Bonsoir, il y a deux jours!
Or, it’s been two days, as the saying goes here in Benin. We haven’t spoken in a moment. A lot has been going on here in Dassari, so let’s catch up.
First of all, our 2014-2015 school year is finished! We calculated final grades last week. My students did all right, around a 50% pass rate. That is normal for the lower grades. We had a lot of fun at the end of the year, doing an off curriculum Animal section. We learned all the names of the animals. I tried an activity where we would categorize the animals into ones we eat and ones we do not eat. This turned out to be a mistake, because except for spiders, ants, and lizards, my students eat everything. I ended changing this activity to animals we see in the village and animals we see in the bush, which was a bit more successful. We ended the year by watching The Lion King. The students really enjoyed anytime the animals danced. We watched in English, but they were able to comprehend most of the story. That is one of the advantages with animated films and foreign language. Animation has more freedom and is more playful with regards to visual story telling. I would recommend animated films for anyone trying to learn a foreign language. For an adult learning French, I found Persepolis to be a good blend of visual and dialogue storytelling. Next year, I will try to include more short videos, to expose my students to different accents and also to give them a reward if they have behaved well.
They say the first year of teaching is the hardest. Well, I am thankful no student will ever have to again undergo my first year pedagogy. Teaching is a skilled profession, and like all skills, experience is essential for improvement. Thankfully, the world is not born into teachers and non-teachers. Like all other skills, it can be cultivated, refined, polished. I find myself keeping a running list of ideas that begin with, “Oh, I know exactly what I could try out next year if I…” Little things like semester long team-grouping, mini-quizzes, classroom management tricks, more songs, re-teaching the alphabet, choosing English names. Jeez, and trying to learn all their names! I still struggled with this, especially since there were three boys named Bienvenu and two girls with the same first and last name, Elizabeth SAHGUI. I am certainly looking forward to teaching next year, but this summer break will be a much-needed change of tempo.
The past couple months have gone by very well. It is mango season here in Benin. Which means, even in a small country town like Dassari, I can find a ripe mango the size of a baby-head. They go for about 10 to 50 to 100 cfa, or about 5 to 20 cents. The town is littered with mango stones. Children walk down the streets with their faces and arms dripping with mango juice. (And they always want to shake your hand or hug your leg.)
Our girls' football team has been practicing regularly. I am very proud of them; they are getting to be quite good. They have started using triangle formations and making smart passes. Most of them are still a little timid when it comes to striking and taking a shot, but that is one of the goals of the football team, to inspire confidence. They are some of the brightest and capable young women in Dassari. We want them to know it! They can still be challenging though. At the end of the day, they are still teenage girls. They will complain about being tired and thirsty. They chatter and gossip. When I try to crack the whip, they roll their eyes. There is a regular full team of them that come and take it seriously. They are a great group. Noratu, the captain, Roseline and Chemène, the Fon sisters, Padelle, defensive pro, Josephine, rookie of the year, Assana and Foussena, the twins who would give those tennis twins a hard time on the football field, Adiza, strong silent type, Zénabou, coach’s daughter, Benjamine, a cement wall of a goalie, Nathalie and Immaculé, strong mid-fielders with good passing chemistry, Pascaline, the tiniest girl on the team but very aggressive and fast (and the gofer), and finally Giselle and Laetitia, Dassari’s own Messi and Ronaldo.
There are many things going on this vacation. This weekend, I am taking two students from 4e (8th grade), Abigaïl and Jean, to the 8th Annual National English Spelling Bee. There will be about 40 students from all over Benin. There is a First prize for both the boys’ and girls’ division. Beyond the competition itself, we will spend the weekend in Natitingou. We will visit the history museum, play sports, do arts & crafts, and learn a little about malaria and hygiene. It is a nice way to end the school year. The young girl who is coming Abigaïl is really one of the most amazing students I have met here. She is 12 years old (in a class that has a few 18 year olds) and the first of her class, and one of the best students in the school. She speaks English like she has spent her childhood in Ghana. She devours the French books I lend her, typically finishing them in a day or two. Her father is a teacher at the Primary Schools. He is the first encounter I have had with the “helicopter parent” type here in Benin. In the society where no one bats an eye when you ask a toddler to go bring a machete, it is surprising to find a helicopter papa. But he was reason to be afraid of sending her with me on some random taxi from Burkina Faso. The chauffeurs drive like crazy, and the road to Natitingou is a long graveyard of the mangled frames of taxi-buses and eighteen-wheelers. I would be protective too if I had a child here.
After the Spelling Bee, I will be headed down south to a city called Lokossa to attend the Training of Trainers. (But who trains the trainers of the trainers?) For some reason, my bosses thought I was qualified to help train the incoming stage of new volunteers. I will be helping the new volunteers out at the end of August when they are beginning Model School---a sort of summer school practice for teachers and students. We have a group of good people/volunteers who will be joining me: Ania, Camille, Stacer, Lainey. And to add to that, a whole new bunch of Beninese trainers will be working for the Peace Corps their first time. Our administration here is going through somewhat of a housecleaning. We have new folks up and down, from the big boss Country Director down to the “Language and Cultural Facilitators” LCFs.
After that, I am going to take a few days at the beach. A little place in the southwest called Grand Popo. But that is just the beginning of the summer. There is still a lot more on the program, but we can catch up on that later when it comes closer. A boy’s camp in Ouidah and Banikora, a student internship in Parakou, training in Lokossa, and a trip on the El Camino de Santiago with the family, but let’s take it softly, un peu, un peu.
à la prochaine,
Chazaq
PPS: Happy Bloomsday!
Update: The Spelling Bee has past since the writing of this email. Abigaïl tied for 6th. She was eliminated in the 3rd round by the word "careful", spelling in lieu of "carefool". Jean did better than I thought he would. He took 3rd place after a cold spelling of "inhabitants". He did not know the word, but he sounded it all out correctly, Very proud. The word that took him down was "infectious", he spelled "infections"
Cool bug
