*Written November 5, 2011
This morning I woke up at 5:15 am, not to the sound of a rooster crowing or the usual sounds of the morning. Nope, this was to a nine year old boy I call my little brother, Malachie. For some reason, he decided that that was the perfect time to start playing the drums using a wooden bench and metal chair…right outside my bedroom window. Oh these children…At least it gave me time to write this blog before I head to Leo.
I hadn’t planned to come to Leo again for another 3 weeks, but I’m happy I did. Tabaski is a big Muslim holiday, kind of like what Christmas is to Christians. I was very much wanting to celebrate, but everyone I know in village is Protestant. I hinted to my friend Yago, the director of my school, that I really wanted to celebrate it. He is Muslim and he was more than excited to invite me to Leo to celebrate the holiday with him and his family. I even had a great outfit that I bought just in the hopes of being invited haha. My friend Leah (niece of the family I share the courtyard with) has been staying here for 2 weeks to help the women of my village make shea butter. We have become great friends. She lives in Leo with her husband and 2 children. When I told her that I was heading to Leo on Sunday for the holiday she told me that she was leaving on Saturday and that I should go with her to meet her family and she would take me to get my hair braided. I love Leah so I really didn’t need much convincing. I told her that I was going to be very sad to come back to site without her and hugged me (a complete rarity in this country!) and told me that I could come visit her any time I am in Leo. She’s great. You know what else makes her even better?! We have the same birthday!!! I knew there was a reason that I loved her so much, her birthday is November 24th, just like me! Except that she is 10 years older than I am haha. According to Malachie, she also has puppies at her house. Maybe she’ll give me one! So those are my plans for the weekend. Today I am hanging with Leah and her family, getting my hair braided, tomorrow I am going to Mosque and to celebrate with Yago’s family, and I will head back on Monday afternoon. It’s going to be a great weekend!
Yesterday I was kind of sad because one of my really good friends, Levis, left village today. He was a teacher at the school, a great teacher at that. I would drink tea every Thursday, Saturday and Sunday afternoon at his house with the other teachers. I took my iPod over there on Thursday and we listened to music for like 3 hours. He loves Miranda Lambert, haha! (It is my secret plan to make all of Burkina love country music before I come back haha; surprisingly they actually knew country music and really liked it before I got here). But anyway, he left because he got moved to a different place to teach. Here in Burkina, teachers don’t often teach in the village they come from. They are assigned really to teach anywhere in the country. So Levis left yesterday and I was sad. He did however give me his slingshot and promised to keep in touch. I found, that people don’t stay in this village very long. I guess that’s something I need to get used to sooner rather than later, the fact that throughout the next two years there will be lots of people coming and going.
I had an interesting conversation yesterday afternoon, with Ada, another teacher friend at my school. It was my day to sit in on the CE1 class (3rd grade) that she teaches. It was quickly apparent that the children in her class cannot read, like at all. We were sitting outside with the kids were doing group work under the trees and we talked about it. She told me that there are so many children in this village that will never learn to read or write for multiple reasons. I told her that one of the biggest problems is the fact that there are just too many children (she has a little over 50) in each classroom. Statistically there’s just no way that with that many kids, the majority of them will be able to learn well, over 20 of the students in that class are in it for the second time. The kids sit sometimes 5 to a bench, which leaves no room on the tiny table for them to be able to write properly, let alone even sit. There also aren’t enough books for each child to have there own book to read and take home. They are 3, sometimes 4 and 5 to every one book. Ada said that with a system like that, what can you do? She also told me that it’s really discouraging for her because she tries so hard with the kids all day, but when left alone all they do is play and their parents don’t help them and make them learn their lessons. Theres no electricity here so that means that really they have about 2 hours of sunlight left after school before it gets too dark to see. In that 2 hours do you think they are encouraged to study? Of course not, the boys go home to play and the girls go home to work. Last night, before dinner I asked the boys that live in my courtyard, Mathias and Malachie, if I could see their notebooks from last year. Mathias is 11 years old, but he is still in the 3rd (CE1) grade, age wise he should be in at least the 6th (CM2) grade. It turns out that Mathias is ranked 56th out of 56 students. I was shocked because in class earlier that day he had participated really well. The problem is that he can’t read or write. I told him that I know he is too smart for these grades and that every afternoon he is going to practice reading and writing with me. Malachie is 9 years old and he’s in the 5th (CM1) grade, which means that he has done very well in his school work. He too wants me to work with him after school, so I gave him writing and math problems to work on while Mathias and I learn to read. Mathias wants math problems too, but as far as I can tell he has no problems with those. Once he can read and write his own name I told him that we could see about math problems. I was really glad that he didn’t object, he happily agreed to study with me after school. I hope that by the time summer vacation comes he will not be the lowest in his class. It feels a little wrong to be helping these kids because they live in my courtyard, but I will work with them until I come up with a better solution to help a majority of the kids at school. I’m open to any and all suggestions.
Well, I’ll end with that. Time to begin my awesome weekend! I’ll try and write again before I head back to site.
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