April Update
Long time, no computer access. I'm back in Kombo writing my transfer request letter, and I would have like to discuss preparing for training, but my boss is on vacation again. I don't think it's quite fair that volunteers are yelled at if the administration feels they are making too many visits to Kombo, but they can take frequent vacations back to America. Ah well, such is life, and they aren't paid to live in a village, whereas I am. It would be helpful if they would at least tell us when they plan to leave the country.
So, what has happened since my February email? Well, International Women's Day. Working with FAWEGAM (a sort of girl-power group) we organized a march from the school into the market in town, where girls and female teachers gave speeches and members of the club performed two skits that they wrote themselves--one about teen pregnancy and one about early marriage. The boys wanted to participate in the march and they also put on a skit of their own. Everything was in Mandinka so I understood very little, but people were laughing so I think it went well. All in all, about 200 students participated and 200 villagers came to watch. After it was all over and I was congratulating the girls on what they had done, I had a bittersweet moment. They kept asking me if I enjoyed the skits and if I was happy with what they did, and I realized that they hadn't marched or performed skits because they wanted to raise awareness about women's issues, but because they knew it was something important to me. So, sweet, but a bit sad. Ah well.
In other news, I've started teaching ninth grade English classes, trying to teach them reading comprehension in preparation for their ninth grade exams which are coming all too soon. It's very difficult when I ask students to read passages aloud only to discover that there are two English books in the entire classroom and one of them is mine. I also taught a few one-on-one art lessons to ninth graders who needed something for their art practicals. I taught them how to make beaded-lizard keychains, and when the examiner came he didn't believe the students were the ones to make them. It was crazy though because the day before the examiner was due to come look over students' practicals, I learned the students were supposed to do two practicals and every single ninth grader had only done one. This is not entirely their fault though; the art teacher had told the students that their second practical would be tie'n'dye, but the day before the due date he wasn't even in school. He was at the lumo in Jareng to buy material when just the week before he had been in Kombo and could have easily purchased the material there when he was buying other art supplies. So Tuesday after school when he finally returned, eighty ninth graders tie-n-dyed their fabric, washed it, dried it, and ironed it in time for the examinations. I am always in awe of how people can do things last minute here. Oh, and as far as the school is concerned, I'm the new girls' soccer coach. There are twenty-eight girls on the team and the school has two soccer balls, which the boys like to steal.
The well projects are going very slowly. My sitemate Lizzie leaves tomorrow for America (lucky bum) so we've been trying to figure out some money issues. We gave the well-digger 97,000 Dalasis but according to his receipts, he spent 130,000 D. However, the well-digger is illiterate, so we think he accidentally doubled some receipts. We spent hours figuring out the receipts, but now everything adds up for when I turn in the final paperwork.
I think the most important thing I've done in my village is to help the teacher-trainees write their assignments for the BESPO training program. I use all those skills I learned in the writing center to help them figure out what questions they need to answer in their essay, how they should structure it, and to figure out exactly how they want to phrase what they want to say. It can be exhausting--working for two hours on an essay regarding teaching a math lesson with appropriate teaching aids which is only supposed to be 250 words long. More often than not my trainees become frsutrated with me for not giving them the answers or telling them what they should say, but I stress after we're through that they wrote the essay themselves and they should be proud of what they did. The trainees become very possessive of their essays and are far less likely to let others copy off of them (a common practice both among teachers and students). Anyway, I help them fine-tune their English skills and help them think more about the message they want to get across. It also gives me opportunities to suggest new teaching strategies to them.
That about wraps things up for now, more the next time I come to Kombo in May, which will be for IST (In-Service Training). I've been here for nine months now, and it feels like forever, probably because time passes so slow in general and nothing ever really changes--which can be quite frustrating.
Tilibuloo ye diyaa!
~Hannah :-)
So, what has happened since my February email? Well, International Women's Day. Working with FAWEGAM (a sort of girl-power group) we organized a march from the school into the market in town, where girls and female teachers gave speeches and members of the club performed two skits that they wrote themselves--one about teen pregnancy and one about early marriage. The boys wanted to participate in the march and they also put on a skit of their own. Everything was in Mandinka so I understood very little, but people were laughing so I think it went well. All in all, about 200 students participated and 200 villagers came to watch. After it was all over and I was congratulating the girls on what they had done, I had a bittersweet moment. They kept asking me if I enjoyed the skits and if I was happy with what they did, and I realized that they hadn't marched or performed skits because they wanted to raise awareness about women's issues, but because they knew it was something important to me. So, sweet, but a bit sad. Ah well.
In other news, I've started teaching ninth grade English classes, trying to teach them reading comprehension in preparation for their ninth grade exams which are coming all too soon. It's very difficult when I ask students to read passages aloud only to discover that there are two English books in the entire classroom and one of them is mine. I also taught a few one-on-one art lessons to ninth graders who needed something for their art practicals. I taught them how to make beaded-lizard keychains, and when the examiner came he didn't believe the students were the ones to make them. It was crazy though because the day before the examiner was due to come look over students' practicals, I learned the students were supposed to do two practicals and every single ninth grader had only done one. This is not entirely their fault though; the art teacher had told the students that their second practical would be tie'n'dye, but the day before the due date he wasn't even in school. He was at the lumo in Jareng to buy material when just the week before he had been in Kombo and could have easily purchased the material there when he was buying other art supplies. So Tuesday after school when he finally returned, eighty ninth graders tie-n-dyed their fabric, washed it, dried it, and ironed it in time for the examinations. I am always in awe of how people can do things last minute here. Oh, and as far as the school is concerned, I'm the new girls' soccer coach. There are twenty-eight girls on the team and the school has two soccer balls, which the boys like to steal.
The well projects are going very slowly. My sitemate Lizzie leaves tomorrow for America (lucky bum) so we've been trying to figure out some money issues. We gave the well-digger 97,000 Dalasis but according to his receipts, he spent 130,000 D. However, the well-digger is illiterate, so we think he accidentally doubled some receipts. We spent hours figuring out the receipts, but now everything adds up for when I turn in the final paperwork.
I think the most important thing I've done in my village is to help the teacher-trainees write their assignments for the BESPO training program. I use all those skills I learned in the writing center to help them figure out what questions they need to answer in their essay, how they should structure it, and to figure out exactly how they want to phrase what they want to say. It can be exhausting--working for two hours on an essay regarding teaching a math lesson with appropriate teaching aids which is only supposed to be 250 words long. More often than not my trainees become frsutrated with me for not giving them the answers or telling them what they should say, but I stress after we're through that they wrote the essay themselves and they should be proud of what they did. The trainees become very possessive of their essays and are far less likely to let others copy off of them (a common practice both among teachers and students). Anyway, I help them fine-tune their English skills and help them think more about the message they want to get across. It also gives me opportunities to suggest new teaching strategies to them.
That about wraps things up for now, more the next time I come to Kombo in May, which will be for IST (In-Service Training). I've been here for nine months now, and it feels like forever, probably because time passes so slow in general and nothing ever really changes--which can be quite frustrating.
Tilibuloo ye diyaa!
~Hannah :-)
posted by Hannah | 1:12 PM
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