 4 With The Fifth Graders

I've spent the majority of my time focusing on development projects at the middle school and a little with the high school so working with 5th grades has been a challenge. Today we had our 4th lesson which was about decision making. I started by asking students what we had previously discussed and they actually remembered a lot of things.

Next we pretended that there was an open lot for us to put a business! We talked about how you have to weight the positives and the negatives and the lesson liked this to a decision tree (no, I wasn't teaching them game theory it was literally a drawing of a tree). The lesson plan suggested the three choices be: a clothing store, a club, and a bakery. I talked with Jackie who's taught this class a few times and she suggested getting rid of the club and using a boutique. Great! Then I also have the chance to teach them that, if there is something on every corner, you probably don't need a new one. I decided to make the lesson even a little more personal - instead of bakery and clothing store I used my two favorite businesses from my middle and high schoolers: pool and dairy store/factory.

The kids broke into groups and were each assigned to come up with positives and negatives for a specific of the three choices. After about 5 minutes each group had one pro and one con so they sent a representative to the front of the room to present: 2 groups had "pool," 2 had "dairy," and 1 had boutique. A pool kid volunteered to start, "A negative of having a pool is that then boys and girls would go there and there would be a big problem with pregnancy."

Yeeaaaahhhhhh. I'm honestly not sure if the students were laughing at what he said or at the "can I be fired from a volunteer job?" face I made. My mind was working a million miles an hour trying to find a solution. These kids are 10 years old - I can't be discussing all of this without their parents! What could I say to make it better? Should I tell them to forget they heard it? Would that make it worse? Then I remembered what my host sister (one in high school, not the one in this class) told me yesterday: a middle school student is being accused of sexually harassing another middle school student. It is a tragedy that happened and my heart sincerely goes out to the victim. Knowing the culture, I know it took that person a lot to speak out about what happened and I hope they are receiving endless love and support from their friends and family.

These 5th graders will be in middle school next year and, I wish it was different, but this is part of their lives. It isn't my job to encourage this discussion in a school but I wasn't the one who brought it up - it occurred to this group of students on their own. So I moved the lesson forward with no real comment acknowledging or denying it. Maybe I made the wrong call but I just didn't feel comfortable getting involved in even a harmless seeming discussion.

The class got back on track and we discussed voting, who gets to vote, and how you win an election in a democracy. The students then voted for the option they wanted and they picked pool. I told them that it would be a safe pool and that we would have police so everyone would be fine.

After the class I ran some errands and eventually went to a scholarship girl's house. It's always great to visit the students and learn about their lives which are all difficult and impressive in their own ways. While at this girl's house I had a great conversation with her about how it's a lot harder for Senegalese girls in school because they have more housework than boys which makes it even more impressive that most of the top students are girls.

Tomorrow's scholarship home visits are FAR from my house (we're talking 2km out) so I'll probably be too tired to blog.

KO

Just Like Normal

I've had some internet troubles so this post is a little but last week I was teaching my favorite class which is a group of 12 girls. They knew each other before the class so they're more outgoing than the other classes. While they were working in their groups on picking a business idea I was wandering around the classroom. I noticed there was a schedule for sweeping the classroom. After reading the schedule, I realized that there were only girls' names on the list. I asked my class about this and they said that of course only the girls have to sweep and clean the board. When I asked what the boys did they responded with a simple, "nothing, of course, just like normal."

I've really been frustrated with the simple things that seem so easy to fix but are so ingrained in the culture. By having only the girls do chores while the boys sit and do nothing or study, it seems to me, that you're basically asking the male students to think they're superior with more valuable time. Maybe I'm over reacting but it's annoying to watch the girls be treated so unevenly and have it just be "normal."

In other news, I've been in Dakar to get some work done and to watch the Superbowl. Because it's not on tv here, the Marines invited everyone over to watch the game - which started at 11:30pm local time. The game went until 3:30am but we brought some veggies and dip (homemade and it was awesome, if I might say so myself) and the Marines had some other food out (including peanut m&ms, chips, and other dips).

Today I'M on my way back to site after lunch but I had to cancel my classes for the next two weeks because it's first semester finals/essays.

Hopefully my internet will work when I get back to site and I can update more regularly.

KO

Class...

Before going home for vacation I organized my Junior Achievement business classes. I have 3 at one of the middle schools and 3 at one of the high schools. My first class was Thursday of last week. About 3 weeks ago I reminded the principal to place a notice to the students reminding them that the class would be starting Jan. 13. Last Thursday I showed up at the high school and it was a surprise to everyone! Whoops! Forgot to remind the students - but no worries, he would remind the Tuesday class! Monday I went to the middle school and, without reminder, the students were there! I have 12 students in that class and they're all girls (which is even more exciting because of the 60-something high schoolers there are only 3 girls)! The class went alright and they seemed really excited about the competition (at the end of the course).

Today I went in for classes 3 and 4. This morning the high school didn't have a room for me (and hadn't reminded their students) so the Tuesday class was permanently cancelled and those kids were moved into the Wednesday section. I was really excited, though, for my afternoon class! It was at the middle school so the kids knew about it! I had fixed the kinks from Monday! I was ready to go!

But the students were striking.

When I got back to my house, I explained to my host mom why I wasn't teaching and her response was, "Oh, right, the students are striking because a teacher got 2 or 3 students pregnant."

Yep.

There's really nothing more to say than that.

Tomorrow starts the week long holiday for the Magal - religious pilgrimage of the largest sect to Touba.

Maybe I'll have more to stay but I'm still pretty speechless several hours after finding out about the pregnancies.

Back in Bambey

A very delayed Happy New Year everyone! I had a wonderful trip home and got to spend a quality time with my family, friends, and boyfriend. I hope everyone had a lovely holiday season!
The adventure (which I say with neither a positive or negative connotation) began on the plane: it was 3 seats per row I was seat F the window seat. When I got to my row there was a guy in the aisle seat and one in the window seat who I made switch (no way I'm giving up my window seat for an 8 hour flight). A few minutes later another girl came along and said she was in the aisle seat... whoops... 4 people for 3 seats. The flight attendant quickly saw the problem and came over to discover that both of those men had been issued tickets with the same seat. The flight attendant put the woman who was supposed to be in the aisle in another seat and left. He came back a few minutes later and explained that the two men had bought their ticket at the same agency and, because they have the same name (which happens all the time in Senegal), the agency sold them the same seat. He explained that they would both have to get a refund from their ticket agency and buy new tickets but that they would have to get a new ticket immediately if they wanted to be on that flight. It blows my mind that two people were able to get ALL THE WAY ON A PLANE with the same ticket.

Anyway - once I was back in Dakar I went to the office and got some stuff taken care of. I wasn't feeling very well so I went to med and stayed for a day. I'm better now and back at site!

Yesterday morning I gave my host mom the 6 pounds of candy and 3 pounds of oreos I brought back for the family (she said "this is too much!!"). Then I gave her the gift I brought back for her which she really liked and seemed really touched by (she kept saying "but we didn't give you anything to give your parents!"). I was waiting to give everyone else their gifts until Mor got his but he was gone all day and in the evening I finally decided that, though I'm normally quite culturally respectful - they were my gifts and I would hand them out as I wanted to. While everyone was sitting in the dark (we haven't been having power between 7:30-10:30pm so we sit in the dark outside), I grabbed presents. Everyone was really appreciative when I handed them out and they took turns looking at each others gifts. Youssou kept using his new pump to pump and deflate the soccer ball. Khady was the best though, she danced around with the cabbage patch doll she got saying "Fatou gave this to me!"

I'm still trying to motivate myself to go see other people and get work started. I had a class I was supposed to teach yesterday but the principal forgot to remind people (I had asked him to right before I left) so no one showed up. The most frustrating part isn't that I spent all morning prepping or that I walked to the high school to do this but it's the principal's nonchalant attitude regarding wasting my time and delaying the start of these classes. He doesn't seem to care if the classes actually ever happen which doesn't help my motivation problems.

Today right before lunch, Ndeye (one of the high school girls) asked Khady if her baby was hungry and Khady said "yes!" ran into her room, brought out her doll, and then strapped it to her back (like all Senegalese women). Last I saw her she was still carrying the baby doll on her back.

KO

Accounting!

I had my second to last course today and subject was a fun one... accounting! First I have to confess I've never actually taken an accounting course in my life (why would I have, I was an econ major which is all theory, not business) but I have all of Peace Corps "how to teach basic accounting" materials and the level of accounting that I'm teaching isn't hard to pick up. The accounting is really just writing money that comes in and money that leaves - simple enough but not practiced here.

Class started like normal, I reviewed last week's lesson and then asked why this week's subject (accounting) is important. After a few guesses we started in on the actual work. The format is simple enough, 8 columns to track incoming and outgoing money. I gave two examples for a fake tailor shop and then asked for volunteers to enter other activities (bought fabric, sold a dress, etc). After a few, I took the next volunteer and told him, "you just bought tea for you and your friends to drink." He started to right the date, name of activity, and money spent when I stopped him, "I'm not nice. I played a trick on you.. sit down and I'll explain." I proceeded to explain that if the tea is for you and your friends to drink that isn't a business expense! And all of the kids seemed to understand and we finished the examples. I then gave them a little speech about how we only have one class left but if they want to learn more we can do that in smaller groups or if they have businesses in their family I would love to help out. Then everyone did their group work and we all left.

I had two girls walk home with me because they had missed part of last week's class and wanted to go over what they missed. After that was done one of them asked me what I did after class and I answered honestly, "nothing." (to be fair, class ends at 5pm and I do most of my other work in the morning) She invited me over to her house but I told her I needed to wait for other students to come if they were going to come to my "office hours." About 20 minutes later she came back and said, "well if you can't leave, I'll sit with you," and we ended up chatting about her life and mine for about 45 minutes until another student showed up with a question. He ended up staying a little later too and the 3 of us talked.

I'll be a little sad when my class ends Saturday because it's my current big project. Tomorrow I'm supposed to hear the final answer from the University of Bambey so maybe the camp will take the place of the class. I'm also working on a few projects with the students during the summer - I know I complained about nothing to do during the summer but these kids have literally nothing to do if they're staying in Bambey.

Back to the University tomorrow, I'm sure I'll have some story of bureaucracy tomorrow!

KO

And in the blink of an eye....

This morning I set off to try and get some semblance of work done; my goal was to have one meeting. I didn't even expect to get anything accomplished, just remind the director of the women's training center or of the Credit Mutual that I was here and could work. Before all of that, however, I went through the semi-arduous task of filling out and printing my absentee request ballot (primaries in February)! In theory it shouldn't have been that hard, but I don't have a printer. So! I went to the cyber-cafe/guy with a printer. While he was figuring out my UBS key (he wasn't clicking the right things and it took all of my will not to take the mouse from him and do it myself) we got to talking. Yes I'm from America, yes I'm learning Wolof, yes I live in Bambey, I'm actually staying for 2 years. It's about this part in the conversation that most of my female friends get marriage proposals but there's apparently something different about me and I don't get asked to be a second wife, they cut to the chase, "take me with you to America when you go." There's no woo-ing, no offers of houses in Bambey, not even no-taxes on my packages like Alyssa gets. They can tell I'm no non-sense and they cut to the chase. Knowing I couldn't be outright rude to someone who I will probably see again (aka use his printer), I tried, at first, just to joke it off and laugh. That didn't work, so I got no non-sense with him, "I can't. Only I can go back, that's the way it works, I'm only allowed to go back, I can't bring anyone with me. It's that file there, yes one page please print it." While it got him to stop asking for a trip to the US, he totally overcharged me. Don't get me wrong, I understand I was arguing over about 15cents but it's the philosophy behind it that irks me. He told me it was 200CFA so I responded with, "a photocopy was only 50CFA (I had my passport copied there a few weeks ago)" "It's not the same thing," which REALLY bothered me, while I do not know the specific technicalities of printing, I know that printing and copying on a printer/copier are practically the same thing, and, if anything, copying's gotta be more work. I continued to say "it's the same thing, I know it is," but paid my 200CFA and left.

With that behind me, I decided to stop by the women's training center (I found out the official name it's the Center for the Technical Training of Women) to try to see the director. Luckily enough she was in her office and we sat down to chat. I suggested that I could, eventually, teach a Marketing course (like she had suggested to me last week) or maybe I could just start with a conversation group of women who wanted extra practice in their English classes. She got out her course book and marked me down for three classes in "business" and, like that, I got my first job. I sat there furiously scribbling down everything she was telling me, I would be teaching women who are on the "restauranteer" track, there would be 3 classes: Monday 12:30-3:30, Tuesday 8-10,Tuesday 12:30-3:30, and in between my Tuesday classes I would sit in with the women during their cooking class so I could learn to make Senegalese food (this stemmed because I joked that if they ever needed help tasting I could do that too). And, with that, we were done. See you Monday!

I left feeling on top of the world, just like that I had work! It was going to be awesome! We were going to start with finding a good business idea and then work our way, over several weeks, through creating and managing a fake business. They were going to love me, I was going to be such a cool teacher, I would be invited over for lunch.... then the next thought hit me "oh no! I'm supposed to be teaching during lunch (1:30) my hfmom's going to be PISSED... ewww she's going to save me food every day .. gross cold rice and sauce." After I realized that that was a problem easily solved the realization of what I was doing hit and the nerves set in. I just signed up to teach a business class, in French, to women who are probably older than me, and can speak in Wolof without me understanding. Where would I actually start? How would I remember their names? Would they respect me? What would I teach? What if I couldn't explain it well enough? And the questions kept coming. I realize that it might be a rookie-peace corps mistake to jump into something like this, but, with my technical training pushed back another month, I realized that it might be time for me to start making mistakes and learning from them - if I don't start now, when will I? I'm ready to start taking chances if it means getting to actually try and start work.

I'm a planner, however, and so I calmed myself with the thought that I could spend the next few days making highly detailed lesson plans that, while they would probably fall through and not happen as planned, would be a start. I also realized that any calmness of mind would help, so I stopped by the church to ask what time mass is on Sunday and on Christmas Eve. Yeah, I'm not really Catholic anymore but it'll be nice to be around the drums and singing, anyway, I'm curious if they'll sing Christmas carols I know.

After talking to the priest I went to the post office to mail my ballot request as well as a few other things. Even though there were still a handful of retirees waiting to pick up money, I was able to get into the office and go to the other window (not the Western Union window where everything was going on), buy my stamps and pick up my packages.

I walked home still with mixed feelings of excitement and nerves. When I got back I told my hfmom that I would be teaching a class and she didn't throw a fit about lunch like I thought but I'm guessing it'll have to be revisited Monday. I went upstairs to open my boxes to find food, reading material (NY Magazines and an NYU newspaper), as well as some fabulous early-birthday gifts and a "happy birthday" banner from Amy (thanks Amy and AS for the packages).

The rest of my day was mostly uneventful, I went for a bike ride and we had "my dish" (as my hf calls it now) aka beans for dinner! Yum! Nothing digging into a big plate of beans with bread and your (right) hand to end the day!

Ba suba,
KO