Rien de Spécial

I don't have much to report, but I like to blog when I am in town to let you all know I'm still alive and kicking.

I started teaching last week. Well, technically school has started, but no one has REALLY started. I mean, I gave lots of practice exercises to my students in math to review everything we did last year and just get them in the right frame of mind to start school. But no one has actually begun teaching their real classes yet. Since I am also teaching English this year, I am trying to throw together a program of lesson plans to follow, but unfortunately for me I have absolutely no guidance. Not even a text book. So I just went into class and started asking questions in English, and tried to get an idea of what they know and don't know. But I am a little worried about having an actual year full of lesson plans. Math is so much easier for me... plus, I actually have books to guide me in teaching math. Oh well.... c'est la vie
I was extremely encouraged with the class of older kids I am teaching, though.. those who were in quatrième (4e) last year, who are now in troisième (3e), which is now the year they will have to take and pass the BEPC national exam in June. So when I was giving out all these practice problems to them, just about every single kid I had last year in 4e did the problems without even batting an eye and with no problems at all... whereas those who failed the national exam last year, who had to take the 3e class for a second time this year, did not really get about half of the problems we were discussing. I think a lot of it probably has to do with my old students being used to the way I teach and my accent and all... but just to give myself confidence, I will say it was also due to my amazing teaching skills last year!! :)

We did have a pretty cool (relatively cool) party last Friday for a new school building that had been constructed in my village last year. It is supposed to serve as a second building for the school I work in, so as to double the amount of classrooms for each grade. So there would be less kids per classroom, for better learning capacity. A German NGO was responsible for this, and the NGO representatives came to the party in village, so that was kind of fun to have other foreigners to hang out with for a few hours. But for the building, we don't have enough students or teachers, so for the moment, it stands empty. But this particular NGO has done so much work in Burkina - constructing schools, teacher housing, and water pumps all over, on the village level, and it was very comforting to see. If only someone would come fix the damn bridge in my village!!! I fear for my life every time I bike over it.

The party we had for that building inauguration was cool, because there was a lot of cultural stuff going on that I never get to see in village. Like there are these 'masks,' which are people who have these elaborate painted wooden masks covering their faces, and the rest of their bodies are covered in flowing pieces of grass or colored strings or something of the sort so as to cover every inch of their bodies. They came out and danced to drum beats, and they are supposed to scare kids, because kids get smacked by them (that is actually a part of their presence - hitting children), and it was really fun to watch. Then they had a balofone player come out and play some traditional music, too. The balofone is like a xylophone, but with carved out gourds under the wooden keys.






And lastly there was a Mossi tribe of people (an ethnic group) who came and did some traditional dancing for everyone, too. It was really different and fun for me, because we never have that sort of thing in village. I found out, too, that people even nowadays, can still communicate to each other using drums and balofones. One man told me that he can be on the other side of his village and hear the music of a balofone, and hear a message within it. Like he will understand the announcement of someone's arrival in the village, or the birth of a baby, or really just about anything. That really blew me away. It amazes me how much culture is still existent in this country. Although, I guess when you come from America, where everyone's cultures are thrown in a blender and mixed up so that in the end, we have one big mishmosh of culture, it is easy to be impressed by some authentic culture.

Other than that, I would like to thank my care package providers for coming through on the mac n cheese and other goods. You know who you are, and for three days straight I ate nothing but mac n cheese and Oreos. It was so good.... and I didn't gain a pound, thanks to the hot season getting going again, my water welling, and some biking.

Back again at the end of October. Possible Halloween party with fellow volunteers!!