A Relief In Rain

I've noticed something lately that has me towards the edge of worry. Not worried about myself nor the direct future. A distant worry.

In total, I saw two fights in my first two years of service here. The first was between ten year olds. They were wrestling. One accidentally bit the other's finger (hard) and it turned into fisty-cuffs. The second wasn't even in Burkina. Not but moments into Ghana, two men were slugging it out at the first major town we passed.

Things have changed in the last month. Along the bus ride to Saponey, two men in the fields were pulling at each other. Same at the Kongoussi-route stop at the edge of Ouaga, only this time it was a teenager and old man. Again, before getting onto a bush-taxi for Sindou.

The unrest in Burkina has meant something. Perhaps this is it. Whatever one says of reform, punishment or revolution, perhaps the most common impact is stress, that tension that builds into confrontation.

It would be a hard stretch to say that Burkina is violent. Far from it. A few fights is hardly pandemic. It only shows a raised tension. As each volunteer has felt, so have the traveling merchant and the ticket boy, the farmers in their fields and the two taxi operators. Each has felt the pressure from military unrest and looting, soaring food prices, school closures, cotton farmer boycotts, heavier foreign investments in gold mines, sugarcane workers' protests, so on and so forth.

Having endured these three months of sporadic unrest, the rains here are welcomed more than ever. Not only for the refreshing burst of green that hits the landscape but for the promise of work, hard work. The fields will be torn apart and seeded. Backs will break in the sweat of it all. The breaking of ground can be that violent outbreak, that release of stress.

One hopes for a strong season and consistent rain for it means good work and food. Without those, I wonder what sort of other trends will show.

A Final Week (in protest)

This week was ruined by casual protests. A swarm of teachers pulled me from my exam to recruit me. They had a movement. For whatever good that movement meant, it hardly seems like it would do well for my students. Their week of final exams was naught. A single vocabulary test is all that we could manage to produce as a grade for this final portion. A vocabulary test more important now than it seemed at the time.

Teachers are meant to be bastions of thoughtfulness, action built out of thorough reflection. How short we fall! This week, I had no choice. My foreigner place does not give me the luxury of argument and going against too many grains. Oh that I could have spoke freely! When petitioning the government, what is the difference between taking the test and refusing to give the grades and refusing to give the test? Both would accomplish the same task, a shutdown of the school’s apparatus. Yet, by not surveying the exams, we have hurt our students. Their opportunities to gain those few extra points are lost in the bumbling smoke spewing forth from the exhaust pipes of fleeing teachers. They are off to gather and casually chat.

In the meantime, I will wait out the remainder of the week and nod my heads at my kids as they pass me on the road. They will shout “It isn’t easy, sir!” and I will reply, “I know” with a wave. The stress of the moment will leave me but those missing hours of lessons will never find their way into those smiling heads. Something is lost in the muddle even if the teachers have found their higher pay.

The world is on fire. It has been said. We can look around and see it is true. Whether the sparks are from unrest across the Arab World or at your doorstep such as we have seen these last few months in Burkina, we have felt the heat. It is not just Africa or the Arab World. Tornadoes, tsunamis, and earthquakes have added fuel to the flame, leaving many seeking shelter and aid. Terrorism and the death of its largest symbol. Wars and protests. Elections and fraud. Chinese suppression to American economics. The wild fire of 2011 has even touched my grandfather’s home in West Texas.

The world is calling. Look around at the chaos and the choices; you will see that help can come in any form. You can serve in the military or at a local food bank. You can tutor a child or fly halfway around the world to help build latrines. It all matters.

You see, wild fires happen. There are always problems. Yet, we do not have to sit by and just watch the flames devour the world. Fire can be useful, even replenishing. It is a necessary part of the forestry cycle or the refinement process. But, when it cannot be put out, fire needs direct.

What are we doing to put out the flames? What are we doing to shape its path towards usefulness?

It isn’t enough to want to help. We have to do something, anything. We have the time. We need only the will. It does not have to be running off to Africa. But, our humanity demands that we look around us and pick up the slack. Join a movement you care about. Learn about a movement. Support your local library. Do something brave. Join the Peace Corps. Join the military. Join an anti-war protest. Start a discussion. End a fight. Seek a compromise. Let go of a grudge. Seek commonality. We are called to act, called to help and “no one is exempt from the call to find common ground.”

If it is a wildfire, give to your local firefighters. Sign up as a volunteer. Give shelter and aid to those that have lost homes.

If it is frustration about those in the streets celebrating Osama’s death, try to find out why they are celebrating and help to educate them about the human cost of any death. Seek a way to help mold that raw emotion into a desire for unity and community. Use it to build roads or clean up a neighborhood. Use it to as an excuse to find common ground and common action.

If it is a problem with policy and politics, seek a higher ground. Try to elevate the debate away from in-fighting and towards common principles. Break the cycle of pundit slash and burn. Turn a cheek.

If you have concerns about how to get involved, then reach out. You can always contact me. Do a google search. Open that ancient thing called a phone book. There are ways to get involved even if you have only a few minutes of time.

For those that say it is easy for me to speak of helping and to go adventuring around, it is not. It has not been. And it will not be. My reply to these skeptics is from E.M. Forester’s Where Angels Fear to Tread:

“I’m muddle-headed and stupid, and not worth a quarter of you, but I have tried to do what seemed right at the time. And you – your brain and your insight are splendid. But when you see what’s right you’re too idle to do it. You told me once that we shall be judged by our intentions, no by our accomplishments. I thought it a grand remark. But we must intend to accomplish – not sit intending on a char.”

I am muddle-headed and I fall short of so many of the goals I set for myself. I am far from the best example of a volunteer or teacher. I by no means measure up to so many far better men and women doing brave and outstanding acts. But, I’m not idle. I’m trying, despite the setbacks and the reasons not to do so.

Further, I am proud of my friends and family. Whether it is serving our forces overseas or supporting a friend/family member through their darker times, I am proud and grateful. What amazing examples of the better parts of human nature.

This blog is as much a call to action for others as a public expression and setting of a goal for myself. It is a way to hold myself to that higher standard and maybe help lift up some of those around me.

From the Village

The phone rang. It stopped. A few minutes later, it rang again. The number was not familiar. It rang again. Tired, I picked it up.

Crackle "Mr. Ellison. Good evening. How are you?" Static.

"Ok. Is this Sayouba?" Sayouba is one of my favorites. He use to be on the shorter side but he's grown into average. He's smart in the way that hides just enough to keep from being the class nerd. Thus he retains some status of cool. He'd pee his pass if a girl actually talked to him though.

"We are coming to your house." Static and fade. It would be into the next morning till I fully understood his plans, not too long before they arrived.

Sayouba, Abdoulaye, Boureima, Moussa and Issouf showed up on my phone as Rambo Kids the next time it rang. The call was simply, "we are at the round point."

I'd had enough warning to clean the house and figure out a rough game plan. I wanted to show them Kongoussi but not show off the rich glare of my concrete-floor house or the running faucet in the shared courtyard. I did not want to out pace the village image of myself.

Pedaling towards the round point, I immediately recognized my kids. It'd been only a few months but sweat, dirt, distance and strange surroundings can change faces. Luckily, it couldn't change their beaming smiles. Mostly white teeth, chin to ear. I returned the gesture, shook their hands and asked if they were hungry. It was a resounding and surprising "no". So, Fantas it would be.

Over the orange, sparkling liquid, the kids recounted their morning ride. 40k. It should take two hours. They left at 5 a.m. I saw their boyish grins at 11. Sometime between the chain on Sayouba's bike splintered and snapped. Uneducated mechanics rattled it and twisted it enough to get it to Kongoussi. It broke before the first Fanta was poured, unleashing the first round of the day's laughs.

Tired from the road, we headed towards my concrete bunker. The road spewed dust and grit into their teeth as they trailed timidly behind my bike. Their usually teenage aggression and angst were turned into slight panic. The road was full of cars, two or three of them. Trucks passed. Mopeds passed. It was average day chaos. It swallowed them. I slowed my pace to provide their shield. If I had not already known, I would then: this was their first time in a town. Calm village life was showing itself in their soft underbellies.

It became the joke, the type of joke that runs through the entire day, defining a trip. They tripped over each other to make fun of their own village natures.

"Look at the villager lost in the big city."

"What, you don't know? Of course not, you're such a villager."

Once I turned to tell a friend about this being their first time in a town. I caught the fear in their eyes. I recovered by adding that they were used to old grand cities from America. They suddenly became my foreign exchange students from America. The held onto the joke. They kept it, making it theirs.

Sayouba's bike was slowly repaired and it was off for omelets, yogurt and a lake. The boys kept asking the price of things, pushing to release my refusal.

"You've paid too much for our stuff. This yogurt has to be $0.75 or more! That's too much, sir!"

To Americans, that appears as mockery. To my boys, it was sincerity. They worried over my pocketbook when it had been depleted by what they guessed to be $10. Suddenly, I understood the times when Grandpa grabbed my wrist and pushed back my hand from the bill at Clear Creek Springs Cafe. Paying was something you do. It cost you nothing. It was how you said you cared.

The lake was their first as well. We waded out and talked about how it was possible that water stayed in this spot forever. My mind flashed over every field trip I ever took. If I had planned this as educational, it would have shattered under the bludgeoning of boredom. Something told me to not be so foolish. Soon, I found myself explaining how the irrigation systems worked. We talked about pumps and water flow. We talked about renting fields and co-ops. It was a small agriculture workshop that came via their curious casual questions.

The fields along the lake shore were soon underfoot. The boys began searching for the rare treat of potatoes. They knew potatoes by reputation and small bites. They wanted to know more. Their tromping through fields led them from farmer to farmer until 2 kilos lay in their sack. They played my game; I never saw the bill. It was not until too late that I learned they paid a slight amount over market price. I didn't have the heart to tell them.

When I had left Rambo, I gave my kids a gift they had hounded me for over my two years there, a radio. It would play from the early morn to well past the last flicker of flashlight. It was the background of every conversation, always tuned to Le Voix de Lac (The Voice of the Lake). The Voice originated in Kongoussi, perhaps a driving force behind their visit.

We climbed the steep hill towards the two towering radio antennas. The boys were quiet and unwilling to show their obvious exhaustion. In the small concrete building, a man stepped forward. I explained myself, my kids and their trip to him. Within two minutes, they were On Air, greeting their families and friends back home. They had on the comedic large headphones. They scooted the chair closer to the microphone held by a metal arm. I watched as they turned from restless youth into well mannered young men. Their knowledge of the world expanded, following their broadcasted voices across the horizon. They were quiet as we left, drawn into themselves.

Back at home, we tossed through games of Uno, laughing each time Issouf got caught with one card. In the shout of "Uno!" from the boys, Issouf would giggle, pick up five more cards and the game would continue. As the day closed, I invited them to stay. It was ludicrous to think they would ever make it home in the evening. Through tired eyes they saw my logic. I called Husseini just to make sure the parents were informed.

As dusk hit, they pushed a sack of potatoes towards me with expecting eyes. I asked how they wanted them cooked. Their small tastes of potatoes never gave them a chance to discover their cooking origins. They were waiting for my lead. Mashed potatoes, it was.

A few struggles with a potato peeler and a giant pot of boiling water led to a communal meal. Hands scrapped along the sides, balling up the mounds of squashed taters. The day had worn on them and the meal quickly turned them to sleep.

I had slept a number of nights only a few feet my students. It was nothing, back in Rambo, for them to fall asleep while studying and for me to nod off while reading. I, however, have never quit being amazed how tightly they sleep. Even in the warmer nights of spring, they wrap arms around shoulders and place heads against neighboring backs. Even when sprawled out on mats, I'm amazed at how comfortable they seem to be. In Kongoussi, that amazement continued, though the mats were replaced with foam mattresses (I took the cot).

In the morning, I snuck out and bought millet cakes. They yawned, scratched and stretched before eating. Then they were gone, back to the road. The dust settling around my house still held echoes of "villager", as I returned home.

Yardsticks and Story Building

(Work)

First year teaching, second year teaching, third… Would anyone be surprised to know you learn as you go? Look at this blog. My expectations have formed, burned and reformed. My words follow the same paths; creative at times, serious in others and mostly just an image of a singularly standing moment. It is put together as circumstance unfolds, following its erratic temperament.

Currently, I’ve been reading a lot about how to be a better teacher. I see the limits of my personal experiences and reflections in the classrooms. Critique, developed studies, built vocabularies of techniques and debates on educational reform are present in a majority of my reading interests. I’ve come to a new place, hoping to learn something new. To be a good teacher, to reach my students on some level, to have taught and played are not enough. There is a refinement needed and it comes from measuring my self not against my self but against potential. Materials and others’ experiences are the key.

I’ve built entire classes on the fly and thoroughly planned classes, noting the limits of each. The walls have burned in the heat of disruption and rested cool under the calm of students working in my classroom. There have been so many lessons learned but I want more than just the empirical.

I’m wading through Teach Like a Champion (Doug Lemov) and 36 Children (Herbert Kohl) in order to scratch out the layers, breaking down the words to find a way to put that yardstick against my own height. This is a process that is taking me deeper than I first anticipated when I started in the Peace Corps.

This is not one standing moment, even if these words are full of my current drive. It is a sense that this is somewhere that I need more and can expand more. Grad school, teaching and beyond. This blog is just a noting of this step in that process.

For anyone reading, I’m interested in any helpful materials on teaching and education or recommendations.

(IT lab)

All the schools closed for an unexpected vacation just as I got my top students into chairs in front of computers. Eight somewhat-working machines worked with eight heads at a time for a brief moment before the lock was put on the door due to student protests in the country. Now it looks like that lock will be reopened in the near future.

The idea at the moment is to combine Word and Paint to produce pictures with text that come out as stories. The classes will be mostly open discussions on computer uses, characterization, plot, scenery, mouse-usage and anything that suddenly pops into the conversation. It’s an experiment in what happens when you take motivated students, put them in front of contraptions that wonder and intimidate them, then allow them to work in that environment towards the goal of building a story.

Like most things in Burkina, we will see how it goes. After all, and as this blog attests, much is said of the best laid plans of mice and men. Burkina has a way of taking a normal semester and turning it on its head. Nothing happens according to plan.

This Heat

The sun burned into my back as I pedaled the last block home. In the full-scorn of afternoon, I cursed the blistering light. It held fast, oppressive and unresponsive. Was there a curse on this country or was it just against me? Indoors called with the cool sweeping smell of shelter. I should stay inside; hide my day away, wait out the sun and the heat, curse it all in private. I should waste the hours with technology and comfort. Why sweat and swear in scorch and scorn? It made no difference to the sun if I burned or not. It kept aflame. My pain, discomfort were meaningless. In infinite glowing strides, it baked the concrete beyond my door.

But if I'm honest, it isn't the sun that gets to me.

Adama knocked on my door in the slow leaking of the evening. It had cooled but I had granted the inside control over my mood. It had absorbed me and stepping outside was a cramp in my thigh.

Adama remained cruelly cool in the last rays of warmth rising from my porch. He was here to practice his English. A terminal student, Adama is driven. His wall collapsed but his studies continued. Books are scarce but groups are not. He formed more of them. At 8 pm when food is ready in steaming bowls, he searches out the next study session. When he comes here there are no easy proverbs to spew. Ideas have to be formed and worthwhile. Our spoken English is chaotic and opinionated. I enjoy it as much as he does, despite our vast differences.

Adama, I'm tired and I want to hide. Can't you see it? I'm tired of being yelled at, destroyed as a human being in public. Can you not see the sun that's beating down on tired shoulders? Can you not see what you call respect is tainted with race? I am not a spectacle. I am not a rich fool. I'm a person trying, sweating. But what changes? It is cool and quiet in my house. Why should I leave to hear 'Nasara, Nasara' shining from the mouths of children? Why should my hands be burnt by white-priced vegetable oil when I only want to eat in peace? Adama, it is not respect. It is a slow burning. What a fool I am being by being honest. But I'm tired and burned up.

I know he sees. With the rising of the moon, a light is shinning on ideas reflected in his speech. There is something wrong here, a tree that is broken, no longer shading tired souls. We see it.

Thomas, it is education. What job do I have after all this work? What life will I have? What does it mean if I return from school only to plant my fields and die in its future cycle? You speak of race and I speak of opportunity? You have it. Do you not see some superiority in that? Is race not a part of that? Do you think we do not choke from smoke of fires burning? But we need work and news. We need to know that we have something.

We cannot say all of this. It is ludicrous even to us. We spew forth in tired frustration, speaking to each other in hopes that it holds off the fatigue.

Oh Adama, you are a kid and yet it is up to you. Change breaks when you break. Education has given you a voice. A voice against oblivion is not a waste. It is your responsibility to speak.

Oh teacher, it is not easy here. You see that. Thomas, we are changing. We will find our way. From what is shown to us, we will piece together a future. You will not have a future with us but your words have a future with me.

It is overwhelming, this heat.

The Teacher Is Water

Kids say the darnest things. Here are a few of the sentences from my most recent English test that made me smile: (no particular order)

1. There are twelve maths in the year.
2. She drinks at you house.
3. My class is school.
4. The third month of the year is moth.
5. The student is his mother.
6. His is the third month of works.
7. When is f your class?
8. Salimata does in who.
9. Rakieta’s grandmother is the house.
10. There are in May thirsty days.
11. The teacher is water.
12. The Rakieta English is physical education.
13. Issouf is the friend in Rakieta.
14. The class is in the boy chair.
15. Fati is history every day.

Beyond the occasional feel-good sentence that comes along, grading is rough. There is so much hope, frustration, joy and guilt involved in correcting tests. You have hope and faith in your students and your ability to teach. You find frustration in their little mistakes and guilt in why you did not get the material across to them. When you come across those rare perfect gems you beam so bright; both for how brilliant a student they are and for your place in helping them reach that potential. It is just such a mixed bag and ultimately exhausting. Even if you somehow turn off all of those emotions and thoughts, it is a heavy amount of busy work. I’m not complaining by any means. I love being a teacher. It is just a reality of what that means.

Really, in the end, when I am grading test I am grading myself. It is a reminder of the challenge of teaching a class of 100 students each. I love that challenge. How do you keep interested those top performers while leaving no other kids outside of that understanding? How do you put aside your own emotions and concerns to be the example? It is so much to live up to. I sometimes ask why it is that I enjoy teaching so much more than other jobs I’ve held. It’s simple. Teaching pushes me to be the best version of myself, to see where I need to improve and to find new ways to communicate with those around me.

Plus, I’m just a big stupid kid. I like hanging out with kids. It’s fun.

Back to School

Personal:

My little brother was here throughout the Christmas break. Along with Molly, we celebrated Christmas with a neighbor's family, laughing and joking into the evening. The original plan was to dance but a baby in the compound had passed away. Thus, it turned into an intimate affair that sort of took that touch of Christmas with the family. Though, ulitmatley, both my brother and I missed our family horribly. We did however keep the Ellison traditions alive with our opening of a present on Christmas Eve, stockings and the typical Christmas run-around searching for clues.

After Christmas, we slowly, very slowly, made our way to Lome and the coast of Togo where we sat on the beach until just past New Year's. It was a vacation of horrific travel, grand adventure and final relaxation. I would not do it again to save my life but it sure did enrich it. Let us just say that next time, we will fly. No more slow crawling small ovens called mini-buses where eight people fill the space of three.

Work:

School has started again. Another semester equals another search for motivation, motivation for my students, motivation for the administration and even motivation for myself.

Keeping my students interested and on task is forever a game of one step forward, one step back. At the best of times you are maintaining the status quo which can be trying to your personal motivations. However, the wonderful thing about semesters ending is that there is a reward at the end of the rainbow. It just takes endurance on the teacher's part. Really though, I am thinking more and more about teaching in an American atmosphere where I do not struggle to speak a second language to a group listening in their second language. I want so badly to connect on more levels with my kids but it is difficult to cross that boundary when you are always the white foreigner. It would be nice to have a somewhat common culture and language from which to pull.

Computer Lab:

A local private school run by nuns has agreed to let me take a crack at fixing their computers in exchange for using them for a month or two (just until we can start collecting funds for a real computer lab). It is a temporary solution but a solution, none-the-less.

I have contacted various groups to find out prices and possibilities. An exciting idea is that there exists free software for Windows XP that allows to users to use the same computer simultaneously. Thus, one CPU can work as two computers with just another keyboard and screen. This means that more students can use the same number of computers which increases the lab's effectiveness. I have even been given company contacts to groups that can supply those computers, keyboards and screens. Now, we just need to find the funds to buy the refurbished computers. More to come on this.