Thomas in Burkina

A Relief In Rain

2011-06-22T09:34:00.000-07:00

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)

2011-05-27T09:35:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-05-03T08:47:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-29T07:55:00.001-07:00

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

2011-03-08T01:13:00.000-08:00

(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

2011-02-25T01:46:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-09T05:59:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-13T10:03:00.000-08:00

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.

Two Teeth

2010-12-23T07:16:00.000-08:00

All I want for Christmas is my friend's two back teeth removed. It is not exactly a Christmas song but it's as close to one that you will find coming from the village of Rambo. My good friend and former neighbor, Ousseini, finally came to visit. I had been insisting for a while that he come, especially because he has been unable to sleep due to the pain in his back teeth. A week of no sleep and constant aching finally forced him to trek the 40k on a village bike out to see me.

The timing of his visit ended up being to my advantage as I was able to get out of the long-winded teachers' meeting that happens at the end of each semester. I am sure Ousseini saw less luck in his throbbing pains. However, he was lucky enough to be able to get into the dentist rather quickly. I would like to note here that I have Peace Corps medical services which means Peace Corps doctors and clinic but Ousseini has the catholic hospital run by village nuns.

While the hospital is a looming compound, it is really more vast space than facilities. The first building we entered was the dentist's nook. There we got a consultation and a slip of paper with a strict command not to return until we had proof of payment and rubber gloves. Then it was a small trek over to the cashier nun to pay for the upcoming operation. The total on that was only about $10 (US). The final trip was to the pharmacy to get aspirin and antibiotics (for the aftershocks) and rubber gloves at about $2. I gladly paid the amount but am now a bit ashamed to think that my Christmas present to my dear friend was a pair of pliers to the mouth.

The next moments are haunting if only because it was eerily silent and quick. Ousseini walked in and five minutes later walked out of the dentist's chamber without two of his back teeth. No screams. No strains. Just pain. Poor guy even ran into the door, he was so dazed. Amazingly he still had a typical Ousseini grin on his face.

Now, in my family, we have a tradition of going to Wendy's after a little tug and pull at the tooth doctor's place. A cold frosty does wonders for wounded pride and mouth. However, the closest we have here in Kong is cold yogurt. Ousseini loves cold yogurt, come to find out so, in the tradition of the Ellisons, it was a lunch of cold, sweet yogurt.

Afterward, the grin still did not disappear from Ousseini's face even as he gargled a bit of warm salt water at my place. The only signs of pain that really cracked out he masked by taking a nap. After a couple of hours, he popped up ready to eat and head out on the road like a champ, all to my shock.

Rough.

The only person I can think of that might know how the poor guy feels is my Mom. She's the only one I know who has faced the village tooth-knife and come out all smiles.

Merry Christmas.

Active Member of the Blogging Club

2010-12-19T07:40:00.002-08:00

Personal:

Just a quick note to say that a stranger is in the mix (at least a stranger by French language standards). My little brother has been running around with me for a number of days now. It's been really nice to be able to share a bit of Burkina with him, including long hours in buses and weird animal smells.

Justin (my brother) comes with an automatic issue in hand, vegetarianism. It's nothing to me but it is a horribly difficult idea to explain to people that see meat as a wonderful luxury. Why would you reject meat? It's almost to the point of 'why would you burn money, you rich jerk'? Luckily, one can connect via religion. The idea being that I explain to them that Adam and Eve did not eat meat in the Garden of Eden which was paradise (in both the Quran and Bible). Thus, Justin is trying to build his diet in the manner of paradise. Burkinabe seem to be relatively content with such an explanation but others still seem to understand that the condescending tone in which they say 'he's a VEGETARIAN' translates despite the language barrier.

Even now in Kong (my home), when we have control of food and its preparation, the issue can rise in a different way. Most burkinabe do not have the capacity to eat out often so the restaurants cater to their desire for something grander and more luxurious which translates into meat. Thus, it becomes hard to find anything on any menu that does not have meat, meat sauce or a general wafting odor of meatiness. Even when the menu item is not injected with 'dead animal flesh' (his words, not mine though it is true), they are typically raw vegetables which pose the problem of digestion. To put it simply, vegetables are not often thoroughly washed and can contain traces of animal feces and pesticides, as they do. Not the worst thing if you are use to parasites and have had giardia three or so times (me) but can be rough if you want to spend the month visiting your brother and not wafting your tell-end over a latrine hole for 18 hours a day (Justin). (I am keeping Justin from posting any possible visual aids to the former) Thus, it is a lot of cooking at home and seeing my African diet from yet another point-of-view. Luckily enough, we've kept him well enough feed. Partially, we can thank the M&M's he brought.

In other news, we have turned the house into as much of a Christmas vacation spot as is possible. With stockings, a small tree, candy canes, a few lights and some homemade holly/paper chains, the house has turned into a reminder of family and home. It is our first Christmas away from the family and that has come with a sort of heaviness. In modern western society, it happens. Really, being together every Christmas for as long as we have (28 years) is rare for a family, especially a family that lives in multiple places abroad. It was bound to happen sometime which is apparently translated to this year. For me, no family really would equate to no real Christmas. The little brother helps make Christmas real this year. The decorations help breakdown the distance.

Today was the 21st market day, which is a larger market. We ran around town with David (visiting) and Molly. Molls and Justin ran through the market looking at fabrics and laughing. Dduck (David) sneakily bought little things for Christmas gifts (mine was an awesome calculator watch). I walked around getting poked by kids, only to look down and realize it was my students stopping me to say hi. It was not exactly Christmas shopping but it had the right feel and that's what really counts. It even came with minions for Justin to summon and do his bidding (two little market urchins that kept trying to hold my hand and get us to buy them things).

Soon the trip will turn to Rambo and a visit amongst the village. Then, Molls, Justin and myself will probably turn southward and try for a Togo vacation. We will see if success is in the adventure cards for the closing of the year.

Student Protest

2010-12-06T02:20:00.000-08:00

Work/Community:

In 1998, a journalist by the name of Norbert Zongo was killed. Shortly there after, students protested across the nation in order to force the government to investigate further what they called an assassination of the highest member of the free press. Every year, the protests continue. It is student led and student decided. This year, the protest started today.

English class at 7 this morning was interesting and fun. My students were in a fit of laughter due to my exaggerated stick figures meant to describe certain adjectives like short, tall, fat, thin, pretty, ugly and your mama, when there came loud chants across the courtyard. Before long, there were students yelling and banging on the door and windows of the class. They then came pouring into the room, snagging students, forcing them into their chants and protests. It was a zoo.

I have to acknowledge a bit of pride in my class. While they were being man-handled by student much older than them, they frantically wrote the remaining notes that I was furiously scribbling on the board. Some even protested the start of the protest in order to draw out a particularly large stick figure, plump and full of cake.

Once the class finally emptied, the drone of the road lay beneath my bike, I began to wonder; does anyone remember the reasons for the protest? Most of my students were not alive when Zongo was killed. They were not even twinkles in their father's eye. Is the protest just a rhythm, a part of the cycle and pulse of class here? Or does it show new generations the value of remembrance and justice, no matter the length in time?

I often wish I could open up the head of one of my students and view their the thoughts that go whirling by, to watch the zoo and riot before it breaks out in my class. Perhaps, it would make me a more effective teacher. There would be no more days of struggling to jump the cultural/generational gaps. Perhaps, I could contain the riot and tame the zoo? Or perhaps, I would join. I like zoos (though not as much as my brother) and I'm down with a little riotous action now and then.

Personal:

Since I mentioned my brother, I have wonderful news. HE IS COMING HERE! Yep, that old guy that reports to be my younger brother will be stepping off a plane to be met by his first hot taste of African air. Thrilled hardly captures it. What a Christmas gift to be able to share my work here with my family (at least a part of it)!

It will break my heart to not be with my the rest of my family this Christmas but Skype will help to heal some of that tear. I can honestly say such will be a new experience for me. In all my 28 years, I have NEVER missed a Christmas with my family. A part of me does fear that without my family, Christmas will not come. The 25th will disappear into the oblivion. Maybe, just maybe, having my little bro here will retain that day. Maybe that is why he is really coming, to deliver, with postage, the 25th.

Holidays, Help, Fango and Elections

2010-11-22T01:22:00.000-08:00

Lab:

The semester is coming to a close and the holidays are coming, yet the lab stands as it has. I keep telling myself that to find funding and equipment is difficult. It takes time. Of course more than time is needed to build a computer lab in Burkina Faso.

As the holiday season approaches, I am reminded of shops full, presents around trees, feasts, laughter, family and Santas ringing bells for charity. Thinking of such made me realize that more than time, the lab needs HELP. I can write letters and implore businesses to donate something but what is one small voice from distant Africa? What I need is YOUR help.

As you sit with your kids to write letters to Santa, could you write one to a computer (or any) company you know seeing if they would be willing to help in the construction of our lab? As you decide which parties to attend, would you be willing to set up activities that could help benefit Kongoussi children for many Christmases to come? As you hand out holiday cheer and hot cocoa, could you hand out the address of this blog to those that have the means to help?

If you are interested in helping to work with me to build the computer lab, please let me know. Contact me through this blog, through facebook or via email.

On this note, I would like to thank those in SLC for taking the time to see what they can do to aid my community here.

For more information about our goals for the lab, please see my blog from Nov. 2nd.

Community:

The end of the year for Mossi has little to do with December and January. The mark of years follows along the dancing paths of Fangos. Fango is nine day festival following the finish of the harvest. They call it a feat but, by American standards, it is hardly so. People do eat a few special treats like fried bread or a slice of coconut but the real celebration is in the dancing.

Each year, the different quarters put together a drum group. This drum group then gathers and beats out the rhythms for the entire quarter as they slowly swinging their hips inline around the market. It is a wave of nodding and hip thrusting that lasts for hours. Small boys lead the procession with a small flag attached to an overly large limb. Next comes a line of small children, setup by height. Each progressive line is older and taller. Women then follow the children before the final waves of men and drummers.

Anyone can join the dance and many do. They giggle, smile and belly laugh when I join. They dance to give thanks for a bountiful harvest. It is the dancing version of our Thanksgiving and it continues for nine nights, often lasting into the wee hours of the morning.

As I danced and mingled, students, friends and former neighbors came and greeted me. We shared fried bread and guava. We teased my favorite boys for being too shy around girls and too bold when the girls left. It is Rambo as I remember it and how I will always remember it, whether I am forty kilometers away or three thousand.

Unfortunately, it was my last Fango (at least for my Peace Corps service) so it held so many touches of bitter-sweet. It was a wonderful harvest and I am beyond thankful.

As our Thanksgiving approaches, I cannot help but be filled with more thankfulness than I can express to my family, friends, community and co-works. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you and here’s to a bountiful harvest next year.

-------

When African elections come to mind, it brings up thoughts of Peter Pan. Follow me here. Pan’s shadow is off rushing before Pan can get a hold of it. Wild action runs rampant as Pan tries to hold it down and sow a stitch of control. Anything can happen in an election. The president can fly off with all the countries money before the people can get a handle on the situation. Riots can overwhelm the government and break apart formerly strong stitches that have worn in economically unstable moments.

The elections have thus far gone off without a notice. Yesterday was the presidential election and who noticed? Had I not been informed by Peace Corps, I would really not have known, as occasional presidential shirt could merely have come from the previous election. The streets were as any Sunday. The buses ran as if it were n’importe quel jour. It was as if the people walked quietly with their tame shadows.

It was not what was expected when elections were discussed. It is hard to say if it was nicely quiet or eerily silent. Perhaps it was simply the soft sound of progress or, at the very least, peace.

Personal:

Today is the 18th birthday of my little brother, Jay. I cannot tell you how proud I am of him. If you read this Jay, get your application ready to join the man club. Oh and happy birthday!

Frustration

2010-11-12T10:28:00.000-08:00

I have so much frustration coursing through my veins that it would kill a moose. My sweat comes out as blocks of salt. And my back has enough knots to sail the Mayflower.

This is teaching.

You have days like mine today. I taught more than two hours over my time (something I can do in Burkina without worry), trying to get my students to be quiet and do their exercises. It is tough being that teacher that borders between strict and fun. Yes, we can sing song and make jokes with what we learn in English. No, we cannot turn in sloppy work and just blabber (especially if it’s not English).

Then there is the frustration of speaking in a second language. Add the racial issue. Add the poverty issue. Add the cultural differences. Add the educational differences. Add the structural differences. Add the weather differences. Add the differences in living conditions.

The amount of frustration in my blood could kill a moose but I have a smile on my face.

play to learn

2010-11-10T04:05:00.000-08:00

Lab:

Learning via play, it’s a simple idea that we have come to respect (for the most part) in the US. Kids can build on their skills by practicing them through entertaining and interesting activities. I learned most of what I know about computers not from lectures but from playing on them. Sometimes it was overtly educational materials such as Typing Pal. Sometimes it was simply figuring out how to make Oregon Trail work properly so I could try to save my little brother from dysentery then hunt a bear in Colorado. Either way, I was constantly finding new ways to use computers and manipulate them to do even more. As the computer lab progresses, the program’s focus will be educational but the means will be something not normally seen in Burkinabé schools. It will simply be fun.

Most of my kids have never touched a computer in their entire lives. Thus, it is necessary to start simply with ‘how to communicate with a computer’ via both keyboard and mouse. Without these basic concepts, further development is merely a chance for the professor to show how much he knows (which, one hopes, is a fair amount).

Already, I have started a few students on Tap Touche, the French version of Typing Pal. The tutoring section is perhaps a little dry but, overall, it has enough animation, competitive goals and even a full out games section that keeps the attention of my short apprentices. Tap Touche ultimately bridges the gap between having never touched a keyboard and knowing where the keys are relatively located. With any luck, we will also acquire the French versions of more challenging typing games such as Typing Shark that require a basis in typing but can be used to develop accuracy and quickness. Our goal at the moment is simple 10 words per minute at 95% accuracy.

Second comes games that work with the mouse. Initially, the games revolve around the idea of simply moving the mouse from one point to another then build to incorporate clicking, double clicking and dragging of the mouse. These games are a dime a dozen, including typical cards games, internet flash games or even old school arcade games. I am personally a fan of Plants vs Zombies which requires faster mouse reaction than is ultimate available currently in the lab. (Light-based, non-ball driven, mice will soon seep their way in to my dreams, I’m sure)

Hand-eye coordination and the use of it to communicate are the real goals. From that point, it is possible to move to other programs and begin a larger curriculum. I will discuss that in a later blog. For the moment, interaction with those funny pictures on the screen is the key. Funny, it’s something we almost assume to be instinctual in the US. Burkina is a definitive argument that says otherwise.

Work:

The website (pcburkina.org) is expanding all the time. At the moment, it seems there is always a new page en cours de construction. I have been trying to relinquish as much of the control (and therefore the responsibility for content) as is possible to different interested individuals and committees. So far I have gotten enthusiastic responses. We will see how that builds into actual content. The key is really to build and reach that tipping point where it becomes an indispensable resource for volunteers and family members and their first contact for needed information. Feedback is ultimately crucial beyond just content building, as well. If you check out the site and have any comments, leave them with me, contact the IT Committee at peace.corps.bit@gmail.com or use the Conact Us link on the site.

At the moment, I am building mostly volunteer resources. One example is administration forms. Every volunteer dreads them but cannot ignore their role in our service. Thus, building pages that allow quick and easy access to forms and form information is imperative. Not exciting for me but hopefully quite useful for everyone else.

Community:

I actually spent the last weekend more or less around volunteers which can be considered its own type of community here in Burkina. It was a weird sort of feeling being in that community. For the past two months, I have simply been here in Kongoussi or chilling in Rambo without much interaction with large groups of ex-pats, volunteers or non-Burkinabé. It was, for the most part, wonderful to talk in English and be amongst those that shared most of my cultural leanings. However, I perhaps am becoming a bore. I found those conversations that I enjoyed most evolved around work, future work or potential for work. Not to say that I did not have fun. I just really enjoy what I do (and hopefully do it with humor) and relate to those that feel the same. I want to talk about Kongoussi, Rambo, the lab, the website, agri-projects, development plans, etc. I don’t mind throwing in some Glee references or catching an episode of Modern Family but what I want most from the volunteer community is encouragement, engagement and expansion of ideas (yep, to be nerdy, I made those all ‘e’ words).

Personal:

Tired. Should sleep more.

"God helps those that help themselves" (I hope)

2010-11-02T09:58:00.000-07:00

When I arrived in Kongoussi, I was surprised not with the computer lab at the high school but the lack of one. Enthusiasm for information technology was abundant but expertise was lacking. In the last two months we have duct-taped our way to build a lab of eleven rather ancient computers. Then hope appeared on the horizon. Former students that have graduated from the high school in Kongoussi have banded together to raise money and find equipment to add to our well-intentioned lab. However, even with their efforts, we will fall short of having a suitable computer lab to teach the almost two-thousand students that attend the high school.

This is where my abilities fall short. I can rebuild computers from bug infested and water-damaged parts but I alone cannot fund the remainder of supplies needed to build the lab. Thus, in order to truly serve the Kongoussi community, I am reaching out to groups and individuals will to help. This blog will not only serve as my personal reflections on my service but will work to raise and fund a working computer lab so that my kids can finally join the rest of the world in the Information Age.

Starting today, I will include, first and foremost, a Computer Lab section to this blog to keep updates on what is going on with the lab, its funding, student involvement, current trainings and needs of the lab, itself.

Lab:

To start this section, I am simple going to outline the goals and needs thus far of our computer lab:

Goal: To build a working computer lab for the almost two-thousand students attending high school in Kongoussi.

What does that mean?

A single IT teacher (me) can use 40 computers to teach 650 students a trimester at two hours per week. This equals out to about 33 hours a week of lecture time. Therefore, all students in the high school would receive a full trimester of training. Then would be allowed to use the lab during open lab hours (non-lecture and work hours).

Further, because of dust, insect, frog, rain and heat issues, the lab will need repairs to its roof, ceilings, walls and seals for the windows and doors. Further, the lab room itself will need to be re-wired in order to not suffer from reoccurring power outages suffered due to circuit breaks with the current class line. Finally, an air-conditioning unit will need to be installed in order to keep the computers from over heating during the school year when temperatures reach over 110 F. (These projects are currently being handled in negotiations with the former students)

Due to the lack of electronic (let alone computer) stores and easily accessible equipment, a spare keyboard an d mouse for each computer will be necessary. Further, in order to maintain the computers over time, batter backups and surge protectors will need to accompany each machine.

Possible other equipment needs include a projector (for class demonstrations), printers (1-2) and internet/router and cables plus an internet subscription. Again, these are only possibilities or extensions of the original goal.

Finally, the funds necessary to pay for shipping, taxes and/or customs for machines bought here or shipped from foreign locations.

Those our the current needs and goals of our lab. Follow this blog for future updates.

Work:

Beyond the lab, English classes are going well. Though my schedule has gotten busier and busier, I was approached by students in Terminal (final stage of high school here) and agreed to work with them on evenings as a sort of English club. So, teaching English is really becoming a big part of this year which is really satisfying for the simple reason that it is something everyone here wants and I can easily provide.

My English classes (you could call them 7th graders) also had their first exams this past Friday which is always a time of excitement, anticipation and a bit of struggle. We include in the test, oral (for all 105 students per the class, two classes), listening, writing dialogue and translation. With only two hours, it can be a bit difficult to test students on every aspect thoroughly but I think we did a good job of getting at the fundamentals. In any case, one of my favorite things is to put up interesting 'mistakes' made my students on their exams. So here goes:

Spelling is a big part of the listening exercises. Here are some unique spellings:

window - windoor, windood, wendeow, waynddoor, wend'wo, windween and windown (that one was really popular seeing we also were tested on 'sit down')

those - doos, vose, thoses and dhose

happy - hanppy and yapy

door - dword, doow, dorw and doll

chairs - tables (?!) and theherse

student - stubent and stoodient

hungry - ingruit, angri and hundri

books - boobs (kid you not!) and boor

you - yoo and yiue

goodbye - goodbye, goodboy and goodbag

good day - good dog

good afternoon - good fneyaretabies (I think this student took spellings from my little brother, Justin)

Some great phrases that came out of the exam:

God evening, how are you?

Our teacher is in the _____. (Fill in the blank, answers below)
- teacher
- wendo
- Safi
- and you
- pupil
- hit
- evening

Sometimes, I like to think my students make the mistakes just to amuse me. Really, I know it's just because some of them have not yet gotten into the habit of looking over their answers before handing in their tests. We will work it.

For those of you that have kept in close contact with me, you will know too that I have been working hard on building a website to act as a resource for current volunteers, family members and even local community members. We had a first year of lightning strikes and bumps and bruises that took us to the limits of what we could do and beyond. Recently, I sat back down and started over with the external site, building it to be as user friendly as I could. What came out of that sweat has been thus far well received and has already gotten to be an every-other-day updating site. It is building and building by the day. You should check it out if you have not already at:

pcburkina.org

Let me know of any suggestions you might have, as we are always working to make the site a better resource in any way possible. Ultimately, this site may be the type of resource that volunteers can use to further projects in the communities started by other volunteers, start projects of their own and keep them from re-inventing the wheel, as they say. Really, go check it out. I'm kinda proud of it.

Community:

This last weekend, I went back to Rambo. It's a typical trip that I take about every three weeks or so. In any case, last time they surprised me with peanuts and all. I was overwhelmed by their kindness. This time, as I pulled my bike up to my old neighbors house, he had water, peanuts and twenty guinea fowl eggs waiting for me. For people that do not often get eggs, that was A LOT! Then, people proceed to stop by and give me more and more peanuts plus a bowl of sesame seeds. There is no use in trying to explain to them that I am here to help them and not to eat up all their crops. After all, it was a good cultivating season and everyone is thrilled to share and enjoy the fruits of their labors with those they care about. I am unbelievably lucky to be considered a part of that group. Thus, I have been regifting peanuts to those I see through my days (though the pile never really seems to diminish). Need-less-to-say, it was a good visit.

Personal:

What can I say beyond, I am busy. What a pleasant feeling. After two years of not always having the resources to do a lot of the IT work, I have been able to work on the volunteer site when I am not in class, amongst students or putting together the lab. The great reception from volunteers (and especially committee members) has been such an uplifting bit of encouragement for me.

In memory of Seb Kiendrébéogo

2010-10-26T09:44:00.000-07:00

Seb Kiendrébéogo was my APCD (director of my sector, secondary education). He was the one responsible for having given me Rambo which was one of the luckier things to ever happen to me. Admittedly, I did not always think highly of Seb, at least not in the beginning. But, over time, he won me over as I saw his strong motivation to aid local communities and his ability to balance that with volunteers' wants. He believed in what we were doing and was always encouraging. He always held a smile. Even at times when I have felt disconnected from the administration, I have considered him a valuable ally. He came to Rambo a few times, even sitting in my class and laughing along with myself and my kids. He was a good man. So, this blog is meant simply to mark my memory of Seb Kiendrébéogo and to say something that I did not get to say to him often enough, thank you. May he rest in peace.

Visit

2010-10-25T03:36:00.000-07:00

(This is from Oct 21st)
Work:

Last Friday, I looked out across my class and I saw faces lit up, honored and excited. The Peace Corps regional director for all of Africa had just left, along with Burkina Faso’s country director and an entourage of Peace Corps officials. The chatter in the room radiated, melted into the walls and poured out the door. They accepted that I needed to leave them with something before the weekend so they took a few notes, then they were gone, out the door and into the open air. The chatter magnified.

On the walk home, I was surrounded by kids tripping and scurrying along in their English. They wanted to know more, play more in the words of those foreigners who came to say hi. It had only been thirty minutes of greetings. Single file the kids had gone up to each American, greeted them then presented themselves. But it was more than just practicing their English, it was representing their country. While they surely know little of the inner workings of the Peace Corps, they recognized that an official from that big strange place, America, wanted to come and see their country, their province, their town, their school, their class. They were ambassadors, representatives of their home. What a powerful sentiment. Pride.

I was proud of them. Not only because they were well behaved but they seemed to all understand that it was really about them. Even if they did not consciously process it all, they were proud of themselves and the future they hold. That pride, that sense of importance, builds into motivation and passion. I know it will not last forever and there will be other challenges but it gives you hope. Hope is what makes an education achievable. So we’ll keep chatting along, even if in broken English.

Our curriculum for the course is fairly open, as I was handed a student’s English workbook as a teaching guide. It has no lessons, only a few dialogues and a couple of activities. Thus, the course is as we make it. In that, I can be thankful as my classes only loosely conform to the workbook. Instead, we work on learning intuitive English. Start with basics, everyday uses, and build basic rules as we go along. It’s gone something like this:

Greetings
Saying your name
Pronouns (I, You, We…)
Verbs (Imperative form, ex: Go, Listen, Be Quiet..)
Classroom Nouns (Book, Student, Teacher, Pen…) and “What is this?”
Conjugating “To Be” in the present
Plurals
Possessive (my, your, his…)
Basic Sentences
Negative Form of Sentences
Asking Yes or No Questions (Are you a door? Is he a teacher?...)

My kids have taken to much of the material and rather quickly. In the past three weeks, they have picked up the major points in all the above. My goal is to keep them motivated to learn and to make learning English as instinctual as I can. The visit from the Peace Corps high-ups plays into that. We are using the language, making it a part of our lives. Not learning the translation of things but communicating in English, catching the flow of it in our few short hours a week. Our focus is not spelling or grammar but comprehension. So far, it has had encouraging results. Hope.

Community:

I have started working with a young student from Kongoussi to teach him info-tech. I’ll call him Kid Constant for the time being. In a way, he is my test subject for my course on info-tech. In another way, he poses an interesting problem. All across Burkina there are bright young minds that are excelling in classes. More often then not though, there are bright young minds working in fields when classes are going on. It seems sad to say but it comes down to what often seems luck. Kid Constant goes to school at night (a program that meets only once a week at night) and balances time between odd jobs and his divorced parents. In so many ways, his intelligence shows. Yet, his education is lacking like so many, simply because the parents do not have either the money, will or time to invest (if not all three). It is the luck of the draw as to whether or not any given smart kid will be in a situation in which he can take advantage of that. As an educator, it’s hard to take. After all, aren’t we here to open doors, to build opportunity? Kid Constant is at least lucky in that he stumbled into my path and hopefully he’ll get something out of working together. It does make me wonder though, how many other Kid Constants are there in Kongoussi, Burkina, Africa…?

Personal:

I’ve been finding more and more motivation to do more and more as I get busier. It is as if having more to do gives me the energy to do more. It’s nice being busy. I spent the last weekend rebuilding the PC Burkina website and am much happier with its progress. That project is settling on firmer ground which led me to a meeting with a man who runs an orphanage and wants to build a website. Good work leading to motivation for more good work.

kindness

2010-10-11T09:21:00.000-07:00

Community:

I road my bike on Friday evening passed the primary school, along the curve of the only paved road in Kong. Turning in front of me was a large supply truck followed by line after line of mopeds. It was a parade of commerce with everyone clamoring behind to get their piece of the truck. As the truck pulled up next to the gas supplier, I cursed myself for having not pulled out money when I got down to my last few dollars.

In order to buy a new 12kg tank of gas you need about $40. I had $10 and change. Thus, I watched as others scampered to get their hands on these now rare blue bottles. It has been well over a month since any cooking gas has been lifted from a supply truck and placed gently to the ground. I have been waiting since day one of the shortage. Now, so close to putting my hands to the tank of my cooking independence, I find myself without the funds.

The next morning, I wake early, hoping to get a jump on the Sonapost to take out money and, perhaps, a tank of gas. Before taking the trek to the ‘post I go to check the availability at the gas supplier. With a nod and a grin, amongst a crowd, the supplier tells everyone there is plenty to go around. I blurt out the question on everyone’s mind, “how much?” It is $8 for a recharge which helps me none as I have no empty bottle to recharge. I ask the price of a new one.

“They don’t exist.”
“What do you mean? I can see that you have many bottles of gas here. Can you not sell me one?”
“Nope.”
”Really?!”
“Really.”
“Why not?”
“It is not mine to sell. I can only exchange an empty one for a full one in order to recharge them. If you want to buy a bottle, it will be several months more.”

My fist clenched at that moment. Rage tapped me on the shoulder, asking for his turn. I suppressed and left. As I dejectedly opened the door to my shared courtyard, my neighbor was riding his moped out.

“Good morning. How are things?”
“Very well. I slept nicely last night. And you?”
“I slept well enough. What are you up to this morning?”
”I was out talking to the gas supplier but no luck. I don’t have an empty bottle to fill so it will be many months more.”
“What? That can’t be. You know what; I have an empty bottle that I don’t use ever, would you like it?”

At this point, let me remind you that this is the second most under-developed nation in the world. Forty dollars, the price of a new bottle, is a lot of money. And here was my new neighbor, offering to give me his to use. Thus, I let my jaw drop in shock at this generosity and told him I would pay him for it. He would hear no such thing. It was empty and needed to be used. I could have it until I left in a year.

Thus, with kindness, an empty bottle and $10 cash I now have cooking gas and a smile.

On a different note:

Not exactly my primary project but still important, I went to Rambo over the weekend. There, I gave my kids workbooks filled with exercises and answers to help them pass the looming final exam to determine if they can move on to a full high school.

Once there, I was greeted with smiling faces, cold water (from the market), a bowl of peanuts and stories upon stories. Everyone was excited about the great cultivating season they have had and this years prospects. I sat with Husseini (who was my closest neighbor and friend) and played with his newest born, a boy named Mahmadou. We exchanged jokes and stories, laughing and carrying on while my leafed through the books I had brought.

One story struck me. It seems that the local president of the teachers and parents organization had been trying to find a way to take Husseini’s solar panel. (Just to note, when I left Rambo, I gave him my solar panel to use to charge cellphones in order to pay for schooling for his kids and also to use for the kids’ study light at night.) He related how he had showed him the receipt that we put together and the man still insisted that Husseini took it illegitimately. Not being able to do anything about it that night, I sat in my tent turning the situation over and over.

The next morning, Hussein and I took the tour around the quarter and the market. We greeted everyone I knew and were greeted back with bowls of peanuts and many wishes that I would stay in Rambo and not go back to Kong. Along the tour, we met up with the PTA president in a group of friends and family. I congratulated him on a new school year starting. Then proceeded to tell him how grateful I was and how proud he must be that the kids would be able to continue their studies at night without me since Husseini had so nicely used the solar panel that I gave him to help the kids. I made mention of how it pleased me considerately that he was now its owner and the kids would be free to study. It was uncharacteristically passive-aggressive of me and it felt good. It publicly boxed in the PTA president and legitimized Husseini’s position. Just to put the nail in the coffin, I went to greet the chief and gave him a similar praise of Husseini’s use of the panel. He was more than thrilled at the idea and gave Husseini his full endorsement. Oh, village politics.

Politics aside, the fields were full of ripe and ready corn, millet, black-eyed peas and peanuts aplenty. The rains have been plentiful and well timed to give a pretty decent harvest and a positive outlook for this coming year. I did my part to and took my tour of each field, saying hi to all those out working hard, stopping to help pick beans here and there.

Needless-to-say, I left Rambo satisfied and with too many peanuts and a belly full of black-eyed peas and corn. As luck had it, I had the occasion to relinquish two sacks of them as my bike tire and tube blew out forcing me to flag down a ride into town. And just as I awaited gas for so long, I now await a new tire. Looks like I can cook but I’ll be walking the 4k to school everyday and back. It wasn’t so bad today. Besides, I hear it is good for your health. (Of course, so was riding my bike.)

Work:

School has been going quite well. Today, we worked hard on greetings and presenting ourselves. My kids were enthusiastic about being let into the classroom only if they could correctly answer the questions “what is your name?” in understandable English. It was a sort of password into this weird white guy’s class. When they all perfectly expressed their given names, I rewarded them with a little hip hop from back home. Smiles all around.

My principal and I also did the security rounds, meaning we went to all the high commissioner and police types to present the new volunteer, me. In the time between shaking the hands of welcoming officials, I had a chance to just chat with “my prov” (short for proviseur, aka principal, in French). In short, it is good to be working with someone that appreciates hard work and who puts in more than his share of time and energy.

A shock and relief

2010-10-04T09:14:00.000-07:00

Personal:

I cannot tell you how relieved I am to have real work starting. Setting up the computer lab and all has been nice but I needed somewhere to be, a real schedule. I enjoy having to make deadlines and work within a certain timeframe (to a certain extent). Thus, school starting is a relief valve for summer stress. I now have a place I need to be each day along with a large amount of time afterwards where I am free to work on lesson plans and the comp lab. It suits me far better than free floating in time and space, perhaps working when someone throws a broken computer my way. I like an outline of structure or, at the very least, a project with a completion date.

On the note of language, my discussions with people are a bit different here in Kong than they were in Rambo. Thus, I find myself reaching farther and farther into Frenchy French. No longer do little metaphors or village French seem to capture the attention of the audience. It is a welcomed natural challenge, as I was finding it difficult to continue advancing in French on my own in Rambo. (Since I read Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography recently I will add a little witticism) It is easier to learn to swim when you are in the ocean than when you sit in a puddle.

Work:

A week before school started, the administration and all the teachers get together to have their little pow-wow. To tell you the truth, it can be one of the most boring parts of the entire year. Stateside, one goes to a meeting expecting efficiency, outlines, schedules and an appreciation for getting to the point. In Burkina, one comes to meeting with a schedule and the desire to be heard, even if his point is already made. Thus, efficiency and an appreciation for the other teacher’s time is often neglected in order to allow every opinion from every mouth. Too often, this does mean that each person gives their spill about a subject even if the exact same thing was just expounded upon profusely. So, it can get a bit long winded in a teacher meeting. After all was said and done, it was a five hour meeting meant to say “welcome to the new year”.

However, this meeting did not go without its drama. My community counterpart, Ben (a math teacher), did speak up in front of the group of thirty-two in order to say his peace about my teaching English on top of IT. While his intentions were well, he had failed to inform the prefecteur (principal) and censeur (one could say vice principal) before going to the meeting. Stateside, it’s not so much a problem. In Burkina, everything is hashed out and spoken about beforehand. There are papers and chains of command to worry about. You miss one step and you offend everyone. Unfortunately for Ben, he missed a number of steps. It was the wrong move for him as a young teacher and it was discussed thoroughly afterwards. Back home, we would not have blinked at his comments but here, for the sake of protocol, it became a situation. Luckily, I am a bit of a grey area so things can be smoothed over a bit easier.

As for school itself, it started today. Well, it was suppose to start today. Today was the first day kids sat in a class. By sitting, I really mean they pulled out all the desks and swept the floor with a bundle of long twigs tied together. This is nothing new. This is a typical first day. Now, just to shock my kids into getting ready for the coming onslaught, I went in and introduced myself. We went over a few points:

First, I am different than the other teachers. (It’s true!) How so?

1. I’m American.
2. I’m an English speaker.
3. I am white.

Then I went over what each of those means:

1. I teach differently so pay attention.
2. I speak differently and it may be difficult sometimes to understand so listen carefully and write things down.
3. While being white is the most obvious difference, it is also the one that does not matter in the scope of our class.

Second, bring your notebooks to class (starting with the next class).

Finally, our third point, make a name card for yourself so I can learn your names and call you by them.

One would not think that those three points were too much for a class of 7th graders but you could see the shock setting in. It was a new year and, for all these kids know, it was going to be a crazy, weird and unexpected ride.

Our next class together will consist of learning how to study. Too often, children are left to teach themselves how to study on their own. Thus, all too frequently, I see kids sitting in front of a notebook and just repeating every sentence until they are done. Those that “truly study” often do this a number of times and complete the homework which puts them ahead of the curve. Thus, a large number of kids can retain information from the class but few can process and use that information in any practical way. So, our class will detail how to make/use flash cards, make/use a translation dictionary, take/use notes (from the board and from the teacher), as well as tips to study at home (in ways that can even be fun). For those that can read French (or know how to use Google Translator) here is a bit of that lesson plan:

Les Notes
- Écrirez tous les notes dans le cahier qui sont sur le tableau noir
- Écrirez tous les exemples dans le cahier
- Notez et écrirez tous les choses importantes que le professeur a dit
- Écrirez la prononciation de mot d’anglais
- Écrirez des questions que vous voulez poser au professeur (en classe ou après)
- Écrirez les réponses des questions

Dictionnaire
- Créez un dictionnaire á la fin de votre cahier
- Partagez les mots en groupe des verbes, des noms, des adjectives, des nombres et des divers
- Écrirez chaque mot dans votre dictionnaire

Créer des Cartes d’Études
- Anglais sur une face de carte et français sur l’autre
- Lissez le mot de français et traduisez le mot en anglais
- Lissez le mot d’anglais et traduisez le mot en français
- Utiliser chaque mot d’anglais dans une phrase
- Etudiez avec les cartes en route á la maison
- Etudiez avec les cartes en route au lycée

Traduisez
- Traduisez quelques phrases d’anglais de vos notes en française
- Retraduisez les phrases en anglais
- Comparez les phrases que vous avez traduit avec les phrases originales d’anglais

Questions
- Posez des questions en classe
- Pensez des questions que vous pouvez posez en classe prochaine
- Écrirez une liste des mots que vous voulez traduire en classe prochaine

IT classes have yet to start for the simple fact that there are no IT students yet. The idea is to have people sign up for the IT classes (as an extra class) over the course of this week. After that, we will assess the situation and see how many classes/hours to build out of that. Lord knows, it may be five students or one thousand. We will see…

Community:

Gas update: none.

The heat and intensity of October has already started to set in. Thank goodness for my fan! One has to love living in luxury. I had two years of baking Octobers and am glad to get a little relief from this one. Typically, October is a mini hot season. It swelters and bubbles just before the coolness of November starts to set in. Luckily, it lasts only about a month. Thus, about the time the next big market comes the days should be less smeared with sweat.

Every twenty first market is an especially big market (well, it is at least a little bigger). Really, not too many more things appear in the market (especially during the harvest time) but people are out and about more. It is as much a community get together as anything. Thus, the day is really spent walking around saying hello to people you know. It is an interesting idea to think that we go to the market to shop, while people here go to the market to gossip and hang-out. It’s like the mall in middle school. You go, walk around, say hi to the girls that giggle when you pass and make sure everyone sees your new jeans. I have to constantly remind myself that (even if I need nothing) I should walk through the market, say hi and just be around for a bit. In Rambo, I could stay in my quarter and just talk to everyone around. Now, with a larger community and friends that are spread far and wide, it becomes necessary to make appearances at places to get that same sort of familiarity and sense of community.

the end of the rainy season

2010-09-27T10:04:00.000-07:00

Personal:

In Rambo, everyone knew me. I don’t know that such is possible in Kong. For the most part in Rambo, I had all the calls of “nasara” (whitey in Moore) changed to “Thomas” or “monsieur” but there are far too many random calls in a town to stop for each and effectively putting an end to such by introducing myself.

What happens in Kong one perhaps could call a sort of anonymity. I can hide in my house for an hour or two and no one comes knocking down my door to see what happened to Mr. Ellison. Further, there are far less people keeping track of my comings and goings. Yet, in that new anonymity, I have not lost the ability to quit standing out like a sore thumb when I do step foot outside. One might say that has a touch of irony. I am no longer the famous white person. I am just a nameless white person.

In a way, it is regression. I do want to hear “Thomas” or “monsieur” everywhere I go. I want people to care about me. However, I do not want it to be on the basis of my skin color. Thus, in a way, the situation in Rambo came to the point where my skin color weighed less on people’s minds. Now, it seems to be the only recognizable thing about me to the vast majority of people here for no other reason then there are more people.

It will improve in time. More and more, I hear the call “Thomas” from random alley ways. Heck, just today, I was biking through the outer edge of town for scenic reasons and stumbled across one of my neighbors. He was busy playing Scrabble with buddies. (Yes, they play French Scrabble here with boards they have made.) To be in a random area of town, far from my neighborhood, and stumble across a familiar and welcoming call of my name, it was nice.

On a dietary note, I have been eating yogurt like it is going out of style. While it was traditionally an unrequired taste of mine, I have found that I now crave it. It is perhaps the closest thing that one can get to ice cream in Kong and that perhaps can best explain the change in my taste buds. Beyond that, it seems to have some health benefits associated with it. My gut is full of that supposed good bacteria now and I'm getting my daily dose of protein. Now, if only the lady would let me keep the plastic container it comes in. It's annoying to have to always return them (though nice as it does give me an excuse to grab another one).

Work:

I am posting some of the pics of my computer lab. So far we have eleven computers that look to be decent enough to type on. As you can see from the pictures, the lab is hardly a top-notch facility. Really it consists of aluminum tables, a circuit break and a number of thrown-together computers, all precariously put together in a room that has a leaking roof and an invasion of frogs. Yet, who is looking for perfection? It may be the first the time ever that these kids are getting the ability to sit down and work with a functioning piece of the Information Age. Having said that, the conditions could use improvement and can sometimes be frustrating, even disheartening.

My first objective is to use the lab in two different manners: to learn to manipulate a computer and learn the basics about hardware. There are a million things one can focus on (internet, typing, games, MS Office, OS, programming, etc.) so why those two? Simply stated, if they are comfortable sitting down and knowing how to interact with any computer, then they will be prepared to learn any set of programs (and who knows what those will be). Second, so often the reason why labs fail in this country is hardware maintenance and it often something as simple as being able to change out the hard-drive. All the other pieces of computer knowledge will hopefully then follow. This is only the beginning.

The larger goal for the lab is to have a Burkinabe teacher or community member take over its maintenance and operation. In the past, there was a lab that existed at my school but it was quickly shutdown when computers ran into simple errors. Further, a local administrator can be responsible for coordinating the acquisition of new resources for the lab. This will hopefully go beyond an adequate number of new computers to include a projector, scanner, battery backup, air-conditioning system and whatever else we can put into the budget that will improve the chances of bringing my students into the current century.

On the note of bringing my kids into the current century, I believe my job as a teacher is far more about expanding opportunity than teaching technical details. My students are as intelligent, resourceful and eager to learn as any students out there. The difference is that they often come across far too many barriers. Think of the difference it would make if that genius in my math class had the resources and free time to experiment and research instead of trying to scratch enough food from the earth to live. These minds our the resources of the future. And that all sounds lame and cheesy but it's true. What do we lose out on when lives are absorbed in surviving instead of expanding? Further, what good does it do if I teach them about computer programming yet they never get to sit down and type on a computer? Thus, it is my job to encourage them to push forward with all the will they can muster and to find ways to open the road before them. I guess you could say my teaching style is like a guy with a bullhorn and a bulldozer who is bullheaded.

Community:

The rumors of long lines for cooking gas in Ouaga are plentiful. With any luck, that means gas is on its way to Kong in less than a month. (Though I bought rice and beans from a lady last night that was cheap and tasty which makes cooking a lot less necessary.)

The rains have slowed down but not fully stopped. It now rains about once a week instead of a few times a week. Thus, it looks like we will avoid some of the major flooding that happened at the end of the season last year without losing on the crop yield side. At the moment, the millet plants are standing far above my head, reaching up to eight or more feet along the main road in Kong. What a blessing, too, as it seemed for a while in June that the rains would never come. Of course, it is Africa and anything can happen.

On a book note: I just finished with a number of books that I would recommend. First and foremost is the Zeitoun by David Eggers (big old author crush on Dave!). The man knows how to write narrative journalism and, even more so, knows how to pick stories that connect to the deeper better parts of our humanity.

On the great writers’ side, I just finished Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck. A classic American writer’s of America. You have to love how it gets Texas just right. If you know any Texans, get the book, open to the last section and read it. You’ll smile. It’s true. Texas pride and is beautiful thing.

Finally, I would recommend a combo. The first of the combo would be The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind about a teenager in Malawi (true story) that through his own studying builds his own windmill (without any outside help) using local materials. Simply inspirational. Then, read Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers for no other reason then it speaks directly to such a story as William’s, who harnessed the wind. After all, he is not the only boy genius or mechanical wonder in Africa, just one that had the will, community and circumstances to make something extraordinary. Just think how many others here in Africa could do the same. I know a few myself that have visited my courtyard a half-a-million times.

A Third Year

2010-09-18T11:24:00.000-07:00

It has been a while, so I will start with a bit of an intro:

The Peace Corps is originally a two year commitment. However, I applied and was approved to do a third year of service. My first two years were in a small village by the name of Rambo. This coming year will be in Kong (I am shortening the name for security, privacy reasons). In Rambo, I taught both english and math while tutoring throughout the night. In Kong, I am charged with being an IT teacher at the local high school.

Now, a note:

I am expanding/separating this blog out a bit by distinguishing between three areas of interest; personal (that's me!), work-related (that's school) and community (call it the cultural/local news section).

On to the blog...

Personal:
Moving to a new town starts with excitement then wallows in a bit of frustration before settling into some kind of normal. To start, suddenly having electricity and a water facet (albeit it the courtyard and not the house) drastically improve one's ability to do daily activities such as bathing, washing, cooking, reading, ect. However, once you get over the fact that you have this sudden convenience, you find that you now have to fill all the empty hours left over from the daily chores. In other words, my excuses are gone and I have to actually find a way to be more productive. Now, you would think that no longer having to do the menial tasks means that you can move on to bigger and better things but somewhere a piece of me is saying relax. After all, isn't the convenience there so that one doesn't have to do as much work? Shouldn't I now use that time to relax?

Here's the catch: The relaxed Thomas becomes bored. Bored Thomas leads to downer Thomas. Downer Thomas doesn't get his normal work down. Really isn't all it cracked up to be, these extra hours.

Ultimately, those extra hours mean finding more work to do. Of course, instead of it being small chores that fill my time, I can fill my time with farther reaching goals. It means to that my focus has to broaden and expand to fit weeks and not just days, projects can last longer and attention spans must grow. It's a new challenge in the mundane.

Work:

One of the largest of this year's challenges is school work. Perhaps this can best be put anecdotally...

The morning sun is pouring into my house as I dry off the last remnants of my shower and put on my shirt. Soon after, a “koo-koo” sounds at my door and my new counterpart, Benjamin, taps lightly on the metal frame. We exchange morning greetings about how well we slept then hop on our vehicles (I'm using that term loosely so it encompasses my bike and his moped) for the 3k ride to school. Once there, I realize that the mix of bike ride, heat and nerves has caused my shirt to dampen. Luckily, I find I am not the only one suffering from the heat as we enter the office of the Censure.

The Censure is a chubby and pleasant man that often looks bewildered. He seems constantly lost in confusion over how the world did not seem to suddenly mold itself into his own way of seeing it but the smile remains on his face. As I sit and Benjamin starts the introductions, the Censure begins to click and type furiously on his keyboard. I am the volunteer he has heard about, now to bend that world again.

“So what can you teach? Do you teach physics?”

“Umm, as Benjamin said, I am here as an IT teacher.”

“Ok, but what did you teach before.”

“I taught math and english. I have a degree in engineering with a math minor.”

“Ah, so you can teach physics and chemistry then?”

“I can but I was told you need an IT teacher here. We are going to look at the lab later.”

“Oh yes. Well, if not P/C then how about math. Since you already taught math we will sign you up for a few classes. What classes did you teach?”

“I taught 6eme and 5eme but I really would like to see the computer lab and work on build a program for that. Have you talked to the Principle?”

“Yes. Yes. Ok, so we can put you down for five hours of math. And you said you taught English, yes? Good, then we will give you a number of English classes. After all, our English teacher died over the summer.”

“My condolences. I am sorry to hear that. Really though, I am going to be focused mostly on the IT lab. I don't mind helping out with a class or two but my organization really sent me here to work on the lab and there is a lot to do.”

“Ok, then we will only put you down for 10 hours of English in 6eme.” (That is two classes with the youngest kids)

The Censure goes back to typing furiously and Benjamin just looks at me with a shrug in his shoulders. After a few more clicks, he looks up and tells us that the schedule will be ready on the 15th of the month. When I later returned on the 15th, he told me about how he did not yet have my math and English classes ready but would have them on the 27th. It took some haggling but I eventually convinced him that teaching IT and English was enough. Hopefully, I convinced him...

After being introduced to the Censure, we walked around the small administration building to greet people sitting behind aging desks will imposing stacks of files smoldering from the latest smattering of red-tape. Our final intro was to the Principle of the school, a larger, broad shouldered man whose tribal facial scars impose a sense of humility on the on-looker. Out of the tense face the glow of file started and he spoke.

“Man, I am so glad you are here. I know a bit about IT myself but only because I taught myself. We use to have a few others that helped when the computers first arrived but they have all moved on. You will have your work cut out for you but I think you will do alright. By the way, got any idea why my monitor quit working on me this morning?”

By this time, Benjamin had taken his leave to see to an errand he had to run. Thus, it was this gentle giant and myself craning our necks over the side of the computer to look into its tangle of parts. Soon, we found that it was not he monitor but the hard-drive that had gotten loose. A loose hard-drive meant that it was no longer sending a signal to the monitor. Reconnect and done. At the moment, the sweat pouring down my forehead stopped and a sigh of relief found its way out. I had passed the first test and impressed the big guy.

Suddenly, Benjamin was back with a set of keys and the three of us were headed across the campus. At a rusting door, we watched as Benjamin shook and pushed the ancient door until it reluctantly accepted the key and opened. Wasps flew beyond us and the stale sent of dirt and cobwebs followed. The future of the IT program lay before me covered completely in an inch of dust beneath a sagging, wet ceiling. It took my breath away.

After a few coughs, I made arrangements to have some kids come in and clean the room. It was priority number one and only took a few days. Shortly after, I was given the key and free reign to sort through the pile of parts to see what possibilities remained. The Principle had told me to expect only two possible working computers. After a full Sunday of tweaking, I had seven, running Windows 95 or 98 with, at best, 200 MHz processors and 1.5 gigs of memory. They were all mismatched and ragged but they were enough of a start. So much so, that the Principle started collecting parts that had been scattered to other teachers. The number of working computers has now hit twelve. It is not much for a school with almost two-thousand students but it is more than nothing. Some can began to learn to type. We can even use old parts to showcase computer maintenance. Who knows, maybe it'll be worthwhile.

Communtiy:

The biggest issue in the community at the moment is gas. Not gasoline but butane used to cook. Typically, in a town like Kong, households use gas to cook and even to run fridges. In town there is only one supplier, Sodigaz. When I first moved here, Sodigaz said they were running low so they only had small tanks of gas (at too high a price) and none of the larger ones typically used for cooking. The larger tanks would come in after the weekend. This was the thinking at the time.

It has now been three weeks and gas has yet to come. Originally, I searched around town but everyone pointed back to Sodigaz and said they were the supplier. You had to talk to them. One night, while out and about, I stopped by one of the Sodigaz venues and saw a young woman working. This is how the conversation went:

“Good evening. How is business?”
“It goes.”
“I wanted to inquire if you had any gas tanks for sale?”
“He he. No. We are out. He he.”
“Do you know when you will get more?”
“He he.”
“I'm sorry but do you know if any more gas is coming?”
“He he.”
“Do you understand what I am asking?”
“He he.”
“Do you speak French? (switch to Moore at this point) Are you getting any gas tomorrow or after?”
“He he.”

Finally, I left in frustration. I learned nothing useful until I texted a friend in the capital who said that the shortage was happening all over. Supposedly, a refinery or factory (something) shutdown in Togo which ended supplies to Burkina. With any luck the gas would start trickling in but no one knew for sure.

The waiting then started. Every so often, I would head down to the Sodigaz shop and ask if there was any news. If a gentleman was there, I would learn that nothing new had happened. One night, I decided that I had had enough so Molls volunteered to go ask. Ends up she talked to the same younger woman that I had talked to. The conversation went like this:

“Good evening. How is business?”
“It goes. How are you?”
“I am good. Do you have any gas?”
“No, we are all out. Actually, everyone is out of gas, including in the capital. We are not really sure of when we will next receive gas. It could be at anytime. You should check back soon.”

Just for kicks, I went back a few days later to talk to the girl. Again, I got “he he” for a response. Talk about frustration. Is it that impassable of a divide between men and women in Burkinabe culture?

So, there is no gas and I am an outsider when it comes to woman. Welcome to Kong.

Actually, the woman-man issue is nothing new. It is something I have struggle with here from the beginning. As a man, I am a foreigner, kept at a distance. Some of it is out of respect, some out of modesty and chastity. Even as a foreigner, my status as a man keeps me from the inner circle shared by woman across the country. What happens in the homes and with kids is not a man's concern. What conversations lurk just beyond the surface are not for me. Even in my own courtyard, with the four other families that live here, I find that woman often only speak to me when their husbands are already engaged in the conversation. Otherwise, I dare not approach and force conversation and they keep their distance.

The opposite is true for women volunteers. As a woman, they have access to not only the inner sanctum of womanhood but also are enough of a novelty or point of interest that they are often accepted by the men. It does too often come with a price though. They are subject to openly offensive sexual harassment and requests ranging from marriage to proposals to the simple “I want you” with crude suggestions of sex. While they can work and talk to men openly, it is often a far bigger emotional challenge to deal with those moments of harassment. While the vast majority of conversations are pleasant and respectful, it can become discouraging when men, especially young men, loosen their reigns of respect and try to see what they can get away with around a stranger.

All that being said, most interactions are exceedingly pleasant in Burkina. People are always willing to help and share. In the end, Burkinabe tend to be some of the kindest people found anywhere in the world. Their generosity is astounding. Even the harassment or somewhat racist attitudes take more of a joking manner than one of conflict or danger. It is all too often an annoyance more than a matter to alarm your personal security.

The gender issue is one that Burkinabe are confronting as more and more they move to cities where the typical roles of cook and cultivator no longer make sense. In this changing space, where men and women now interact, it is interesting to watch the awkwardness in that transition. Even if we often feel the friction.

a community of thoughts

2010-07-15T18:33:00.001-07:00

it's late. i'm up and wandering about in my little corridors of thought. why is it we are here? what makes the difference in people's lives? the questions swim and swim, swirling around.

i just got back from Ghana. there, you find such a different African dynamic. houses range from shacks of sheetmetal to mansions. you have people burning trash to cook on and people getting new paint jobs on their H2's. it's not Burkina. it has more roads. more cars. more resources. yet, the problems are there. education and opportunity. what share of the population can afford the larger lifestyle? is there anymore happiness?

i had my own pluses and critiques about Ghana that ultimately left me missing Burkina. i missed the laughter and the greetings. people care to say hi here. it's such a small thing to greet someone or to be greeted. it can even be annoying when you are surrounded by it day after day. yet, it leaves the largest hole when it is gone. it's community. it's that social responsibility to put your face out there and at least tell everyone "good morning".

Burkina doesn't have it right. neither does the States. but there is something to this saying hi business. there is something to community. it isn't something we have to think hard about. we know it. yet, it takes that annoying effort to build. i have the incentive to do it. it's my "job", my service. it's what i was sent here to do. to be integrated.

what about in the States? who cares if you know your neighbors, right? who cares if you say hi to everyone in the park? we're busy, after all. they could be anybody, including impolite, obnoxious or dangerous. and honestly, those type of thoughts are legitimate. so where do we find community? how do we define it? do we even express it out-loud or maybe just to ourselves?

part of community is this blasted thing they call the internet. that's connection. partly, it's the gym class or yoga stint. it's the plays at the theater, the church group and the parties we throw. it's what makes social networking sites important. we need our community. we need our family and friends.

it makes a difference to be supported and supportive. like i said, it's my job but, dammit, it ain't so hard (even when it is a bit, it's worth it).

so we have the connections at our fingertips. i guess it only comes down to what we do with them. it comes down to making that decision to not just be a part of your community but to better it. it's selfish and selfless. you want a better life and you want to better the lives of those around you. it's a good cycle to start.

i just sent off my key to my house today. i left the wrong light on for my kids, so my neighbor is going to take care of it. it's trust. something powerful and good. it's community. wow. a thousand miles from home.

it's no small wonder that you want to help those that you care about. that part is just natural, instinctual. but it's the caring, the building of community, that requires the will, the effort.

i see so much negative press. it's down with congress. it's down with oil companies. it's down with Obama. it's down with 'say no' republicans. but that's not our country. our country is built on the front porch and the sidewalk. it demands us to be a part of it, to be involved in doing the little things to make it work.

yes, we have to put up with the annoying neighbors down the street (mine call me "whitey" everyday, fun stuff). yes, we have to compromise. yes, it's worth it. yes, our communities need to be rebuilt, strengthened. yes, it requires us to make the decision and the effort to do a positive thing to build our community today.

yes, we can.

vacation

2010-06-28T08:41:00.001-07:00

i had the fortunate pleasure to follow my neighbor and her fam down to Po to see wildlife (see pics). all the small of which we saw and the largest of which eluded us. in other words, baboons and antelope but no elephants. there was a fair number of elephant tracks though. of course, the wildlife ended up being only a piece of the adventure. as the night headed to a close, we found ourselves watered and broken down. after a late night bike ride for roadside assistance, we watched a mechanic fix the corroborator mostly with his mouth. africa never disappoints. something new to see at every point. all in all, it was a nice trip and the best part was the company.

now comes another little vacation. in a few days, life will find me in Ghana. i know so many of you are hissing at the moment but i will go with the idea of demonstrating what good sports we Americans are (don't understand this, see World Cup Ghana v USA). really, i'm looking forward to the beach and seeing a different african tint (and being able to speak a bit of african english, as well).

a little bit on the World Cup: i have been watching as many games as i can in as random places as i can. it is amazing how sport passions and team solidarity sneak their way into lives of people in the most remote places. villages without electricity and people of different languages gather and watch; screaming, laughing and cursing at each kick and call. it's a truly world event. it's why sports are important. it's worth being a part of. you walk down the streets of the capital and a hundred shops will have tv's setup with a small crowd huddling to cheer on a country they could never point out on a map.

so in Ghana, i'll watch the Ghana v Uruguay game. my cheers will be for Uruguay but good sport shall i be. and it'll be an experience worth the trial of a forever long bus ride.

wish me luck.

2010-06-01T02:27:00.000-07:00

in the vast rush of May, i found myself amongst last moments in the classroom, final exams, first rains and neighborhood parties. the collective of those events nicely marking the progressing of my service from Rambo onto Kongoussi. so much has happened over the last year and so much is still to come as i start my third year extension.

how wonderful it was that the planets all lined up for last few days of class. Nostradamus or Dante probably would categorize it as some culminating event leading to higher planes. we just killed a goat and sang songs. really, perhaps that was a small ascension into paradise. so here is how it went...

Friday the 21st of May was my last day of class and also my birthday (pushing thirty soon). thus, i trudged to class with a giant tub under one arm, covered in a rice sack. beneath the sack was two kilos of freshly popped popcorn (thank goodness ii had cooked in the morning where the heat in my kitchen was only blinding and not deathly). on my back was a backpack filled with candy and prizes. really, looking back, i should have been wearing a clown outfit. i think it would have been appropriate. in class, i pulled out all those who had passed and put them all in a room together. there, we played "simon says" for prizes, ate popcorn and candy, sang songs (yes, i made them sing Happy Birthday to me as you would have, too) then handed out awards to top students. the only blemish of the day was when the PE teacher came over and asked if we were going to be longer to which i replied only another 15 minutes (though i had scheduled more with my kids). he got all huffy which was a (in the end) delight to me. all those times when he was a pain in my butt and the collective butt of my kids. now, we could get under his skin for once. the planets were aligned, i say. perfect last day of school.

the next day, i spent running around slaughter a goat, helping to prep rice, making sure people were invited and helping those that got lost coming to my village. by evening, my courtyard was set to receive about 40 guests with its chairs, giant tubs of rice and meat, boom-box and plastic dinnerware. there was some concern about combining groups of students, villagers and teachers (each normally keeps to themselves and hardly intermingle) but everyone was happy to allow for a night of equality at my request. the students arrived first, timid and quiet. then the villagers started hanging around. it became a waiting game as the teachers did their typical 'show up late and be considered most important' entrance together. then, it was a matter of eating to our fill, drinking millet beer or "flower-water" (for the kids) and laughing at the weird white guy that served them all. the food was more than plentiful. many had seconds and more, then the vast amounts leftover were handed to my neighbors that kept streaming in to see what was going on. all the adults and most of the hordes of children in my quarter ate their fill of rice and sauce. we joked and laughed. a good night.

the next day was cleaning up all the bones and assessing the damage. ultimately, it was only one of my five trees that ended up broken (and not fatally). everything else was a matter of disposing of waste and clean-up. not too bad. well worth it as the entire neighborhood was smiles and thank-you's that is still continuing til today. who knew that the way to the hearts of a people is threw their stomach?

the next week was rolled around in writing out grades on report cards and working on ag projects. my compost is currently dark and rich. the trees are enthusiastically watered by the kids (each kid having named the tree after himself). the rains began to fall and set us in preparing our plot so we can compare my composting technique to their current cultivation techniques via crop development. every now and then we would stop to play a soccer game (profs vs the girls) or eat guinea fowl and drink cokes with the mayor and other profs. the relaxed feeling of it all was in stark contrast to my first visit to Rambo. two years really changes one's perspective.

i'll forecast a bit of the future and my time in Kongoussi (as those pieces are already starting to fill-up my plate). first, there is the new house (which is currently in the works). hopefully, a step up from the mud-brick, tin-roof hut that constantly acts as a Thomas-size oven. my expectations can be wrapped up in the word electricity. electricity means computer use (seeing as i'll be an IT teacher and will remain on the PC's IT committee) and a fan. two items that will revolutionize my day. second, there is school itself. i will be going from a small school (we'll call it a middle school) of about 400 to a large high school of well over 1000 if not over 1500 (not sure yet). it is a large campus and not just the four classrooms that make up the CEG in Rambo. it has basketball courts, lights, multiple buildings... a gargantuan waiting for the little lonely teacher to snatch away a few unsuspecting students. which leads me to the computer lab... (blank). so i haven't been able to put the computer lab into perspective because i'm still waiting on the PC to go through the motions of all their meetings. once they've gotten their fill of handshakes, i'll be able to do inventory and decide if i'll be begging on the street for computer parts. that would be a site in the Kongoussi market. by the way, the market is daily and will allow me to expand the 'two bowls a day of rice' diet that is my norm in Rambo. all in all, it's a monster and a blessing on the horizon. a giant project.

now, do not think i'll be cutting ties with Rambo. i will be commuting and attending to my students to check their progress. they are all scared of not having me but having to deal with Mr. Banao and Mr. Sankara. Thus, on the weekends, i'll be able to help in any ensuing confusion. plus, i'll be able to watch the progress of our trees and composting project. with any luck, we will expand both.

a note on composting: it is quickly turning from a simple project of teaching the technique to a concern about waste management. currently, waste is all thrown in one pile. the pile contains peanut shells, manure, dirt, old batteries, rags and plastic bags. that mix is left to bake under the sun then is spread onto the growing crops as compost. if all the waste necessary for composting came from each house, then i could simply teach each house how to compost and be done. however, this is a collective effort, a community pile. the peanut shells are Husseini's and the millet leftovers are Aminita's, etc. thus. it is a matter of teaching everyone how to collectively sort their trash into usable piles that a few people can then turn into compost. waste management. i knew i got that engineering degree to do something. who knew it was to be a garbage man! in all seriousness, it will be a project that will take a lot of time and the dedication of a few Rambo-ites (Rambo-ians, Ramboys...?) and the better part of the year. it shall be fun.

i shall be known as Thomas the Math/English/IT teaching garbage man who throws a good party and hung out with 15 year olds. I dig.

P.S. i apologize for not having put up more photos lately. unfortunately, my camera bit the dust recently. but, i shall capture a few of my friends' photos and post them soon.

a short film by my kids

2010-06-01T01:00:00.000-07:00

This is a small project that i did with my kids in Rambo. They love kung-fu movies so we decided to make our own little film. It was a lot of fun teaching them how films were made and all those goes into them. It's not much but it's a start for my village kids.

PLOT:

Beating AIDS

-A woman comes to her man's house where he convinces her to stay the night. Once he does, AIDS comes beating at their door and chases them. Their friends, having heard their cries for help, come rushing to protect them. First there is the shield bearing Condom. Then AIDS is trapped by Fidelity and Getting Tested. The End.

more of that good english

2010-05-01T04:33:00.000-07:00

The latest and greatest of my kids' English (not mistakes, lets call them…) inventions:
- Are you going to the market in a mango?
- I am three cakes.
- To market a mango.
- To by is English.
- When I look, I use my uncle.
- I am going to boy three cakes.
- Not are you going to work.
- Three cakes are 75 frenchs.
- When we pedal, we use your feet.
- Are three cakes in the market to dance.
- I am going to buy the market in meat.
- When I look, I use my tv.
- When I look, I use my eye chair.
- Are you going bananas.

weighted

2010-04-18T17:51:00.000-07:00

When you care about something, it gets heavy. Now you have to make the right choices or things clash. Should I stay or should I go? If I stay there will be trouble... Well, you get the idea. Carrying about the process (or even just the outcome) means that any added or subtracted will on your part puts you either closer or farther from your goal. You no longer can remain neutral.

Put it this way, if my service was World War 2 and I wanted to see the Allies win, then not engaging my students, sticking it out in my house and letting the cards fall as they may is the equivalent of not fighting Nazi Germany. To not fight the good fight then is to allow (one could argue even sanction) the fall of much of Europe, the fall of my class and my village beneath evil Nazi hands.

So, that's all very heavy. It matters what you do. It is a good heavy. It leads to responsibility and accomplishment if you do not give into that nagging voice of self-doubt squirming its way into your thoughts. It becomes even more so when you are unable to eat for three days.

It also has surprising consequences. At one point this week, I was sick enough that for three days I could not eat (I literally ate one bowl of rice and a couple of tomatoes in that time) and was trying to adjust to the 105 degrees in my house (115 outside). It was uncomfortable, the large type of uncomfortable. Yet, I was (and surprisingly so) not miserable. While the responsibility of getting up and going to class to teach anyway (there are NO subs) was heavy and the weight was harder to carry being sick, it did not make for misery. I was not happy but neither was I in the depths of hell. Having that weight of care and responsibility meant that I know why I am here. At any point, it is my choice to stay and do this. I do it willingly and that's a great and general positive.

Thus, the weight feels good, strengthening. Sickness and heat come and go. Living up to those ideals that really mean something to you means letting go of the misery in the discomfort. The discomfort hardly diminishes (nor my desire for popsickles) but my spirits are good. Especially when I realize that I may be sick but I've still got a class full of kids dying to learn the words to "Head, Shoulder, Knees and Toes".

P.S. Mom helped teach English in Pekanbaru and once showed me her students. I will always remember her teaching them Head, Shoulders... so I blame my wonderful Mom for the idea. My kids loved it! Who knew they'd pick up that vocabulary so much easier now!

me talk pretty one day

2010-03-30T09:49:00.000-07:00

Oh to speak the English of my students! Top sentences on my English tests:

-Moussa is pleasing the football.
-My month of the year, it is louse.
-On mother in the bag is ween.
-How many todays in a week?
-Moussa is sleeping the ball.
-To mother her under a tree.
-Moussa has leasing on football.
-This is a math after Tuesday.
-Her mother is not a bag.

Now for the numbers:

wone
tuw
tri
fore
finfe
sixe
savene
eat
nigne
thaine

onety
touwty
trouwty
therety
sixety
sevenety
eigethty
nenty
wound-endeur

2nd End

2010-03-28T05:30:00.001-07:00

Somewhere in the desert winds, my school found a way to put an end to another semester. The sound of it was not unlike a slamming book that then was thrown to the floor with triumph and exhaustion. It is finished. Read. Perhaps not always read well. But read.

The second semester (there are three) is always the toughest semester. We have long exams (called compositions) that are three days of all the material of the year. Students get lost in the wave of it. It swallows and drowns many of their grades. Some stay afloat but only enough to drift exhaustively towards their final semester. Of course, then there is Loukmane.

Loukmane is that rare specimen that teachers secretly dream of. Attentive, participatory, engaging and without ego. The kid could be Napolean. French speaking. Short. Brilliant. Yet, it seems he'll follow his own path far from Waterloo. He got a perfect grade in Math and near perfect in English. A feat in and of itself, but to do it without arrogance and, Lord knows, without being a smart-ass (something I could never do)... as I said, teacher's dream. I would vote him Emperor.

Loukmane is by no means the one bright light in my classes. Edisonian glows in a village with no electricity radiate from each class, a dusty orange here in Burkina. Perhaps getting to know a culture and its luminosity is best accomplished by teaching their children. So much becomes evident from the front-class perspective. Individual personalities. Group behavior. Cultural norms. You are there for the parties and feasts, then the bad days. It is an array of all set without force. The jobs of students and teachers hold off portions of awkwardness. They are allowed to gawk and so am I, as long as the lessons are finished. It is reasonable and understood. Something that is disturbing in friendships but in the class is understood and necessary. Worst comes to worst, we have reasons beyond the lighted spectacle to continue on with the days lessons, even if our eyes have yet to grow use to each others' tinted glow.

a la nuit

2010-03-05T07:53:00.000-08:00

Part 1: Questions

What if there was a stranger in your house?
What if it was a man?
What if it was the middle of the night? 3 am?
What if there were no lights?
What if it was a black man?
What if he woke you by his searching?
What if you were naked?
What if you were in Africa?

Even asking those questions makes me uncomfortable. Seeped in the unknown, the mysterious, the racial prejudices and wild fantasies, they present a clear picture of fear. After the events of a few days past, I have been wrestling with the idea of perception. The above questions are leading. They pull at your prejudice and seek to make you afraid, nervous and worried. But what is gained from them?

Further questions come to mind as I pace through events:

What if you discover that a troubled student is acting out?
What if your his teacher?
What if he shows signs of intelligence?
What if he acts out against you in class? at your home?
What if your work pays off with the improving of his grades?

Such questions stack up differently. They have a tinge of hope. We expect good to come from them, to see the edge of trouble and to bring him to a clearer, brighter future.

More questions:

What if you are being confronted? physically?
What if you have been handled roughly? bruised? cut?
What if you want revenge? to physically hurt? to disable?
What if you are given the power to determine justice?
What if no one will condemned you for taking that revenge?
What if they see it as truly just punishment?

So many questions just swirling and swirling. My head is full of them. A plethora of perception from a thousand persons. They pour and pour. So many questions. So many truths. Somehow, something has to be decided.

Part 2: Events

My students left my courtyard around 11 pm. They were tired and I was already falling asleep. I locked the courtyard gate, then turned off my outside light before setting up my bed just inside my door, spread out on the floor. The night breeze comes briefly through my screen door, adding a small relief from Burkina's sweltering heat. To bolster its force, i attached my fan to the small moto battery that was powering the lights and remove all my clothing to feel its effects, then lay down to finally sleep. A long day is past and the murmur of the fan follows me into my dreams.

I awake to a sense. Not a noise. Just a sense. It is confusing me but is urgent. I'm up, crouching as if i were hiding in a bush. The stance of a hunter or a frightened animal waiting to run. Something has changed but my head is too fuzzy to know what. Yet, the basics in me are awake, pulsing, gathering information, steadying me. I cannot see. The lights are long since gone and the night is complete, smothering in its darkness. Then I know its someone. In my hut.

The rush of him, his body frightened, is striking past me, desperate for the door. His flexed muscles silently broadcasting intent, pushing against me. He knows he is caught. No, just trapped. I am the barrier between him and the door. His only exit. His only obstacle.

There is no thought in my head. Action. Action leads and swallows all around me. It is all that exist in me. Intelligence is still sleeping quietly on the floor-sprawled mattress when his torso strikes my chin, my arms surround his body, grasping, sensing the collar of his shirt. They are gripping. Then there is a fierce ripping. I can feel the shudder as he slides away, his shirt torn in two, a lost cause in my hands.

The crouch becomes a spring, a motion that carries us both to the door. We are pushing, reacting, breathing desperately for opposite desires. Door opened. Door closed. It is the door that loses. With a broken hinge, it tilts then falls away.

My brain begins to awaken. I am watching myself turning the corner, pressing down on his heels. He is struggling. Wildly. The mud wall around my courtyard crumbles beneath his desperation and my sudden weight as a I reach to pull him down. The sweat of his body is my enemy. It seeps from him, oiling him against my grip, leaving only the momentum and force. It propels him beyond the half-crumbled wall and breaks him into ground. Then he is running. Arms flying. Running. Into the deeper night and anonymity. It catches him and breathes him in.

I am returned to my nakedness. I am aware of it. The warm night and the sweat sliding across my bare shoulders as I breath heavily. It stops me. I can chase. I can run. But, I am awakened and aware. I cry out "Voleur" before ducking back into my house for pants. Once on, I began to call "Husseini, Husseini" until I see my neighbor stumbling from his home, worry in his eyes.

There is nothing to be done but soon the entire compound is awake, whispering to me. I am looked over. Every scratch brings a gasp and tisk-tisk. Beneath their gaze, I start my collection. Facts. Events. Evidence. Injuries.

Nothing is gone. The struggle emptied what little he had had in his hands. The house is a wreck where it had only been a mess earlier in the evening. Computer, ipod, money and all had long been hidden, remaining unseen, beneath piles of ungraded papers and dirty collared shirts, discarded after class.

In the mixture is a torn shirt, a broken flashlight and discarded sandals. None of them are mine. All are his. Dropped or ripped from him. In my hands, they feel like a small piece of triumph and become a joke.

"Look, Husseini, he tried to steal from me and I ended as the thief. I should find him and give him back his stuff." Then a smile and laugh with a sigh of relief.

In the collection of it all, I call a friend then Peace Corps security. At 3 am, it is really only excitement, comfort and information being exchanged. I am lost in the adventure of it. My friend worrying for me about my safety. A worry lost in the adrenaline. I am grateful that someone else has taken on that burden. After all, I'm knee deep and happy to be there.

Part 3. Aftermath

The morning comes too quickly. It reaches for me before I can get to the snooze button. My first priority is getting my stove's tank refilled. I have been without gas for two days which means not being able to prepare anything at home. Reliance on market food in Rambo is poor living. Thus, at 6 am, I am standing beside a worn bus, paying a man to take my tank to Ouaga to refill it and a piece of me is keeping an eye to the sunrise.

It is my favorite time of day. The risen sun. A break into something new. How can one not fall head over heels for the color? It is invigorating, the boost of energy I need to get through the day. And it will be a long day, a good day.

Somewhere in the swirl of events and conversations, I decide that best place to start my one-man investigation is school. My students are the link that binds me to my community. They will know. Besides, my memory keeps wrapping around two ideas; that confronting body had to be of a young man and he knew my house enough to not try the gate (coming or going).

Thus, I pack up the torn shirt, flashlight and sandals along with graded papers. When I get to class, I realize that I have confused the days. My hour with my 6eme math class has already passed. Damn. Ok. I regroup then ask their professor if I can have a moment to talk to them. With a beaming smile, he says "Of course."

They stand to attention and I tell them to sit. It is routine. I apologize for missing class. They accept. I tell them I have a problem.

"It seems someone left a few things at my house last night. I don't know who they belong to," I proceed to pull out the shirt, sandals and flashlight. The class laughs. "Does anyone know who is the owner of these." It is a small village after all. A t-shirt is enough to identify someone.

There is a residual "no" in their whispering and eventually a full-blown version in their response. So, I change tactics. I relate the story of a 3 am visitor and turn the shirt around. This time they are roaring with laughter as they see the shirt is torn in two, all while being shocked at the idea of it. Yet, there is no spark of recognition. There is nothing to be gained. I reiterate how they can talk to me or any professor and that it is important. They are still sillily shocked.

Now comes my second class, 5eme math. I walk in and find them standing at attention. I tell them to sit, relax. I have a story. I tell them someone left somethings at my house. As I began to pull the shirt from my bag, I hear a resounding "Julien." Then comes the sandals. "JULIEN" Then comes the flashlight. "JULIEN!" The class is in a fit of laughter. I thank them then ask Julien to accompany me to the headmaster's office, the only office.

The headmaster is curious. I relate the tale. He begins to survey my student as you would a recovered egg from a dropped carton. He turns him. Lifts his shirt. Examines every mark. The marks around his neck bring the first questions. The scratches on his ribs more. His broken toe adds to the pile. Each question has a when aspect. Each answer has a yesterday aspect and a name of a witness.

The witnesses are called. The defendant hidden. There is no corroboration. The stories do not match. The student's roommate is called.

The story of Julien's absence becomes clear. He was out the night before. No injuries before. Bruises and scratches after. I am satisfied with the evidence but the headmaster pushes further. Does he own a shirt like this? Yes. Where is it? At the house. Then we shall go to the house to find his shirt.

It is a bike ride across the village. A hot bike ride. His compound is next to the church. The owner of the compound is the pastor there. My stomach aches when I think of possible ramifications in a muslim village. A worry unearned and unrealized thus far. We greet the pastor and ask questions of those around. Then comes a singular moment:

"Julien, I will ask you only once. Were you the person in my house last night?" It is met by a mumbled and hidden "no" that speaks more to his childish nature than his resolve. The fear in him is palpable.

He is led into his room in the compound and it is searched. Nothing is found. No shirt comes forth. His sandals are not there. It is telling. The headmaster is satisfied. His curiosity is squelched along with those of the village, he remarks. The situation is now in my hands.

Beneath a tree. In the pressing heat. Exhausted from the ride agains the wind. I find someone's fate in my hands. It is real power. Given power. Justified power. It is unbelievably heavy. Yet, the eyes do not turn from me. There is so much anticipation and waiting in this small corner of my village. I can only turn to Julien.

"We have two roads here. One, you admit to what you did and we go from there. Two, you do not admit it and we call the Peace Corps, who will demand the police." He shakes beneath my words and confesses. It is muffled along with a apology. A scared and childish apology.

I am not Pilate. I cannot wash my hands and let the kid go to the police and to some unknown fate. I have this power but I am looking at him. For the second time in my service, the burden of being the teacher weighs on me too heavy. I want to shake it off. To lay it down. But, I am the teacher.

"I have always found people in this country to be kind and honest. Isn't that the meaning of Burkina Faso? The 'land of upright men'? In the end, nothing was taken from me. This, here, was not against me. It was against that idea, the very name of all Burkinabe. Here, the apology should not go to me. Instead, I think Julien and I should go to each quarter around the village where he can apologize for having soiled their name and honor of our village and ask forgiveness. It is not me he needs to reconcile himself with but the people he has dishonored. Mister Headmaster, Mister Pastor is this fair?"

The heads of all the men were bobbing, nods of agreement perhaps relief. Where the idea came from, I do not know. It was all I could put together in the moment. Perhaps again my intelligence was sleeping though I knew enough to feel my heart beating heavy. Julien sunk lower.

***

The president of the teacher and parents association showed us to each quarter. There we met with the chiefs of each.

The first was a group of older men. Men I had never seen around village. Old. One was introduced as the Chief of the Ground, a sacred resource in Rambo. They listened to the story, the evidence, all. They looked me over, then lavished praise and thanks. Thanks for coming to help develop from so far. It was embarrassing and uplifting. I was awkward and torn. Part of me wanted to end all this and take Julien behind a tree, strap him to it then feel my fists break against his skull. I wanted to bruise his ribs. I want him to cry out his apology. To prove his repentance. But, it was all laced with guilt, leading the teacher in me to push through. I wanted to believe in Julien. To hide him from his consequences. To shelter him and show him a better path. To instill in him a higher sense, a better purpose, a respect. Then, the reality of lost causes damned my idealism. It was a war in my own heart in head, waging as these wise gentlemen laid down praise in their native tongue, always meeting me with their eyes. Their eyes full of knowing and that same relief.

The Chief of the Ground turned to young Julien and spoke firmly but gently. He spoke of grace and forgiveness but never forgetfulness. The ground would remember his deeds and if he repeated them, it would take his life in revenge. If he steals again, then he will find himself no longer a part of Rambo or life. He would be banished from Rambo and his body would be banished from this world.

The chief of my quarter echoed his words, though without the curse of death, adding his own calm rage. His entire body rising like a tree, towering over us and laying forth his disappointment and acceptance of the outcome. I asked only if this punishment was just and found myself embraced by his words. Again, praise and thanks pulled forth where fire and condemnation had been spewing forth. Those gathered around (so many of them my friends and neighbors) commenting, raging and applauding as they found themselves in and out of agreement.

Then came the mayor, the head of the region, the chiefs of other quarters and the grand imam (Islamic leader) of the village. Each added their disappointment, relief and praise. Had I been looking for an ego-boast, I could pick nothing better. Having been unexpected, it jolted me. I was unsure I deserved any of it. After all, what if I chose wrongly? What if he stole again? What he hurt someone, worse than the bruises that I received? Was I only prolonging a problem? Was I giving him no real consequence because I was relying on his conscience?

Their certainty shook mine. I was still raging inside but was growing happy that the situation would soon end. It would become a story to tell. A lesson of the past. A blog to be read. A report to be filed. Another moment in a life.

On one of our stops, we visited the 'Prefecteur' (also known as the head of the department). This was the only meeting not mostly in Moore, so the only one I could follow on my own (without a translator). I was thankful that I was able to listen to him as he laid out the consequences for burglary and assault to Julien. He talked about prison, the police and his removal from school. Stopping then to remark that it was a grace unearned that was afforded him. It was the lesson I hoped Julien would understand. We all make mistakes but there are real consequences to our actions. Consequences that he rightfully deserved. Yet, we all also deserve a second chance. What we do with that second chance is then up to us and no one, especially not a strange math teacher, can save us from those consequences.

At the time of this writing, only the apology to the school remains. After the holiday (for the birth of Mohamed), Julien will go from class to class admitting what he did and asking their forgiveness. Then, the world will turn as it always has.

Part 4: Thoughts

*Just this evening, I found out that Julien was seen near a teacher's house on a previous evening (possibly exiting). It was a suspicious moment but came to nothing. It makes me wonder if it is too late. Is he a lost cause? Did he need to be caught and fully punished? Or is the embarrassment and public apology sufficient? Will the social pressures of a tight-knit community work to his benefit?

*What was right or Right weighs heavy on me. Parts of me cry for blood. Other pieces are reminded of my own faults. There is no ultimate satisfaction in having done exactly right because I do not know what that is. Yet, I do feel the satisfaction of having done my best. One hopes that that is sufficient. There is a level of faith involved. Not religion. Just faith.

*It was a treat being able to meet and talk to every important person in the village, all in one morning. Volunteers often work hard to get an audience with their chefs. How lucky I was to stumble across such an opportunity. Even more so, as I watched their reactions. Heard their ideas of justice and reconciliation. How rare and important an experience. Seriously, luck.

*I realize now that this is a piece of this experience and part of what my countries asks of me. Standing before these chiefs with someone who had wronged me, I had represented my countrymen, our ideas of justice. It was bridge across two cultures. Whether I wanted it or not, they saw me as the embodiment of all that is America. I can only hope that I represented well who we are as a country to those of influence here.

*Julien is still in my class. He sits in the middle back. He can disappear if he wants. Honestly, class goes on. There is too much to do and too many students to hold anything back. I am his math teacher. I will be his math teacher.

*I am still sleeping in front of my door. I double check my screen door lock but that is all. I have been asked if I am afraid. I am not. I am just as willing to leave my key with my neighbor or sleep outside. There is nowhere I have as secure and safe in my person as this country.

*Black, African men coming to rob you is a cliche in older films and certain parts of American culture. A terrible stereotype in real life. And it has nothing to do with this situation. My student is African and is black but neither had anything to do with his entering my house. After all, it looks as if he had tried to enter the house of another teacher who is also African. Thus, I can only say that he is simply an individual that is working from his own ideas, however childish they are. He is a young man (17 years old) that thinks he is invisible and that life is without consequence. Time will prove him right or wrong. This is just one step in his life.

On that note, all those outraged, saddened and assisting in this situation were also African and black. I am the only light-skinned person in my village. Yet, I am not alone in my village. Race was not the issue here.

*This was one hell of an adventure. I am glad to have gone through it. Life is exciting. I dig that. I would not change a thing. All went as good as a bad thing can go. Minor bruises aside, no one was hurt. And I feel closer and happier to be in my village than ever.

Haiti

2010-01-20T03:09:00.000-08:00

Haiti has fallen apart, so I am told. One of the greatest people I know sent me a text telling me that much. A quake, 7.0, chaos, no food, no water, 100,000+ dead, more lost. It hardly seemed real (especially when it comes as a small, polite text message in the wee hours of the morning).

You hardly remember that you are disconnected from the world when you are in village. When the news really does not impact your day to day life, you often do not miss it. The bubble of your life shrinks until it encompasses a group of villagers numbering less than those that showed up at the last family reunion. News suddenly becomes something along the lines of how many times you said Bon Jour to Issouf today or who was not in uniform this morning during class. You even get excited when people bring up incidents about a group of wild dogs eating a goat, even though it was over two years ago. It is still big news.

So, when the world trembles and you realize that you never felt it, it becomes its own shock in your life. Suddenly, it is apparent that not only is the world not impacting you but you are not necessarily at the top of its list of Who's Who. Is that not what you set out to do? Help the world? Impact the world? Have it hit you back? See it? Feel it? Taste it? Get run over by it? Fall in love with it? Where is the world beyond this tiny corner? And what can I do?

So here are my thoughts:

What can be done? Go to PIH.org or Redcross.org and donate to the crisis relief.

---As PCVs we often do not have the means (physical or monetary) to do much, however many of us have asked our friends and family to hold off on sending us that next care-package and, instead, donating that money to an organize (such as above). While it means less Hershey Kisses and Trail Mix for us, it is one way in which we can help.

---Money is not the solution but it is the least we can do. If you want to do more, they can help you do more. I strongly recommend PIH.org (Partners in Health) as the group has been working in Haiti for a long time (run by American doctor, Paul Farmer) and will be there for as long as they are needed (before and long after quakes).

my kids don't learn in class

2010-01-13T17:00:00.000-08:00

I happen to have wonderful parents that instilled a respect for handwork, honesty and kindness in me, as well as any number of other lessons. Over time, I have not so much discovered new stretches of that land as come to understand better many of the lessons they taught me. One of the greatest of these is independence in learning. They have always encouraged me to learn for myself. To explore the world of my own volition. To make errors and learn from those errors.

I do not have kids of my own. But I am surrounded constantly by my students. To me, they are my kids. I work with them, teach them, play with them and ultimately have to punish/reward them. They spend more time with me than any other singular adult in our quarter. From this, I get a unique perspective into their world and, in my ways, my own.

From a teaching perspective, I have at times felt inconsequential to their lives. I can teach and lecture till I am blue in the face and get nothing but blank stares in return. Questions and attempts at intriguing my students can bounce off those stares and disappear into the heavy, heated air. Then the next day, without a thought to yesterday, the faces will be full of knowledge and understanding, questions and answers. Where did it come from?

i may have posed a question in class but it is not until the kids can turn it over, explore it, make errors, chew it up and spit it out that they own it and send forth answers. In the classroom with over a hundred students, there is no time for this. They are trapped in a confined space with masses of sweat and odor where whispers turn deafening in their quantity. How can one learn in such places?

So it is the evening dusk and nightly stars that watch them trace over the questions I have posed to make them their own. It happens often through repetition. I can hear it outside my window. It is almost a song, a repetition of verbs and nouns in a singsongy tone. Sometimes it comes as a knock at my door and a few red marks of error. Then discussions, even debates, can ensue. At some point, they digest it and absorb some of the energy and vitamins from that day's portion.

So I have learned to look at my job in this way:

Indeed, I can only lead a horse to water but not make it drink. However, I can sure make that water look mighty enticing.

P.S. I now know a piece of what my parents must have felt all those years. I was truly a stubborn child that had to learn it of my own accord. Thanks Mom and Dad for sticking to it.

English Tests

2009-12-16T01:05:00.000-08:00

English tests are fun to grade. These sentences are why (all real):

- My penis under the table.
- My mother is fat and short. She is beautiful.
- In my new woman our old thin is coming.
- She has a new brain.
- My father is zacoka a dog.
- Our house we have got a chair in it, got a table and shit blue.
- My father is good and a good mother.
- In my bag is the pink color yellow.
- He has small eyes and my mother is love your boys.
- She speaks laughter.
- My father is tall dong.
- My father is not beating the children.
- My father have you got the black brain.

November Blog

2009-12-15T13:02:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it becomes a little too easy to sit back and view the grand picture. Where will Africa be in ten years? What is the impact of my projects? What are the current statistics on infant mortality? Future projected numbers? What is the true impact of AIDs or aid in sub-saharan Africa? It becomes reassuring to encompass yourself in the potential of tomorrow via comparison to today's situation. Impacts can be measured over long durations so the thousands of errors or obstacles today have less weight and cause less worry. Then you put faces to statistics and the whole becomes hazier.

A few weeks ago, I came riding up after class and Husseini (my closest neighbor and friend) told me his son, Adama, was sick. This is hardly news. Most kids are sick from time to time and Husseini always keeps me filled in. A day later and things are back to normal. Sometimes it's three days. When it hit five days, Husseini's voice hit harder in my ears. No food. Hardly anything to drink. Diarrhea. Vomiting. Fever. Five days of hell for a child of a year and a half.

There is a gambit of 'medicine" that is run. Between charms and sacrifices to antibiotics. Adama had anything they could think of. Thus, on that fifth day, I could see the plea in Husseini's eyes. Before I could get off my bike, he was beckoning me into his courtyard. Look at my son. The worry was evident but what really shocked me was his pleading manner. He kept reminding me of how I was smart and white, as if by these two attributes I had some special medical knowledge or healing power. Come, hold his hand. What can we do? His words were stones. Heavy. Shattering. What do I know of medicine? Here the man is desperate and turning my way. What can I say but to see the clinic doctor (which he has already done)? How is my hand touching Adama's going to heal him?

A note on Adama: he was the only baby not scared of white skin. He would never shriek and turn from me as I approached. Instead he would call my name at night until his mother lifted him beyond the wall to shake my hand. He smiled and giggled as if happiness was the only disposition worthy of his time.

Sitting on top of a bowl, supported by his mother, and smiling was Adama. He was weak. You could see it in the dark circles beneath his eyes and the sagging skin on his bones. All of his charm still pulled through those small brown eyes but the body was grieving for itself, a huddled mass of fatigue. With help, he reached out and put his hand in mine without the strength to grab hold. I held his small fingers and palm. Fragile and anemic. I wanted him to pull from my hand the strength to stand and eat. Both nothing flowed.

Later, Husseini explained he could no longer walk because of the antibiotic shots to his legs. The doctor was losing ground with no improvements. Husseini would not ask so I asked him. What can I do? What do you need? He mumbled about not knowing himself what to do, what else to try. I asked him about medical bills. Could he afford them? He said it was expensive but they had found ways to make it work. What power did being white give me? None. But I did have more monetary resources at my disposal. Throwing money at a problem is never a solution but it can help. As was, it was all I could do. I was here to help and was powerless to truly do so.

Adama entered the clinic that night to receive an IV. On my way to school the next morning, Husseini informed me that they tried more than six times to find a vein but could not. His blood was too thick and dry, he said, to take the IV. After class, Husseini was pacing, staring at the ground. It was more than a father's worry. It was grief.

Adama died.

Burkinabe do not cry. They hardly show emotion beyond pleasantries. Tears are hidden. Husseini's eyes were swollen. His face was lost in the dirt beneath his worn sandals. He turned and asked if this happens where I come from. How could I tell him 'no, not really. perhaps rarely'? How could I express that because he lost the lottery of birth, his son is now dead? That, though he will bike 300 km and back to mine gold during the year to feed his family, his work will not gain him what would be easily found in America. I could not directly answer his question. Instead, I made up a story. I said that God had decided he wanted the best company for dinner tonight. Someone that was the best of all those on earth. And when that is decided, no one can change that fact. So, for that day, he had chosen Adama to sit and talk to, the best of all of us. It was his honor to be God's guest. It was a fake story for an unbearable truth. But you could see pride in his eyes for his son. His desire to believe out weighed his need for reality. Somehow I couldn't help believing the story myself.

That afternoon, after the students came back from class, I found Abdoulaye in my courtyard. Alaye is one of my favorites, always a comedian but still a good student. He's my dog walker and burkinabe-cultural guide. He is never without words. But there, facing the wall of my house, he was silent. Tears were hidden in his lowered face, reflecting so many of his father's mannerisms. It was more than I could bear but life hadn't given me a choice. Funny that in those moments, your sense of self is laid down and forgotten. Never have I felt more the teacher. We talked and drank orange juice. He stayed until late in the night beneath my hangar.

The funeral was quick, only a day later. There was a burial and silence broken only by a few prayers. It was the community resting without word in show of solidarity.

A bit over a week later and Fango has started. The work in the village is over. For nine days, the villagers will meet around the market and dance in lines for hours on end. They dance for the coming year and in thanks of all that they have gained from the previous. Drums fire long into the night while heads bob up and down. There is not drama, not cinematic, not even 'authentic'. It is routine. Another part of life here.

Just before the first day of the festival, Husseini hands me a chicken. Chickens are not free, though they run loose around the compound. They are not cheap though you constantly see one beneath your feet. It was a present. He explained to me how happy he was with me, how happy his family was with me. I felt a fraud. Anything I had done to help his family seemed unimportant given the events of weeks past. I was more powerless than helpful but here was gratitude undeserved in the form of a squawking bird.

Alaye and I killed, plucked and gutted the chicken. He gladly took all the best parts (those I wished not to eat anyway) such as the head, liver, etc. Then I fried the rest, southern style. Completely unheard of here. Husseini viewed his fried drumstick with slight concern but the smile rose when the crispy, greasy skin flaked off with his bite. Undoubtedly, we will fry another (though this time I am buying the bird).

So, people constantly tell me how great it is that I am helping out in such a poor country. It is not for modesty that I shy away from such compliments. I shy away because I know what I do here is about shared experience, sharing and relating life between myself and my neighbors. I have no great power to 'heal the world' or save the Africans, poor or downtrodden. But I can share what I have found as true and receive the same in return. It is the basis of all good relationships, mutually beneficial experiences.

My heart will always wrench over the loss of Adama. I will always feel that powerlessness. But those are shared feelings. They have helped solidify the bond between his father and me. A reminder of our humanity and commonality.

Common Now (Oct 29th)

2009-12-15T13:01:00.000-08:00

So much of my life is transition. In Rambo, the people here are as settled as is possible. Ouedraogos have been here for as long as anyone can remember. Nothing much changes beyond seasons. It is the opposite of my life. This little settled piece is another station on my ever-changing track.

Here, people bond to me as if I was going to stay but it is well known I am leaving in a year. The idea of my departure has little bearing on how open they are to relate to me. Am I deceiving them or are they deceiving themselves? Really, I think neither. For if there is one thing we share, it is the sentiment of now.

In Rambo, life is taken as it comes and the now is what matters most. Seasons will change and nobody can predict the weather (the all important force in their lives) so why try to view beyond today? In a wandering life, the future is always uncertain, the past is your haven but the present is the essence of life. It is the crossing of their now with mine that allows us to exchange a greater sense of community and relationship than might otherwise not be possible. Somehow we both prioritize what exists in front of us, though for those far different reasons.

Our views on what to build for the future and where to place our work varies significantly. Yet, as the sun sets, Husseini and I reflect on the day and the coming evening as if it was just another piece of a continuous cycle, as if we will always be standing there at that hour. It is a sort of liberty that defies ideas of preparation. Though such ideas still haunt me a bit.

After all, are we not suppose to gather sentient pieces around us? Friendships and relationships should exist to support and nourish our future, right? We should build houses in neighborhoods filled with our friends and family, n'est pas? It seems so often I hear that voice (speaking from my former life in small town Midland, Texas) echoing along, making me wonder if I should not be trying to build something more for tomorrow.

Remember the story of the ant and the grasshopper? The grasshopper spent his time playing and the ant working. Grasshopper starves. Ant survives winter. Is it really so cut and dry? Work or play? Is it all about tomorrow or all today? Of course not. Like all things, it is a matter of degrees. My degree of now is higher but that suits the temperature here in Burkina. When things exist at 100F without much shade, it overwhelms your ideas of tomorrow. It supplants you directly into the sweat and stickiness of the present moment.

death and school

2009-10-18T03:59:00.000-07:00

(from October 2 2009)

it is a season of death in Rambo. over the past two weeks, there have been at least seven deaths amongst my neighbors in and near my compound. one could wonder what plague is sprouting its fingers into our water or air, what devil is hiding in mosquitos swirling about or what tainted potatoes lay waiting to spear us with poison. truth be told it is age and humidity. over the wreck of this season, we have seen torrential downpours that lay waste to Ouagadougou and pushed the crop yields higher here. the barrages and streams spilled over into our lives and left so much water about that it soaked into the very air. that sort of humidity is like a blanket sewn with heat. the burning day hides itself in even the smallest of drops floating on the breeze.

so this season of latent warmth drives the aged into a final sleep. they have become too old to adjust and continue the fight against the warm-laced wet that fills up their lungs. who can blame them for giving into the cooler night and resting there for eternity? at ages around 80 years old, they are truly titans falling back to earth to be buried beneath. such longevity is hardly the norm and is looked upon with awe by those villagers left in the swelter.

funerals here the quietest of occasions, the time of sitting and resting amongst those that knew the deceased. pieces of cooking and small amounts of money may change hands or find themselves in the pockets of mourners but there is hardly a fanfare. no wakes. no grand ceremonies. simple quiet with a motion of dirt on top. funerals here are vigils, the members of the congregation becoming the candles burning beneath the blaze of the midday sun.

in this, begins the school year. from the season of death and change will come the new sprigs of life and education. for these first few weeks, we will adjust to sitting in tin-roofed rooms amongst a hundred before we truly dive into any material. then the days of test will come and go, the heat and humidity will pass. before long, it will be another semester's beginning and end. we will have survived the latent heat of summer's end but find ourselves one step closer to the day our neighbors hold our vigil.

with no rush

2009-09-16T05:51:00.000-07:00

Seasons determine time in Rambo and now I have lived through my first round of each. Of course, I plan on thriving through the rest. With my new short hair (yep, I am finally ridiculously good looking again. check out the photos) and a nice little re-energizing from the summer, I plan on rocking the face off this next school year.

School actually does not start until the first of October so there is still plenty of time to just chit chat. During these lulling hours, I have started collecting pieces of Moore to better my local language (now that my french has at least settled into being understandable). Part of my expanding Moore vocabulary comes from my tutored students. At any given time, my house has a few stragglers that are learning a bit of math or english. It would be absurd to demand payment for teaching them but I do anyway. That's right, now they have to give me a few words in Moore. Yep, what a miser I am. Right up there with Scrooge McDuck, himself. In all reality, they are often thrilled to see me take an interest (especially, since they know that it has no real practical purpose for my work here). It is an effort that is appreciated (and I can finally undertake). So thus pass my last days of summer.

On the cultivating front, all the corn and millet are now almost twice my height. The brown, Sahelian feeling of Rambo has been turned into tranquil greens. I cannot recognize my village anymore. We have had a full week of rain (so much that Ouaga was threatened by overflowing dams). It has only added to the lushness of the countryside. Husseini (my neighbor) keeps coming to my house with extra African eggplants (which I take, smile and then secretly give to someone else, yuck). With the plentiful rain there is an abundance of crop.

Of course, when I first heard this I thought Great! However, the reality of the situation is that everybody has extra so there is no real use in selling Husseini's eggplants in the market. Everyone already has too many, themselves. Thus, in some ways, it means he will have less currency in his pocket. Yet, it does mean that there is plenty to eat for the moment. With crops like corn and millet, it also means they will be able to put more into the granaries which will then be the main source of food for the rest of the year. Harvest time has not officially begun yet but you can see people pulling a few choice specimens to grill over the fire that evening (or to hand to me so I can fake a smile and feed someone else). It really is a bittersweet. Of course, having a variety of crops would help to eliminate such overabundance of similar items. We have actually been applying for a grant from the Millennium Corporation (good ol' America!) to help fund the purchase of seeds and irrigation equipment to help bring diversity to the local fields. The applications are in english so mostly I just help make sure it is clearly written and understandable to 'my fellow Americans' (that last part I did in a Nixon voice in my head, 'i am not a crook').

Other news; this month also happens to be Ramadan. While most of my villagers are muslim, it hardly is a strict environment. After all, it was a muslim neighbor that slaughtered his pig and gave me some of the meat before his family chowed down. Here, Ramadan seems to be mostly about the Eid (holiday) at the end of it. In some ways that actually makes religious sense. After all, Ramadan is suppose to be a month of fasting in which people can reflect on what it means to be impoverished and without necessities such as food. It is a full month devoted to understanding the poor man's situation. My villagers live such a life throughout the year so it hardly makes sense to change much throughout the month of Ramadan.

Now, we have not yet come to the celebration at the end (Eid) of Ramadan (Sept 21st or so) but there are already whispers in the air. All my neighbors have popped by to asking if I am making anything and to tell me about all their plans. Instead of the usual to' or beans, they are patting their stomachs in anticipation of freshly slaughtered lamb and riz. To hear my kids speak of it, you would think Christmas was coming (though, a very bloody Christmas. mmmmm lamb). For my part, I have been thinking of trying to put together something American in nature whether that be pancakes or just some kind of cake. Of course, finding ingredients is difficult and my only oven is a dutch oven that can cook all of two cookies at one time (it is tiny) but I will manage something. So far, I have caught the attention of my fellow compound-goers with my pancakes, biscuits (with honey) and tortillas. The women are astounded by this weird white guy that cooks and the kids think of it as utterly exotic goodness. It is the luxury of being different. The critics are easy to please. Thank goodness!

On a more personal note and as I mentioned before, Kris came to Burkina and bummed around with me. It was a nice bit of a vacation that pulled so much stress from my bones (one could call it major homesickness). It was unbelievably fulfilling to finally be able to share some of this experience with someone I love. It has been incredibly hard experiencing so much so far from the fam and friends. To say I miss home is a complete understatement. So, connecting back to home via Burkina was a nice release (this blog is a piece of that, too). After her visit, I have found that village life is not nearly so distant from what can be called my life. Instead, it has been incorporated into the whole, instead of remaining some anomaly (some extended vacation or rabbit trail apart from the rest). Thus, where I once felt as if I was breaking from my life, it has now become an understandably congruent stretch of the Thomas narrative. Thus, it is getting easier to see the arc of betterment that results from the barrage of those pesky life lessons always being thrown one's way.

To expound; I have learned to allow things the time to mature. In village life, nothing can be rushed. It is a waste of energy. If you truly want something to happen then you set the wheels in motion and let it happen. There are times to maintain pieces but pushing it too hard will just cause pain and/or damage. Now, I have always been the kind of person to wear my new clothes home or immediately sit and play with whatever new device I just bought. It's a now fascination. Somewhere over the past year, I began living as if there is a good bit in my life worth the time it takes to mature. Kris is a major example but so are the little interactions I have everyday that equal up to a full service. I have no idea the impact I will ultimately have here or whether or not it will fade. I could lose my entire will to continue focusing on that particular point. Yet, I find that I am fulfilled by the relationships and interactions I have with my community. More than just simple conversations, friendships and trust have been built and not because that is what I came here for. None of the people that weave themselves in and out of my day are a part of it because of obligation. Instead, I truly enjoy having them around (and I can guess by their reactions, vice versa). While I am still a stickler for getting to class on time (and deadlines do mean something), I have found that allowing for that patience and African-time mentality has worn away so many of the loose strings hanging in my life.

I will close out this long rant by saying that I miss my family and friends (that probably includes you, I'm sure) and life is going well. I can only hope the same for them.

Oh and check out the pictures I put up of Kris and I, the haircut and a few I thought were lost.

worlds apart

2009-08-28T03:38:00.000-07:00

the last few weeks have been something of another world. to start, any confidence i put together from standing in front of 100 students left when Kris stepped off the plane. suddenly, i was my students sitting at the front of the class and looking at my shoes. nervous.

our time went amazing. between a haircut and a missed bus, we took our time getting out of Ouaga. what a trooper, too! though there was the long ride out to my village, the heat, the sickness and any number of crawling things, she took it all in stride. and my villagers were impressed. i didn't realize there were so many girls in my compound. where were they hiding?

so she charmed my Rambo then watch me go into shock as we headed south. apparently, Burkina is divided much like the Christian afterlife. you have the Sahel (the north, just 'hel for short) and Paradise (the south). waterfalls, hippo lakes, picturesque sugar cane fields, huts with A/C... the list goes on and on. i had to check my pulse a few times to make sure that i really hadn't died and crossed over. Lord knows, if i did, it wouldn't be too far different. needless to say, future visitors (that group hopefully includes M&D) will definitely have a southern tour on the itinerary.

then, it was back to Ouaga to hangout with the collection of PCV's, ISO teachers and other acronymed types. any number of people were in town for Swear-in and general mayhem. we added to such.

the airport and saying goodbye was the difficult part. it is that reach of uncertainty. when you live worlds apart from those you love, it gets harder to remember why you are on the path you are on. fortunate for me, i have all the time in the world to mull over those thoughts. though honestly, it never hurts to have reminders of connections tempered with patience. this country has taught me how to wait for those things that are truly important. there's no need to rush the truly important parts of life. it is far better to do them right.

at the moment, i'm as homesick as i have ever been but i'm by no means unhappy. now, it's back to village and my rowdy courtyard of students. wish me luck.

my pulse reads: anticipation

2009-08-13T12:30:00.001-07:00

i am at the middle. MSC (Mid-Service Conference). mostly these past few days have been taking stool samples, TB tests and physical exams. the results: i'm in waaaaay better health than i was before i left. my resting heart rate was 92 (really really horrible) just two years ago. now, it's 60. way to go biking! blood pressure 110/70. weight 155 (down from the 190 or so before i left). besides all the weird bacteria swimming in my stomach, all is on the up and up.

of course, none of that is really on my mind at the moment. in only a few hourse, i will have my first visitor from the good ol' USA! yep, my wonderful girl is coming on the red eye! i have been pushing it from my mind, trying to occupy myself with everything else. it's so close now that i can hardly ignore that pounding in my chest. to think, she's in Morocco at the moment, while i've been out buying fruit (everybody wants a nice snack straight off the plane). anticipation.

at this point, the itenerary is to spend a day of rest in Ouaga, then head out to my village. i'll show her around Rambo; showing here off to all my kids. actually, they are just as excited as me. they've heard about her nonstop since i arrived. plus, they are excited to use their english. all the great phrases i have taught them like "i kill you" and "you are very beautiful". all the important things.

after village, will be a bike ride to some other volunteer spots (BOB) on the way to Ouhigouya. there we can say hi to my host family from training. then, it is off to the south towards hippos, mountains and waterfalls. sounds like a horrible time, huh?

i must say, it is hard not to think of myself as extremely fortunate and it has little to do with money. by the American standard, i'm poor. broke. by African standards, i am not necessarily rich but i'm not starving (and that is important). thus, i have enough money to not have to worry about it and that makes a big difference. life is clear from monetary concerns for the moment. these next few days will be about sharing this experience with someone who has found a way to speak my language, all while seeing the best parts of the Faso.

a long time ago, i read a story where a man gave up a posh life to be poor and in love while living in a small apartment in Sofia, Bulgaria. it was my idea of happy. i'm hours away from that moment in my own life. happiness.

oh and here's a pic of the new little guy:

a long walk and a hog

2009-08-08T07:09:00.001-07:00

if only it could have been a long walk off a short pier! it would have been nice and short with a wonderfully cool ending. unfortunately, my helmet lost itself on my ride into Ouaga and i had to walk across the capital city under the morning sun. all the way from the west end (road to Kongoussi) until our Transit House. Three hours, pulling my bike along.

now, you ask, why not ride the bike? without a helmet, it is both forbidden and completely dangerous to ride around Ouaga. so, not wanting to be killed nor kicked out, i took the step by step motion of my own pedals known as feet. of course with my two heavy packs, soon the leaning motion of the bike was drilling my knee. thus, i kept switching between sides and even did the straddle the middle, pushing with feet. none of it really helped so now i can complain about being an old man with a bum knee. though one day i'll use the "i use to have to walk across Ouaga, uphill both ways" bit.

on a more up note, Bruce got a new bud. he's tiny but already off mother's milk (i made sure he'd eat insects when the kids gave him to me). i'll put pics of my new hedgehog up. now, why do i want to? Bruce is an old grump but Campbell is already proving himself much more likable. meaning he doesn't mind being held (even fell asleep on my palm). oh and why Campbell? well, there is the ever great Bruce Campbell (that had a part in Bruce's name) plus the kids want to make soup out of hedgehogs (mmm... good). fun stuff.

Subsistence Agriculture

2009-07-29T04:18:00.000-07:00

Agriculture in Burkina is life. Most of my neighbors are 'unemployed' in the sense of having no documented job. They feed their families and survive by raising crops (millet, corn, black-eyed peas and peanuts) also known as subsistence farming. Their methods are rudimentary (not differing far from our ideas of medieval farming methods). To further complicate the matter, my region lies on the edge of the Sahel where rain only comes for three months during the summer (and often only once a week). It is a short window in which every member of the family must work the fields each day (all day) in order to grow enough food for the coming year. Even school takes a backseat to cultivation, as students will not start coming to class until the harvest has finished around the beginning of October.

While villagers in Rambo have been blessed with sufficient crop production and adequate rainfall, most are still malnourished as the variety of crops grown are void of vitamins and minerals necessary for healthy living. Children, while having enough to fill their bellies for the day, will still suffer from malnutrition causing them to have large bloated stomachs, hair loss, stunted growth and any variety of health complications.

Currently, my village is applying for grants via US government aid programs. These grants will go towards developing a larger variety of crops and introducing irrigation systems to Rambo. While my expertise is nowhere near agriculture, I have been able to assist by translating their grant applications from french to english and helping them to refine their program objectives, as the application has to be submitted in english and are thoroughly reviewed.

for a little more info check out wikipedia:

"Subsistence agriculture is self-sufficient farming in which farmers grow only enough food to feed their family. The typical subsistence farm has a range of crops and animals needed by the family to eat during the year. Planting decisions are made with an eye toward what the family will need during the coming year, rather than market prices. Tony Waters[1] writes: 'Subsistence peasants are people who grow what they eat, build their own houses, and live without regularly making purchases in the marketplace.'"

Thomas' Field Guide to Burkina Farming

2009-07-28T12:09:00.001-07:00

In daylight, Rambo is almost a ghost town. The rains have come, washing away all thoughts but cultivation, pure subsistence farming. Thus, I have been out in the fields toiling away with my neighbors, planting peanuts, corn, millet and the eggplants cousin (less tasty cousin at that). Having earned the callouses on my palms and the ache in my back, I thought it would be nice to put together a field guide for all those interesting in farming here in Burkina.

Thus, click below to check out Thomas' Field Guide To Burkina Farming:

IT in ville

2009-06-26T14:07:00.000-07:00

over the past week, i have been in Ouaga pouring over my computer and code. we are just on the verge of launching our website for our program here. i've done the html design while others have worked on sharepoint/server issues (and internal content). never did i think i would be building a website under such conditions. yet, here i am trying to leave some sort of legacy that goes beyond the boundaries of Rambo. if luck strikes, maybe we'll revolutionize the way we share documents and resources in the PC. perhaps it's a far off goal but it's possible. best part of all, it costs A LOT less to run what we are running than the current system. who knew nerds could do so much?!

being in Ouaga has also been a bit of a relief from village life. my life seems more productive, the work more instantaneously rewarding. too often in village, progress moves at a snail's pace. in the capital, i can work and see results while others around me continue on that same pace. there is no need for motivation, as it is built into our work ethic. such an ethos does not exist in village. any single person has a reason to be late or slow in the uptake, which only encourages the same idea amongst the others. it's an African idea of time and expended effort which has major consequences.

for instance, if you combine such an idea with the inherent racism (built from less than fair colonial era issues) then you will find that Burkinabe see work ethic as a result of genetic makeup of which Africans got the short end of the stick. two of my students literally told me that whites can study for longer because they are smarter than blacks. they were using it as a reason to not study or work harder. they truly accepted that idea. they manipulated it to their advantage. further, it was nearly impossible to get them to believe it was an issue of drive and will. after all, we have African American volunteers working for us that do not have the same cultural setbacks. truly, such thoughts are setbacks for development just as certain substitions and myths can hault empowerment and education in a village. what can you do but continue the fight?

on that note, development is like the water pressing against the dam. what so many see as a static lake is realy large hydrolic pressure pushing against the concrete barrier, looking for a crack. that continues force and a small weakness in the wall can cause major breakdowns, possibly a flood. so we continue to put pressure on that wall. time is on our side.

unfortunately for the site though, it has left behind the IT committee. i am quickly running out of town to continue my quick intro into web design (just as i was starting to understand some javascript). the site will be up soon, then it's back to village. one can always use more time but i'm sure Bruce misses me. lord knows he probably hasn't found enough people to hiss at without me there.

what happens now

2009-05-30T05:11:00.000-07:00

the semester has now come to a close. but what happens now? the rains have started to fall and it amazes me to have been here for almost a year. a year that i can heard believe has passed. so many stories and lessons. there is the good and bad. frustration and reward. even that longing that we can connect to that keeps the drive in us alive. thus, i will share a bit with you of what has been and hopefully what will be.

when i arrived, hardly any words were spoken. for one, hardly any words could be understood. my french was terrible. their french was barely adequate. it was simply a struggle. further, i was not the playful and somewhat touchy volunteer that my predecessor was. thus, it took time to get introduced into the surrounding compound and its families.

part of this was accomplished by my wonderful volunteer neighbor, Lauren (who lives only an hours bike ride down the road). between her amazing french and well-established moore, i was able to go beyond introductions with a few in village. then, school started and the kids came to know my name. they came to slowly understand my french (after multiple repetitions). within a few days, i was approached by a junior high school student from one of my classes. he introduced himself and mentioned how he would like to have a few extra exercises. i was thrilled! there was a hunger to understand here, i thought. i would probably been closer to correct if i had realized it was to get a good grade.

in any case, i began by giving out exercises in class then handing a few extra out to neighborhood kids. soon, they would find their way into my courtyard to spend an hour with me, talking about how to distinguish different types of symmetry. in time, i would turn on the light and spread out mats. i don't suppose there was ever a tutoring agreement setup but it fell into place naturally. (of which, i can think my predecessor for having given the solar panel to power the light) soon it was a crowd of fifteen kids coming regularly and staying till later and later, reaching almost midnight routinely.

after the older kids, there came the smaller kids. at first it was just pointing and laughing to try to get me to understand they wanted the light on the outside of the courtyard. the older kids would translate. then, as the year progressed, i was able to get them to start knocking at my door to ask, instead of just screaming into my one of my two windows. after a few more months, they would ask politely, in proper french, for me to turn on the light outside maybe two to three times a week. now, it is pretty much standard. they come, giggle, ask nicely, then clap and cheer as i turn on the light. in return, i have granted them (and showed trust in them) to use the mats outside the courtyard, even to play with my deck of cards until later.

often the children on the back of the house are merely playing games. they like to run and scream. they even sing songs in way that mirrors studying. it's normally along the same melody but the subjects trace through their lessons. they will sing of brushing their teeth or doing math. it's as if Sesame Street had been recreated in my backyard, spontaneously. people always ask if the noise bothers or frustrates me (and it is noisy. Kristy always ends up telling me she can hear them a bit too well when she calls and i am inside). of course it is hard to adjust to at first but the roar of rain on my tin roof is far strong, yet i sleep through it. (actually, i woke this morning with my ears still ringing from all the banging from the rain). in the end, the sound of them playing reminds me of the hope that resides on this continent.

so often, i look out at their parents who are busy grinding millet or replacing mud walls and feel saddened. i see the disconnect between the lives of the adults and the children. there is so little interaction other than orders. kids take care of kids. older taking care of younger. it is marriage that separates adults from children and often at young ages like 14, the girls become 'adults'. such happened to my laundry girl. one night she was taken on a moto to a new village to be married and that was it. she should have been in school. i had hoped my money would go towards such.

thus, at night time, i find myself amongst a handful of students. those students then have taught me more than anyone here. in so many ways, i have felt the students this first year. my aim now is to become a greater teach in the second. thus, as summer is starting, i have collected together math books for each grade, the physics curriculum and english materials. with these, we are starting a summer school. i know that my predecessor had worked with the kids over the summer as well but i am looking to expand that program.

in short, we are building a student run school. well, no real building is involved. instead, this weekend is my first meeting to discuss plans with those same kids that came to my courtyard each night. they will be the teachers and helpers in each class. (all of them passed onto the next grade except one. he actually got a really good grade in my class but did horribly in biology. thus, i was unaware he was struggling) i will then act as the principle or head teacher, a role which i actually hope diminishes. the point is to give my helpers all the material they need to teach their peers, while showing them how they can pull more from the books and their own logical deductions. thus, allowing them to step beyond their need for my guidance before the following summer.

so far, they are all truly excited about becoming helpers. i promised them, in return, to continue helping them in classes that currently have no helpers as of yet (such as physics/chemistry).

in all of this, i have sat down and asked myself what are the major challenges of kicking off this program. my first thought, as i'm sure most will think, was of money. but that was easily resolved. my school was willing to give chalk and one set of resources books. in all reality, this is enough to run the summer school. anything else is really a luxury. instead, i find that i worry most over motivation.

i mentioned above at being thrilled to see a "hunger to understand" which was only partly correct. i have seen the kids striving to understand the material for the class in order to pass the tests. they will repeat phrases over and over into the night until they have it set in stone in the minds. yet, that rigid way of filing informations passes just by education. they can repeat almost anything i have said in class but can hardly ever put it into their own words. if i ask them to give me the definition in their own words, i get silence. they have no framework for how life and school combine. thoughts and wonder to do not make the jump into their daily lessons. i will watch them figure out how to solve a problem like getting water from a well with a broken bucket but that same critical thinking is left outside the school door.

thus, my greatest challenge is to bridge that gap amongst my helpers. if they can see how important it is to think critically to express these ideas to another person (and have them understand), then by all means the program will be a success. for once, the students will not be learning how to think from a white stranger but from their older brother or neighbor. they can reach places i can never go. i will always be the outsider even though the lessons apply to us all.

so that my challenge, to keep the helpers motivated to solve the problems they will have to face (and answer) in their classrooms and to show them how far they've grown once they have. i guess you could say that is the beauty and reward of being a teacher.

a few random notes:

last night it rather flooded. since it was the first major storm of the year, ten goats drowned and now their is a big pow-wow. they'll be eating the goats tonight and thanking the heavens for the rain.

a small boy passed me recently and asked if i wanted meat. he then showed me a rat half his size (about the size of a large cat). i thought i had seen big rats before but suddenly i realized why people like to eat them here. there's more meat on them than on a chicken. it was partially rotted so i didn't buy it. plus he wanted 1500 cfa ($3) for it. talk about an expense rat!

my leaking roof turned into a total gain. i have put nails around leaking points so the water would collect and drip off at the nail. then, placed buckets beneath them. no big deal. the positive, i had run out of water in the house but had forgotten to get some before they closed the pump for the night. but, turns out the fresh rain water was nice and cold. thank heaven for my filter!

i had an end of the year party for my top students. i gave them fantas (a very rare treat here) and made them crepes with chocolate custard. they just sat their stunned. they had never had chocolate nor even heard the word dessert (same in french by the way). when i explained it was made with milk, they seemed even more worried. what was the weird white guy trying to feed them. i finally pulled out my computer and watched part of Kongfu Panda and they relaxed. they enjoyed the food but i think were still a little culture shocked. i could not imagine how these kids would be if they reached their goal of going to America. could they survive without someone there to help them adjust? i've decided that i'll be at least a resource for those kids when i return back home. if they do make it stateside, then at least they will have a familiar voice to call and ask questions.

Bruce is an ornery old man. i think perhaps the kids pulled out his quills and really scared him before i got him. he is always frightened even though i only even come with food. he often will not eat it in my presences. maybe i'm just running a retiring home for the guy. who knows. i even had to cut up the hand-sized lizard we killed for him (via slingshot) before he'd eat it (though he munches down the baby ones whole).

my slingshotting abilities are improving. i put a rock through my quaker oats can from across my courtyard the other day. i didn't want to say anything but i'm kind of a big deal.

my birthday was fantastic. i video chatted with the fam. i talked to Kristy. i made a lemon cake. i bought a new phone (old one died on the way to Ouaga). i even had a breakfast of BACON and eggs! there was even a game night at the AO's house that we all went to. i haven't laughed that much in country. good times. my only regret, i didn't get around to updating my blog and running errands at the post. (don't worry C&B, C&T, Kelly, Erin, Tyler and Grandpa, i've got letters for you all though the post was closed due to Ascension Day. will try again after posting this).

my wonderful neighbor gave me a Tasty Tom (tomato paste brand here) tshirt. it rocked my face off!

my hair has gotten horribly long (check the pics). i'm seriously contemplating cutting it off when Kris gets here. after all, the heat is killing me! so much hair!

my neighbor had a rod go through his palm and out his wrist. his whole had swelled up to double its size. it looked like a mickey mouse glove. freaky. i gave him ibuprofen that i had brought from home when he ran out but really could not do anything for him. when he finally pierced his hand and let the swelling down, there was about a millimeter of dead skin that stayed behind as a tough looking shell. interesting and creepy.

i am trying to figure what i will do after the Peace Corps. if you have any ideas whatsoever, email them to me. if you don't know my email, leave a comment and i will send it to you.

on the ground

2009-05-01T15:58:00.000-07:00

within three weeks, the final semester of my first year teaching will come to a close. working daily with the faculty, students and staff has given me at least an idea at the inner workings of the educational system in Rambo. in that framework, i have then tried over the last three semester (sometimes successfully, but not always so) to adapt my own experiences into a creative and interesting mode for learning math. in so many ways, however, i find my role as a math teacher hardly the tip of the iceburg.

first, it is best understand a basic background on schools in Burkina villages (see also Kaityln's wonderfully informative blog). thus, i will breakdown the student, school and situations of both.

the students i teach are between the ages of 10 to 18 years old. in the states, we would equate the grade level to between 7th and 9th grade. on average, they are boys. girls make up less than half of a class, but often more than a third. each is required to wear a uniform of khaki (shirt, pants/skirt) of which most are hand-me-downs that have started to wear. they not allowed to wear clothes are too degraded but not a single set in any of room looks partially new. they have all been worn and sewn many times.

their attitudes range from the most nerdishly shy kids to the bully and even the popular sporty types. there are those that wish to participate and those that hide from any glance i push their way. in no way can one take for granted some sort of homogenous idea of their behavior or learning styles. some are creative and quick, others will take an hour to give you a full sentence (though it will often be an enlightening one).

what they do share is a common restlessness in the classroom. you would probably diagnose it as ADD in the States but truly it is a disconnection from their normal life style that becomes distraction. what i mean is simply that, the elementary school that these children come out of is hardly a strict or even fully academic environment. couple this with the idea that students have no exposure to school activities at home and you began to realize that they are as much fishes out of water as i am in that classroom. therefore, one should expect that a day of lectures while sitting on a crowded wooden bench in 100F heat would be difficult to manage.

outside of school, their home situation is of two degrees. for the girls, it is often vast amounts of chores that leave little time for studying. washing, cooking, taking care of smaller children are hard enough chores to complete in a full day (given that there are no machines, electricity or modern conviences to aid them). the boys often allowed much more liberty and free time that they use to spend playing and being children. in this case, you can see that there develops a rather different set of study habits for the boys than the girls. (their ability to stay awake in class can be correlated to gender, as well)

to complicate matters, most children are absent from their parents for most, if not all their day. the responsiblitiy for a child often rests on the sibilings. to illustrate this, a number of the boys that come to my tutoring sessions live in a seperate building away from their parents (almost like dorms). one boy, who lives with his parents, is required to sleep in the garden when is father is home from working. throughout the day, the lack of supervision continues. for example, i have had children fall asleep in my courtyard while studying. the next morning their parents had not noticed their lack of return to the compound nor were concerned about where they had slept and under which conditions. it is assumed that they were fine and all was well. they would be notified in any case of real trouble, so it goes.

parents of students, can also have very different educational backgrounds, though the most common is none at all. for those that did go to school, it is rarely beyond what is provided in Rambo (if even that). you can find many parents that simply dropped out when the classes were too difficult or interferred with "real work" in the fields. there are rarely any examples of parents that use or even simpley need a middle school education.

further, students are able to retake a grade after failing (but only once). thus you will find that the basic knowledge in your class can fluctuate dramatically (especially as one can pass math but fail the grade, thus having to repeat all the courses). it is also possible (and often happens) that students who have failed twice will find another school in the region to retake the courses (as you cannot in the school in which you failed twice). thus, some kids will be on their third time through the material while others have never seen it in their lives.

the school itself is a concrete building with a tin roof. it is basically, four rooms all in a row that can hold 100 students when packed three to bench-desk. my particular school only goes to the 10th grade (equivalent). students wishing to continue must find another school outside the department (as none exist nearby).

the staff of the school consists of professors, a direct of the school, a disciplinarian, a secretary and a treasure. in our case, the director doubles as a professor, as well. most professors will teach more than one class. (being new to Rambo and French, i had only one subject this year. next year may speak differently)

the resources of the school amount to chalk, paper, blackboards, typewriter and enough books for 90 percent of the students. all in all, it is sufficient to teach a class but would be far below the worst of schools in the States. amazingly, chalk and a chalkboard go a very long way with a little creativity.

professors are also outsides, not from the village. their houses are provided and are next to the school (a km from the market). nor are they all from the same village. they often come from all over (including even the Ivory Coast). they are selected based on grades that they receive on stadarized tests.

thus, this is the situation in which i find myself standing, speaking a foreign language, trying to convey math. in that, i find most of my lessons are more about how to get to the idea of the material, than the material itself. often the subject of the course is very simple and straight forward enough to understand. however, in an environment with very little appreciation for academics, school-based-creativity and critical thinking are almost unknown.

for instances, students often learn that schools are for simply repeating information quickly (comprehension is not required). kids are taught this in the free elementary schools where they are first exposed to French (nothing else is spoken there though they do not speak it themselves at that age). often the elementary cirriculum is based on memorizing songs about french, hygiene or math. kids are taught to read in a specific rhythmic patter but are not often asked comprehensive questions about that reading. thus, many can repeat French phrases with no understanding of what is being said (or a very warped understanding due to having to intuitively divine one).

thus, critical thinking in the classroom is rare and difficult to commence. much time is spent on teaching study skills to my students. proving to them that practice is what makes math understandable and easy or that there are applications for these numbers and figures requires most of each class period. it has thus been my goal to continually experiment and discover new ways in which to reach them while demonstarting the daily lessons.

this further extendes beyond the classroom, as my novelty as a white man does not end at the class door. therefore, i have the unique oppurtunity of continually being the professor or, at least, a big brother type mentor to my students. this means i can get to know them personally, adapting ideas to assist them while also getting direct feedback otherwise unatainable. in so many ways, i started out as a math teacher but found it better to be part of a big brother program that happens to use a lot of math.

in future blogs, i will outline specific action i find to be effective (both in and out of the classroom), including more specific events from this past school year.

here are also some random pics for the last month or so around village. the wounded foot was from my 130km bike ride that i did in one day, during the hot season. yep, i was going to the Hard Corps party. no big deal ;) though it did make me buy a pair of sandals made out of car tires. other pics... the kids are my students and neighbors. the mouse was hunted and killed. the white girls are giving a haircut to the surprise of villagers. oh and proof that i can have a ponytail. the woman selling things on trays are a typical stop on the road to Ouaga. and the woman bending over are pounding down clay to make the floor of the courtyard (substitute for concrete). enjoy.

a few pics to share

2009-03-24T01:32:00.000-07:00

This first set of pics are from around my village. Everything from getting water from the well to separating fighting bulls. we got everything.

This second set is my hedgehog Bruce. He may look cute but really, he's tough.

Last, here is what happens when your region runs out of Butane to cook with:

intuitively over the magic hedge

2009-03-23T15:21:00.000-07:00

the rain fell and my village cooled. for the first time in months, real relief was pouring from the sky. you could see it in the eyes of everyone at the market. refreshing pertains to cokes, rebirth applies to rain. a fitting end to the second semester of school and the beginning of spring break.

it was a semester of experimentation in learning. from daily exercises to extra points. i looked for motivation. the only true method i have found is continual creativity. what works today will work only until tomorrow. this is true of punishments as well. sticks and carrots, some say. well, i often change the stick and keep a variety of vegetables around to keep the class going. i feel like a lecturing market vendor.

the greatest question of this term was simply magic. in evening chats and the exchanging of stories, i came across a number of enlightening 'histories'. what can be cast off as the absurd back home, is reality here. where time and space have fixed quantities in western thought, here they are fluid rivers. what exists today can be manipulated and maybe is simply a yesterday for someone else. i found many examples of the mystical dangers that my kids adamantly warned me against.

first, never throw dirt from the ground of Rambo onto another person or this person will die. the ground is sacred and holds the essence of life which bears fruits (and vegetables). along side this is the common knowledge that those that know each other (biblical sense) on the open ground shall perish, as well.

never pick up money on the side of the road. witch doctors come and place money along routes to attract small children and thieves. when they take this money, they become large serpents that vomit money. if you are lucky, you can be changed back into a human being.

further, on the subject of animals regurgitating money. a man five kilometers away was, according to the kids, taken and arrested by police for having fed children to a crocodile. his reason: the croc would spit up money for each child it had eaten. (note: i have not seen or heard of crocodiles anywhere nearby, other than this particular story).

the lists go on. i shocked my kids by picking up cellphone credit that i found on the side of the road in a village. by all means, they swore in must have been a witch doctor and were concerned for me. when the credit did not work for my phone, they said the magic must have been used up by someone else.

how does a math teacher speak of these stories? i see such a strong sense of intuition in my students, then find them unable to make simple logical steps towards calculating a quantity. repetition is what the learn from school. intuition is what they receive from life. logic is my outsider's tongue. thus, i ask one simple question when i hear these stories, 'who here has witnessed it?'. i find no one has seen or even knows of the victims, perpetrators or even exact locations involved. then, i ask for numbers or formulas that the kids remember. they happily oblige their memories for the repeated information. i then set out to show them how i can come to the same information without knowing about those formulas or math. in essences, showing that math is verification, a quantification, of the world around us. i take one of anything, then another. suddenly, i have two. one plus one equals two. simple. the kids often still do not make the association, so i simply ask who can verify any of these magical stories. it soon comes to taking the idea on faith. to this, i say that one chooses where to put their faith, yet in math, one can never choose which is the right answer. the answer is right or wrong by its own nature.

i then go into myths and legends of our American lands. i often tell the story of Pecos Bill though and profoundly disappointed to find that my fellow volunteers know nothing of his legacy. (apparently Paul Bunyan is more important) i show how we've made up great stories to amusingly explain our country side and heritage but how they are only myths. we do not actually believe them to be true.

then comes the creative pieces. we make up my own stories. i caught the attention of my sixieme math students one day by telling them the following:

one a distant day in the past, a student decided to venture from her home in Rambo. she headed north, into an area much like Rambo with little in the way of scenery. there she found a village along that flat plain, much smaller than Rambo. the name of the village was Tikare. she was highly disappointed to have traveled far from home only to discover even less than her own village had. a waste she thought. just then, a genie appeared before her on the trail. he lambasted her for her mockery of his region and protected village. he challenged her ideas of Tikare to which she replied "it lacks any true beauty, has no market and surely no landmarks. if i were to improve it, i'd give it mountains." in reply, the genie made a bet with the girl, if she was to win a race against him, he would build mountains. if she was to lose, she must be his slave.

she rushed home, scared and alone, knowing she must race the genie. the next day at the market, she was so distraught that a vender noticed she was distracted and asked her what was wrong. she related the story. afterwards, the vender handed her two pairs of shoes. one set she could hardly lift and the other were light as air, even floating a little. he told her the heavy ones were hers and would win her the race and that she must be sure to let the genie know the others were his.

the next day, just beyond Rambo, the genie again appeared and demanded the race. the girl said she would race but only with shoes, as all proper races have shoed contestants. thus, she demanded the genie wear the pair of shoes the vender had given to her for him. the genie, worrying of the girl's trickery, said he would not take the shoes but would race with her shoes. she gladly handed over the heavier shoes, then wore the lighter, causing her to easily win the race. thus, the genie was forced to build the mountains that i so love to climb in Tikare.

all the children thought highly of my story. i made sure to make a point of how i had only made the story up right at the moment and yet it had an air of believe. after all, it fit common culture and explained why there are mountains in Tikare and not Rambo. the only problem, i made it up.

i am no one to deny these students their paradoxes. they can choose their own paths of belief and i will not demand anything differently. yet, through my time here, by the very nature of what i teach, i force them to hold at least two opposing ideas in their heads; we can verify all that is around us and magic exists. it is then their choice as to the extent they will allow those conflicting ideas affect their lives.

another lesson viewed in village, dealt with parenting. at times, i have noticed myself surrounded by kids for hours without ever seeing an adult. the ages range from two years old to sixteen. there are no inquiries, even when i've found students that have slept beneath my courtyard's thatched hangar. even on days when adults gathered around to grind millet and chat, the interaction amongst them and their children seem minimal, simply a set of chores and requirements needed to be fulfilled. it is often that responsibility goes to the next oldest. the hierarchy of the family is built on age. at one point, i was amazed to see that a fight break out and no reaction from the lingering adults. immediately, i pulled the two boys apart. their battle of words (in Moore, beyond my understanding) went unnoticed. only by marching them directly, hand on shoulder, to their respectful houses, could i clear the matter. the world continued.

thus parenting, is set of top down rules that mean to establish communal order. children are not the sole responsibility of the parents. they are raised as children of the compound with a set of understandings as to where in the line of succession they fit. in turn, by being the chief's son or the strongest kid, one can build himself as parental figure to younger kids, though one always must remember the person just above them. it seems there is a strong understanding that abuse of power can have major consequences. no one is ever the biggest fish in the pond. at least not amongst compound.

of course, i work beyond the parameters of such. i am a stranger and teacher. thus, i have very different relationship to my students, one that i am forced to define. thus, i must insist on rules and establish habits, predictable behavior. rewards are a part of that, as well as establishing the my worthiness of their respect. in all i do, i am watched. thus, i find myself explaining why continuously, though such helps raise their level of respect for my abilities and thus my person. a feat, i am sure i have not mastered but have gained ground on.

in that more fluid dynamic, i am also able to speak on the level of my students and have them speak, with trust, in turn. i find out their concerns and thoughts, what is fair and unfair. i have found them comfortable enough with me to say when i have done something they see as unjust and i then either explained or corrected the situation, showing them that their trust in me is just as valuable. a level of interactions they do not necessarily share with other adults.

for instances, i have a policy of no sleeping in my courtyard. students are to go home when i turn out the light for the night (though often it is on till midnight). i've wished to avoid having any of their parents complaining about their whereabouts and the idea that they spent the entire night somewhere else. well, recently the kids took me on a tour of the compound. they showed me a shared kids room of a piece of foam and a mat. they showed me the places where their parents slept (another building just beyond a small walled fence. one even showed me where he sleeps when his dad comes home and he is unable to sleep in his single room house. (one can expect this means his father would like to know his mother without the watchful eyes of children). the locations was the garden beyond my wall. thus, i took to asking questions, the answers to which have led me to amend my house rules. the children that are studying can spend the night but must sleep on a mat (i have five) and never on the ground. plus they must keep the courtyard door open so that anyone can see what is happening in the courtyard. and, as always, they are not to enter into my little two room hut. simple changes that would radically alarm student's parents back home. i'd have court orders resting on my door before sunrise.

so, there is much to be learned. while the adventure seems more to be in the stories than any actually craziness in village, i still find much to learn from.

to rap up this particularly long post, i wish only to mention that i now have a pet. at the end of semester/teacher's party, the children captured a hedgehog to eat. i convinced them that it was better for me to raise it, then for it to be eaten. thus, i now have a new rodent running around my house. luckily he eats bugs which has really ended up being a major plus. in a fit of unknown genius, i decided to call him Bruce. the simplest reason, the french word for bush (aka hedge) is brousse (pronounce bruce). plus, later on my evening bike ride, i listened to my most recent podcast of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. the guest star was Bruce Cambell, promoting his new dvd "My Name is Bruce". can one ask for a better sign? maybe it magically appeared to me. i don't know. it's either a coincidence or a faith issue. as i do with my students, i'll keep my full believes on that to myself and let you decide.

poor folks have poor ways

2009-02-07T07:10:00.000-08:00

volunteering back home is straight forward. you understand the needed advancement, the hunger to abate, the thirst to quench. you grow up as the hero, knowing where the dragon lies. salvation armies and desert industries can point them out to you.

on foreign soil, the story fades. what is hunger? when is one scorched by thirst? in a land of environmental hostility and a sheer lack of resource, what dragon can you handle with no sword? there is no equivalency in the tales of home. people here speak of new paradigms.

as the questions mount, i find i push further into the fundamental pieces of my life. as interesting a subject as is politics, it falls quickly aside. history and philosophy become worn. engineering capability hardly applies to a place without steel and cement. my life, as a building, is reduced to a slab, a simple solid foundation. is that enough to be of any help?

it does not take long to see the value of such a foundation, especially in the heat of the current day. so many children pass in and out of my courtyard with no mode to take charge of their lives. i cannot feed them all. their need for resources, i cannot satisfy. all i have is a start, my foundation.

what is this solid structure that i find at the core of my life? a simple, yet strong, idea given to me by my parents; responsibility. be responsible for not only your actions, but for the progress of your life. in any given situation, there are a million reasons not to move forward. there are difficulties aplenty. when you take on the responsibility for your own life, those difficulties no longer become overwhelming, instead they are merely obstacles.

i often demonstrate this to my classes by putting complex problems on the board. immediately, everyone complains that it is too hard. they are left staring blankly, hopeless. i then write another problem on the board, much easier, and they quickly calculate the answer. again, i write another and another. watching them as they figure each out quickly. then, it is back to the original question. the stares start to go blank but are shaken when i tell them the answer has already been calculated. piece by piece, i write the other problems' answers inline with the original problem, explaining each step again. the complexity falls away. the kids find it an interesting game, a trick i've played on them. if i could only get them to see that this is the core of life. take responsibility for the first step, move one calculation, one step, at a time.

i grew up in a family unlike many i've seen globetrotting. my parents were not well-to-do. we did not have money when i was a small child. quite the opposite. did i ever know this? partially, but i never really felt it. why? endurance and clarity in the face of struggle are my parents greatest assets. whether it was abusive parents, lack of resources, glass ceilings, degrees never obtained... they found ways to meet the current challenge and continue on. no problem was solved over night. there was no jump to the good life. every piece, they have earned and i cannot think of anyone more deserving. now, can i give this to those around me?

it would be easy for me to say, be like my Mom and Dad. they are the example, not me. after all, i could never compare to all that they've accomplished. i could tell stories and let it be enough. but it isn't. so, after so many years of independence and seeking my own way, i find the greatest good i can be in my life is to be what my parents were to me, role models. true role models.

there are dashing heroes in the world. knights slay dragons. emperors conquer wild lands. politicians make grand speeches and debate over vast laws. all have their interesting, captivating side. yet, all require more, something much more basic to truly make a difference. from my parents, i was given a true example of lives well lived, of making a difference in difficult circumstance by standing on firm ground and taking a step forward.

i may go and slay dragons one day. i think it might be fun. but fun is hardly the essence of my life. being a good man, that is much harder and more fulfilling. there is a saying in my family, "poor folks have poor ways." it is well understood amongst us that it is not a slight against the poor. it means instead that we find ways of doing what we can with what we have, even if it isn't the established way. no greater example is there than my parents. no greater role models. i can only take a step towards being one myself, whether i ever make it... we will see.

currently, i am working on a number of projects with the children. first off, we work on school material. obviously, there is the time when i am teaching in class but also we have the evenings when children huddle in my courtyard. i often find the evenings are more important. it is one on one time for detailed explanations (and a few jokes).

also, i'm trying to develop certain individuals into tutors or leaders of their class. students that can extend my reach farther by assisting others with exercises and explanations when i am helping others or gone from country.

thirdly, there are projects to start their creativity. whether that means taking photos and developing them or writing stories of our creation in english and translating them back to french. (i get a kick out of genies, aka bush demons, that they all talk about here. apparently, they eat children. everyone has their fairy tales) i've even thought about what can be done to get them involved in using the computer and simple electronic equipment. perhaps making a short video with the digital and showing them the editing process might help.

finally, we've talked about building a kid based library, where kids are the ones to introduce material (either developed by them or about them) which they can take responsibility for. kid content and kid resources pooled together. back to the basic idea of what is a library.

what comes of these small projects really doesn't matter in the grand scheme. a story here and there means hardly anything. but, the foundation that we can build for understanding how to elevate yourself and change your situation is worth every frustration and setback. speaking of which, i have devices to go fix. must find the ductape. after all, poor folks have poor ways. just ask my folks.

beast of burden

2009-02-07T07:09:00.001-08:00

strength, vitality, just pure domination. the association is American Gladiators or Darwin. rarely do donkeys come to mind. but be afraid. Very.

on that small trek home, i ride along without care, usually taking in the peaceful calm that settles over the village around midday. i turn towards and pass the house of the school director and laugh at two donkeys playing, one child and its mother. suddenly, they began to move. it's a sense of something brutish. then, i spot a younger male donkey with lust in his eyes head straight for that ass. she panics and pushes the little one along.

"don't worry child. mom is here" she seemed to say.

the younger donkey pushes closer, coming along side the mom. she can't buck him from the side. he slams his head into her side. they're in a full gallop now. her heart raising. his hormones the same. they've circled the director's house twice. i'm just watching.

then a cry pierces through the turmoil and i turn to see a much larger male raising towards and beyond me. i'm a mere portion of scenery to his focused and flared view of events. his passions strides past the mare and slams into the side of the young buck. he's shocked and suddenly distraught. again, the young one races, this time, the chased.

nothing here surprises me. it's a typical scene. those slow moving beats of burden suddenly hitting thirty clicks an hour to trample another's hormones. they often race through the night. race after race. but this had surprise intertwined.

the older ass was hardly satisfied with the fatigue of the younger. out of breath, the young one slows and is suddenly caught by the jaws of the brute. on the flank, the back side of the thigh, teeth are gripping. the move paralysis him momentarily. he tries to buck but can't move his gripped legs. he only causes them to hang now completely from the jaws of the dominate male. they dangle in the air, in a semi-bucking action, unable to touch the ground. the young one is trapped and left without option. he gives up the struggle. victory is the elder's. yet this is not satisfying. lessons need be learned.

in the vice of teeth, the elder drags the poor boy. his front legs sliding in the dust, surrounding them in a cloud of fine brown. panic rises in the younger's eyes. stiff panic. then, action. a mistake. he tries to turn his moment toward the teeth, gnashing with his own. without unlocking his jaws and with a sudden rearing spring, the elder pushes the torso of the buck into the dirt, the legs flipping upward. the buck is pressed into the dirt with a sharp angle, jack-knifing his body, spine drilling him downwards. the pain is obvious in the wiggling struggle. there are no more bold movements, just jitters of fright in the beast. he knows surrender only fails him. the elder wants blood.

from exhaustion the teeth loosen. the fight is already minutes old (years for pulsing testosterone). the buck kicks and frees himself to crumple fully into the ground, a mere mass. the jolt of teeth along his mane catches him into a sudden rise. there is no more fight in him. his body speaks of regret and submission. his now the parade toy for the older general. and parade they do. the elder marches him around, displaying his pride.

it was then that i realized, i had caught my onlookers. those eyes down the way were watching this foreigner so preoccupied with the mundane actions of an ass. i left the submitted and parading for home, the facade of slow treading beasts of burden forever crumpled and driven into the dirt.

the progressive

2009-02-01T14:35:00.000-08:00

we all speak of change these days. oh the audacity! well, i thought it would be interesting to see the marks of change over the past nine months in my own face. so here goes:

May 2008 (Before the Peace Corps)

From Thomas in Burkina

August 2008 (After two months of in-country training

From Thomas in Burkina

December 2008 (After my first semester at site)

From Thomas in Burkina

February 2009 (Still going strong)

From Thomas in Burkina

mountains beyond mountains

2009-01-31T10:15:00.000-08:00

there are not a lot luxuries in my small area of the world but we do have beautiful semi-mountains (not big mountains but good for hikes). when time gets a bit stressful or i need a moment to myself, they are a gorgeous sanctuary where i can read in peace.
here are a couple of videos from the higher points.

an introduction

2009-01-06T10:04:00.001-08:00

coming out of college, i thought long and hard about the Peace Corps. i even had the chance to talk to former ambassadors and a former national security advisor about the government program. what ultimately kept me from going? a girl. well, that's love for ya.

three years later, i no longer had the girl but i had 'should have' running around my brain. in Aug of 2007, i got the amazing honor of meeting President Barack Obama (then just Sen. Obama in an underdog position in the primaries) during his trip to Utah. out of that encounter, i gained a renewed vision. i wanted to be proud of what i was doing with my life. service abroad seemed the way.

now i'm six months into my two year stay. i live in a small village named Rambo in the north of Burkina Faso, a west african country. hearing the name for the first time, i had laughed. my friend Kait even remarked on how she thought i'd end up being the volunteer to such a place with such a familiar name. well, she was right and i couldn't be happier.

my village is the head of its department but is not very large, definitely deserving the 'village' title. in village, i am a math teacher at a local C.E.G. (school) that goes through the equivalent of 10th grade. i teach somewhere around 250 students all in french, a language i only started to really learn in the last six months.

village is a challenge that keeps me on my toes. i wake everyday to something new that is broken and has to be fixed, normally without proper tools. but, as Grandma says "poor folks have poor ways". the kids make sure i'm always thinking. if i can gain their respect and be a mentor to them, then perhaps i can make a difference. the language is trying but rewarding, as is the rest of life in village.

in future blogs i'll try to let you know my ideas on development and progress. also, i'll explain more about life in village and teaching.

Choose your own adventure

2008-09-30T13:56:00.000-07:00

a day in the life of a PCV in Rambo

You wake up to the mating of donkeys and a rooster that is adamant about the morning hour. The sun is peaking through your iron window shades. You're contemplating not getting out of bed this morning when children start to scream outside your door. For a moment your heart panics and you wish to rush outside to save them from certain death then you realize it was only a small herd of baby goats. They call them 'kids' for a reason, after all.

The eliptico cot creaks and the foam bounces back as you lift yourself from the bed and stretch. The concrete is cool on your feet. The small room is still a cold seventy degrees from the winter night so you are rushing to slide on a pair of pajama pants when you hear a knock on the door. You check your cracked cellphone to find it is only 6:00 a.m. You hear the knock again.

Do you answer the door?

Yes (click here)
No (click here)

CYOA 1a

2008-09-30T13:00:00.000-07:00

You mumble obscenities under your breath for the continual pounding your poor tin door is taking. The continual clanging of the courtyard door is a hornet in the boot of your morning so you stumble out of the two-room house and stare wearily over the tin door.

"good day, sir" (translated for your viewing pleasure) a small boy says as his face widens in a smile. he laughs at your bed-head and obvious 'white'-person-weirdness. "how goes it?"

"fine. how's it with you?" Your murmur of a reply.

"good. i came to ask if you have a piece of chalk for me?" He extends his hand towards you, palm up.

"chalk?" Your reply only encourages the boy to ask again. This time, you notice the crusted dirt and scabs that obscure the coloring of his upturned hand. His shirt seems to be of the same order, followed by his pants and what you assume are some sort of self-repaired flipflops. The kid smiles again.

Do you give the kid a piece of chalk from inside?

Yes (click here)
No (click here)

CYOA 1b

2008-09-30T12:59:00.001-07:00

You have yet to make a noise or show any signs of life so you pretend to be sleeping. With any luck, they'll just go away. You wait a moment to see if there will be anymore tapping on the tin door of your courtyard. Silence, then a sudden pounding. The tin door is rattling in its wooden frame. You fear the entire mud-brick courtyard wall will collapse but you wait. It stops. You breath and sit down on the edge of the cot.

Your thoughts turn to breakfast. Do I want oatmeal or pancakes? You go through the list of ingredients in your head and realize it will be oatmeal. It was oatmeal yesterday and will be oatmeal tomorrow. At least the brown sugar is plentif... There comes a rush of banging and "sir, sir" (translated just for you) on your window shades above the bed. It rattles on for a minute but you are a deer in headlights. You dare not move or make a sound.

Five minutes pass in the cacophony of the window pounding. Then it stops and small footsteps are heard running off while a giggle traces their path. You cautiously slide open the shades and see a small boy racing to punch another smiling boy. They are both laughing.

So, oatmeal it is. You prepare the breakfast, eat it and immediately rinse out the disk, returning it to the top of the bookshelf beside all the other cooking utensils. Now that you are awake, you prepare warm water on the camp stove and pour it into a bucket then head outside.

In the small, walled area used for both a latrine and shower you strip down to nothing but flipflops. You bathe by using a small plastic cup that you dip into the bucket then pour over yourself. The contrast between the warm water and cool breeze gives you the shivers. You remember back to all the days through heat of the summer and fall when you thought you would never again get the shivers. You smile.

After finishing, you pick up the pair of pants that you have been wearing to class for the last week and put them on. You decide the old shirt has too many chalk stains so you sport for a new one. On the way out the door, you finish your ensemble with your schoolbag made from a rice sack that cost you twenty five cents in the market.

Your bike is waiting in the courtyard. You hop on it and suddenly remember your helmet. Do you go back inside to get it or head to school?

Just Go To School (click here)
Go Get Helmet (click here)

CYOA 1a-2a

2008-09-30T12:58:00.000-07:00

You heart breaks and you give the poor kid a piece of chalk that you've found inside. He jumps for joy and screams "chalk, chalk". Upon hearing this, twelve other children come running to your door ready with palms upwards and screaming "chalk, chalk". It becomes a chant. Before you know it, you've given away all of your chalk and still have children demanding a second piece. All of them are giggling. You look to see where their parents are for relief, you find none. Your door is mass of giggling children. You go back inside.

After a few minutes, the tide wanes and you breath easier. You look at your clock and realize you have to choose between breakfast or a bucket bath. You choose breakfast. Oatmeal is your only option so you prepare it in a hurry, eat it, then rush out the door, grabbing your rice sack on the way. Once outside your courtyard door, the children see you and start screaming again just as you remember your helmet.

Do you go back for your helmet?

Yes, then to school (click here)
No. Forget it. I'm fine without it (click here)

CYOA 1b-2a end

2008-09-30T12:57:00.001-07:00

You go to school and all is well. You teach and have a good day, such a good day that you think of heading to a nearby village to see your nearest neighbor. After biking the 22 k to visit your fellow Peace Corps Volunteer, you are seen by a passing Peace Corps administrator without your helmet. They subsequently take your bike, leaving you to walk home. You get home only to find a car waiting. It's white body with the PC emblem on the side sends shivers down your spine. It's the Safety and Security Officer. He's surrounded by villagers that are placing your belongings into the car.

Before you know it, you are on a plane home with a big Administratively Separated notice stamped on your forehead. Should have worn your helmet.

Fin

CYOA 1a-2b

2008-09-30T12:57:00.000-07:00

You give the child a sad shrug and tell him that you have no chalk by showing him your empty pockets. He kicks the ground then smiles before running off to hit a nearby boy. They both run down the path towards the primary school, giggling.

You slump back inside with a thought towards breakfast. You know it's only oatmeal on the shelf so you prepare it. It's warm and satisfying. You feel rotten about disappointing the kid so you skip your bath and sulk for a moment. Then you head back outside to watch the morning parade of small children walking themselves to school.

The boys hold each other's hands as they stare blankly at you. The girls avert their eyes directly from you but continue to look from the corner of them. They swing their clasped hands.

Stretching as he smiles, your neighbor appears from behind his small muddy wall and extends his hands with a "good morning". You exchange the salutations and ask each other about your sleep, health, family, school and life. All the replies are "good" and you notice that he didn't laugh at your use of the local language. It's a small victory worth savoring.

He then asks if you are going to school today as if it were perfectly natural for you to decide not to teach on any given day. You say that you'll be leaving shortly and you just wanted to say good morning.

Soon you're head to school with your rice sack full of teaching material and an awkward helmet flopping on your head. As you bike the kilometer to school, the students try to race you on their bikes. This morning, you go for it and laugh when you realize that you have the simple advantage of changing gears. They pedal and pedal as you casually glide. As you reach school, you're a bit worked up and they are exhausted. You laugh and say "to class, quickly" with a smile.

(click here)

CYOA 3

2008-09-30T12:56:00.000-07:00

At school, the kids swarm past you and rush into the open door. You look at the small, worn structure and it's four rooms, each with pushing children trying to enter. The image strikes you as playful, odd and sad all in the same moment. When the last of them squeezes by you, you make your entrance.

Immediately all the kids spring up in their chairs as if you were the president himself. Upon saying "good morning, class", they reply with an enthusiastic "good morning, sir". You tell them to be seated and they rush to sit down as if they have never had the privilege. You begin the class by writing the date on the chalkboard.

As you start your lesson, you hear a faint knock on the metal door of the room. You look over and two students are peaking around the doorway into the class. They are late and now have everyone's attention. You walk over and, after their salutations, ask them why they were not on time. They just stare. Their eyes are empty and glazed, looking past you. You wave your hand and they focus, looking at you. Again, you ask. They look at the floor and one replies "our bikes were broken". This is the standard excuse, unprovable and most likely untrue.

Do you punish the late students or just let them sit down so you can continue the class?

Punish them (click here)
Let them sit down (click here)

CYOA 3a

2008-09-30T12:55:00.000-07:00

Time for Major Payne. Where is the switch?! Well, actually you have more fun creatively making the students do math. After all, you are a math teacher. Thus, you have the little hoodlums in front of the class and ask them to solve problems in their head. The class enjoys the game that is secretly a review of yesterday's material. Each wrong answer brings a red face and a small laugh from the class. You encourage them with "good job" and "that was a good try" in order to keep the embarrassment from becoming psychological damage. Then you remind them that they can avoid the embarrassment altogether by coming to class on time.

The class is right on page with you and the lesson. You already have your material reviewed so you start into the new chapter. At times you notice that some of the eyes are glazing over. At these moments, you pull out your old trick of calling on nick-named students. The second you call on Bandito, Parrot, Bambi or Scarface, the class snaps back and laughs at the exotic use of 'english'. You ask them if they would like you to continue in english for the rest of the class. You get an enthusiastic "YES!" from everyone. After three sentences of explanation, you ask if anyone understands anything. They just shake their heads and laugh. You finish the lesson in french and participation continues on course.

At the end of the class, you are feeling energized for the day so you stay back and chat with some of the students. They ask typical questions; can i ride your bike, can i have your bike, can i have your helmet, can i have some money. Eventually, you decide to distract them with photos from home. They are thrilled.

You show them pictures of your family, significant other and your last vacation skiing. You explain to them that the temperature was below freezing on top of the mountain and they about faint. This is when you realize that half the students are wearing parkas while you remain in short sleeves. The temperature is a whooping 75 degrees (F).

Before too long, your fellow professors gather with the students and chat about the photos. They laugh at how you never seem to get cold but almost die in the heat of the summer. How strange you are indeed.You all talk some more and they compliment you on how far your french has come along. They follow the compliment with a remark on their desire to learn english and how hard they find it. You decide to make plans to meet every week to talk a bit in english and help them develop the skill. Their eyes widen and you smile. One of the professors asks you over for tea. After so much translation from french to english and back, you are exhausted.

Do you go anyway or head home and take a nap?

Go ahead. Tea is quick. (click here)
Get some sleep. Uff. (click here)

CYOA 3a-4a end

2008-09-30T12:54:00.000-07:00

Graciously, you accept the offer for tea. After all, to refuse would be impolite. Together, the professor and you head to his house just off school grounds. He prepares the tea that is strong and tastes like an adventure. You suddenly remember that not everyone is in Africa, speaking a new language and hanging out with the locals in a small village. The world is suddenly surreal and you find that you are having the time of your life laughing and joking with your colleague. You range all over different topics from the welcomed appearance of some vegetables in the market to the inauguration of President Obama. You swell with pride for your homeland and for your connection to this new soil. The tea is soon gone. You depart with a blessing and an amen.

At home, you prepare your version of mexican food. You make a note to give some of the extra tortillas to your director. He loved them last time. Though, you do decide to keep the hand, tree and star shaped tortillas for yourself.

While reading in the evening, you receive a knock on the tin door. You open it to find a horde of kids waiting to come in. You go an flip on the external light, the only external light in this part of the non-electrified village (thanks to the last volunteer giving you a solar panel). You sprawl out the mats and help the kids until late in the night. The conversation runs through math, english, history and random cultural questions. You explain the idea behind constellations and why you have decided to grow out your hair. They show disbelief when you talk about the men that went to the moon. You ask them how far they have gone and they average around 15 k away. Somewhere in the conversation, you even put in a few inspirational stories about people that lifted themselves out of difficult situations. Their laughter and chatter still echo into the night as they head home around midnight.

In the closing of your day, you find yourself in an odd place of satisfaction. When you try to write the accomplishments of the day in your journal, you are empty of words but not of substance. You aren't saving the world like you thought but it is saving you. You close your eyes to one thought: "i'll never have to say that i should have..."

fin

CYOA 3b

2008-09-30T12:53:00.001-07:00

Maybe this time their excuse was valid so you say they can sit down. They practically jump for joy and even give their fellow students playful nudges as they sit. Soon you discover the entire class is whispering and chatting with each other. You tell them to settle down but nobody is listening. You raise your voice with a "silence!" yet they continue on. Finally, you say the magic words "minus one for everyone". The class is quiet for a moment. Then erupts in argument.

"But, mister that isn't fair"
"Sir, we weren't talking" (though they were)
"No, sir. You can't do that"
"Why, sir? Why?"
"Please, sir. Please"

The pleas and arguments continue on and on, louder than the original chatter. You are lost as to what to do next. So, you tell them class is finished and there will be a test tomorrow on the material you were suppose to cover. All the students are quiet and still. You go back to teaching your lesson even though half of the class time is already gone. You get only about a third of the way through the material because every question revolves are the test that is supposedly tomorrow, even though you've long since explained that it won't be since the class is better behaved.

After class, you are exhausted so you only say "hi" to the other professors and go home to cook dinner and relax. While you wait for the beans to boil on the small stove, you are so worn that you drift to sleep. When you wake your small hut is an inferno which you barely escape. Due to complications from the inhaled smoke, you develop respiratory issues and the PCMO medically separates you from the PC. Soon you are on a plane home with nothing more than a bad cough.

Fin

CYOA 3a-4b end

2008-09-30T12:53:00.000-07:00

You decide to go home and get some sleep. You politely refuse and see the disappointment in his eyes. You tell him that you would love to next time but you have had a long day and need a rest. Everyone wishes you a good afternoon and heads their separate ways.

At home, you prepare a few tortillas, rice and beans on your camp stove. Shortly after, you doze off in the warm afternoon. The next thing you know, someone is banging on your tin door. You rise, notice it is night time and go to open the door.

Standing there is the president of the local parent's association with the school. He asks you if all is well and you say it is going fine. He tells you that he is concerned because he thinks something bad happened between you and one of the professors. You are shocked. Everything went so well today. You tell this to your visitor. He replies that you had told a fellow professor that you did not want to have tea with him. He asks you what he can do to heal the divide between you and the professor. You laugh internally at the simple disconnect in cultures and explain that you really like the professor but have been a little under the weather. Immediately, your visitor nods his head and wishes you the best of health. You step back inside, a little dazed.

The rest of your evening is uneventful. Nobody else stops by so you finish another book you took from the Transit House before bed. The next morning you head back to work to continual greetings of "the best of health to you."

Fin