Back in the Classroom

Although the school year officially started back in mid-October, it takes a while for things to get going around here.  Children drag their feet about  going back to classes and parents don’t always push them in this direction as it’s difficult to come up with inscription fees and, truth be told, some kids are considered more useful at home.  When things finally do pick up, they are then interrupted by the Muslim and Christian holidays in November and December.  So, in a normal year, the curriculum doesn't really begin to stabilize until January.  This year, however, in addition to the political strife we’ve seen (and maybe even because of it), we’ve had a series of strikes by teacher who are demanding higher pay.  These began in mid-January and just ended last week.  For over a month, public schools have not been functioning.  First, the teachers began a strike and did not show up for class, then the students went on a solidarity strike, and more recently, the teachers have been holding classes for just the first hour and then releasing the kids for the remainder of the school day.

After the initial “snow day” reactions of not having to go to classes wore off, the kids in my neighborhood started their own study groups in the classroom in our compound.  That was nice to see.  Anna, the French volunteer who lived with us for the past few months, tutored a group of young girls in French every morning, and I took on a student who needed help in English.  As the strikes continued, there was talk of having an “Année Blanche” (white year), which meant that school would officially be closed and kids would have to begin again in the same grade next year.  No one was happy about that possibility.  Thankfully, some agreement was made late last week and the kids returned to school full-time this morning.

The school where I teach wasn’t affected by the strikes because it’s run by the Department of Justice, rather than the Department of Education.   Why, you ask?  Well, it’s a technical high school and there’s a portion of students who are sent to live there by courts to learn a trade.   Others are there on their own accord, or because they just don’t fit into the regular school system (think, alternative high school).  Maybe I should re-watch that Michelle Pfieffer movie, “Dangerous Minds”, for some tips and pointers?  Anyway, this is where I’m teaching my Junior Achievement “Mini-Entreprise” class.  So far, it’s going fairly well.  I have 36 students from three technical sectors:  home economics, electricity, and metalworking.  I also have 4 teachers helping me out, so that’s helped with keeping the class in order and with much-needed translation.  There are 10 sessions in this course that covers the creation of a small company.  The kids elect a president and a secretary and form a board of directors.  They choose a product or service for their company and learn how to conduct proper meetings, deal with human resource issues, conduct a market study, understand costing/pricing, and develop a logo, among other things.

As I blogged about last year, teaching in the developing world is rife with challenges. The classroom is an empty, dusty room, with only a wooden chalk board and simple two-seater desks.  The first thing I did when starting this course is rearrange the desks so that the students would be sitting in groups.  This was a new concept for them, but they’ve embraced it and have been fairly good about working together in teams.  You cannot assume that kids will show up to class with pen and paper, and, I was surprised to discover, this holds true for the teachers who are helping me, as well.  Textbooks are a rarity, so it's a special treat for these kids to get the ones for this course that were supplied by Junior Achievement.  The pace of class is slow, for many reasons.  One reason is that getting the kids to show up on time is like pulling teeth.  Even the teachers who are working with me are hesitant to round up the students who are often milling about outside the classroom 20 minutes after the scheduled class start time.  Another reason is that everything I say in French, has to be translated and repeated in Wolof by one of the other teachers.  Also, kids are very deliberate about copying everything down, and they take great pride in their handwriting, so even passing around an attendance sheet can take up the first 15 minutes of class time.  One of the requirements of the program is that I submit a report with each kid's name, birth date, place of birth, and signature in order for their certificates to be created.  Sounds simple enough, but it's not.  25% of my class did not know where or when they were born.  The same held true in the Junior Achievement class I'm holding with a group of younger kids, but the numbers there were even higher, over 60% of the elementary school-aged kids did not know this information.  You can rest assured that nobody will be bringing in cupcakes for the class on their birthday.

A stark classroom

Working in groups

Teamwork

Visiting American grad students who
visited my class last week.

As I just mentioned, I've also been able to involve the kids in our Eco-Ecole in the Junior Achievement program.  These are the kids who meet at our compound every Saturday morning and who I've been working with on the paper briquette project.  Junior Achievement has developed a shorter program for elementary school-aged kids that runs for just 5 sessions and focuses on the concept of Community Economics.  In this course, we focus on the roles people play in the community, how the government and the private sector interact, and how money flows through a community.  Some of the classroom behaviors that I've noticed in my high school class are present with this group, as well, and there are some other interesting similarities.  Because we do a lot of group work, the groups are often competing with one another in activities.  I come prepared with candy prizes for the winning teams.  Last week, I witnessed an interesting phenomena in both of my classes.  The winning teams not only shared their winnings with each other, but then shared them with the rest of the class as well.  This was more easily accomplished in my high school class, as I gave the winning team a box of Nerds.  They passed it around so that everyone got at least a couple little pieces.  In the Eco-Ecole group, I gave each person on the winning team an individually wrapped Life-Saver.  I stood in awe, as they opened the cellophane wrappers and then bit each Life-Saver into several smaller pieces so they could share them with the kids on the other teams.  Forget the striking and cupcakes, now THAT'S solidarity!

This kids in this 12 second video are saying "Madamadamada.... (or Madame, Madame, Madame).  

The alternative is Meshurmeshurmeshur...(or Monsieur, Monsieur, Monsieur).  

This practice (and the snapping of fingers) is common in classrooms when kids want to be called upon.  

To me, it conjures up images of baby birds in a nest waiting to be fed.

P.S. - Check out the my recently updated Spare Time page to see the results of my latest crafting-craze.

My Mega Month

What a whirlwind the past month has been.  After spending a lovely Christmas at the beach with a group of friends, I came back to site and started preparing for a busy month.  Since then, I’ve been on-the-go and changing direction almost every day.  It seems that all of my project work has converged at once over the past few weeks.  I won’t bore you with blow-by-blow details, but here are some of my January highlights:

• Held a T-shirt making class with my Girls Club (shout outs to my mom and sister for the supplies)
• Led another round of Safe Zone Training, this time for Volunteers during their in-service training
• Participated in a 2-day Junior Achievement preparatory training session (this is a worldwide program that “empowers young people to own their economic success”---see http://www.ja.org/ for the US version.)  I’ll be teaching both the high school and elementary school levels of JA classes this year.
• Attended a 2-day Small Enterprise Development Summit which included sessions on Handicrafts management and Agribusiness, as well as field trips to an Eco-Village, a Food Technology Institute, and a small business administration office in Dakar.
• Helped coordinate a day-long SeneGAD (Gender & Development) Summit which included talks on HIV/AIDS, working with kids through sports, and presentations from GAD groups visiting from Mali, Guinea, and The Gambia. Also, attended my last SeneGAD Board Meeting and turned over my Communications Coordinator position to two new gals who will now share the title.
• Participated in two Work Zone Coordinator Meetings to discuss the management of information and project coordination for volunteers in my sub-region.
• Attended a 2-day All Volunteer Conference where I:
• participated on a Diversity Panel sharing my experiences being a “Female Volunteer in Senegal” (more specifically, sharing the story of how the police treated me after I was mugged last year);
• presented a case study on the Gardens of Moringa training I organized with  my friend Andrew last month;
• demonstrated my Paper Briquette Press during an Appropriate Technology Fair
•  attended an assortment of interesting sessions on an environmental education club, a school correspondence program, and a beekeeping association in Guinea.
• Played in the West African Invitational Softball Tournament (affectionately known as WAIST) where Peace Corps regional teams play those from the Marine Corps, the Embassy, USAID, and a number of other ex-pat groups.  By tradition, the Peace Corps teams wear themed costumes which makes it a lot of fun for us. The other teams don’t which makes it less fun for them.
• Met with the founder of Swahili Imports (http://swahili-imports.com/), a small African arts and handicrafts importer from the lovely Eugene, Oregon, to learn more about the import/export process.  To my delight, not only did I learn a lot, but she was interested in some of Mamadou’s work, so I sent her home with a couple of his wooden plates to show her team.  She’ll be back in a couple of months and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that she’ll place an order.
• Welcomed Jerry McGahan, a beekeeper from Montana, who came to Senegal on a Farmer-to-Farmer grant funded by USAID.  Together, we:
• met with the president of the Senegalese beekeeping union and with regional representatives of a  Senegalese NGO organization who are working on a localized honey consolidation project;
• visited with several beekeepers in the Thiès and Fatick regions and inspected their hives;
• visited with potential beekeepers in the Diourbel region and advised them on how to get started;
• taught young school kids about the importance of pollination and how bees fit into this process;
• coordinated a craft project with my Girls Club making and decorating bee sculptures;
• worked on a training presentation that I will later give to Peace Corps Volunteers interested in supporting beekeepers in their regions.
• Held my first Junior Achievement class with 35 students and 5 teacher assistants at the local technical high school.
• Coordinated an Eco-Ecole exposition for a delegation of visiting Scout leaders from Finland and Senegal.

Whew!  ALL of that took place over a three week period. I’m exhausted.  Maybe I should just submit this blog entry as my resume when I return to the states.  "If I'm capable of accomplishing that much in just three weeks (in a foreign language), just think what I can do for you!"


Sunday was my first down day since early January.  There was nothing on my calendar and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.  I made a big pot of vegetable barley soup, started a new knitting project, and lost myself in Pinterst for a couple of hours.  It was just what I needed.

Here are some snapshots of events from the last month.

Newly painted t-shirts!

A rockin' solar powered water pump at an Eco-Village

This light and gas stove are fueled by a methane gas
tank which is fueled by this couple's sheep and cows--so cool!

A pedal-powered machine at the food technology institute

Making paper pulp to show the briquette press
at the Appropriate Technology Fair

Panel discussion on Diversity

Les Francais aka Les Dakarois
(Yes, I'm the Eiffel Tower in the middle)

The lovely ladies who replaced me as SeneGAD Communications Coordinator;
yes, it takes two to fill my shoes ;-)

Abdou Seck's honey stand

The Three Amigos - Me, Abdou, and Jerry in Bandia

Meeting up with some more beekeepers down in the delta region

Inspecting hives in the mangroves

Busy little bees.  Aren't they pretty?

Jerry consulting about honey extraction

Mamadou's hopes of selling his products in the U.S.
just may come to fruition.

Beekeeping lesson at our Eco-Ecole

Making bee sculptures with my Girls Club

Soudou and Ibou planning out a future training garden and apiary.

Now that this crazy month has come to an end, it's got me thinking about how I reacted to it.  One of the benefits of living out in the middle of nowhere on my own is that my experiences often shines a light on my idiosyncrasies.  In my little bubble, it's hard not to notice slight behavior changes and quirks. Lately, because I've had too many things on my plate, my office has become littered with piles of project paperwork and supplies and the bags from my last couple of trips still lay unpacked on my bedroom floor.  Thinking back on my life at home, this rang true there, as well.  The busier and more stressed my work life became the more out of control my living space got and the weaker my coping skills became.  Take for example the mouse that recently died in my office. For days, I smelled it, knew it was there, but couldn't deal with digging through the piles of stuff in my office to find it.  Instead, I lit incense and said I'd get to it later.  This is not just laziness, this is not being able to take on one more thing.  My body also tends to shut down when I'm overloaded.  During the midst of this busy period I had to decide whether or not to make an unplanned trip to Dakar to deal with an inner ear problem I was having.  Making the trip meant cancelling some project plans and inconveniencing other people, so I opted not to go. Luckily, with lots of fluids and decongestants the the problem cleared up on its own.


These glimpses into my personality are a good reminder for me to pay attention to them.  My reactions to stress may not change much, but I can probably do a better job of recognizing the signs and using them as a reminder to stop and take a time-out every once in a while.  Ibou and his friends often comment to me that I work too much.  I used to think that my work habits were just exaggerated in contrast to the many rest periods and breaks they take throughout the day, but maybe there's something more innate to it.  I have to remember that there's nothing wrong with closing the laptop, putting down the reference book, and doing something completely recreational for a bit.  This weekend's date with my knitting needles and soup pot were a good reminder of that.  Self-reflection; it's a good thing.


If you're interested in seeing more recent photos, I've added a few new ones to the Photos tab (see tab at top of blog page).  The most recent ones are Christmas in Popenguine v2.011 and  Highlights from WAIST 2012.  I also added some new photos to the albums entitled: Keur Cheikh Girls Club , Skype Snapshots, and the Tangibly Marking the Passage of Time.

P.S. - I did finally look high and low for the dead mouse and, although I didn't find it (I fear it's in the wall, but thankfully, the smell has faded), this new one was waiting for me under my desk the next time I entered my office.  A sacrificial lamb, of sorts.

Thanks for sending the d-CON, Mom.