I've been telling anyone willing to listen, and those not willing to do so - about the weather in Guinea. Because last week, Guinea became by far the hottest place I've ever been in.How hot was it??? 119 DEGREES! or, if you're of the celcius variety, about 48 DEGREES!!!! This is torture - it wasn't so bad up until a week ago - sure, the days were getting hot, but at least the nights were still tolerable and I didn't wake up drenched in sweat. Nope, not anymore - two out the past three nights have been absolute scorchers. I need to figure out some sort of different sleeping arrangement - maybe set up my mosquito net in my porch? The problem then is that I'll be exposed to all the mice/spiders/insects that live with me. Ugh - the rains need to get here. (Of course, then it will just be HOT and HUMID). Air conditioning just needs to get here.
Anyway - things are going well - no new news on the strike front - apparently the 31st of March is just the day for a report to come out on the progress of guinea since the strikes of 2007. It may be that at some point after that strikes are announced, but I feel a little better and am much less worried that any such strikes would disrupt my spring break plans/COS conference.
School is going well - though half my students continue to annoy me. My 12th grade students are generally quite great. My terminale students, well, teaching them is like teaching a brick wall. ANd I told em so. They werent' too pleased by that, but I wasn't at all pleased with the way their studies have been going. I just don't understand why, teaching the exact same material, my 12th grade students just seem to comprehend SO MUCH MORE! I mean - these terminale kids - getting them to answer is like puling teeth!
My English Club however is going well - and that is largely what keeps me sane. Most recently, we made spaghetti and garlic bread for the 18 kids who come to the club. I wanted to show them there is more to food than rice and sauce! (Though, admittedly, spaghetti is just another starch and sauce.) The kids were impressed that I knew how to cook - and I impressed myself by being able to cook spaghetti for nearly 20 people on the school yard over some coal.
Well - currently that's about all that's going on. I'm headed to Timbi Madina next week to visit Jen - it's our spring break. Then its on to COS (Close of Service) conference in Conakry, to find out what the plans for the next year are going to be! Will Cam and Jen get third year positions in Guinea until May 2009? Will we be making an appearance in the US in September of this year? Will a possible strike send us packing even before then? Stay tuned to find out.
Also - once I get to conakry, I am going to post a picture of me frying an egg on the sidewalk - I'm convinced that in this heat it can be done - I'm going to try it tomorrow. Till then, oo'o.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Friday, March 21, 2008
A less alarmist entry
So after posting my last entry, I decided I should try and find out some news about Guinea, and the upcoming strike, and these declarations I had heard from Guineans about a rice shortage...and it turns out that there were really no news. Not that that means the situation is any better, but it did calm my nerves to hear that its not a wave of bad news that's coming out about a possible strike in Guinea...there's just no news coming out. So, as always, it'll just be wait and see.
So, if the strikes don't happen, or if they proceed clamly, then there's actually lots of stuff going on for me. Jen and I are planning a Girls Conference for June (pending budget proposal approval). Its s a nationwide conference for volunteers and an middle/high school age girl from each village in which topics as varied as HIV/AIDS, business techniques, environmental protection, and education are discussed in an effort to inspire the girls to continue with their education and help start projects in their towns and villages.
Also - the end of my service may or may not be coming up. Jen and I are really hoping to get a third year position here in Guinea - but we want to be able to work with organizations in the same city. It sounds like the Peace Corps is scoping out some options for us...if they find em, great! If not, then we'll likely be staying here till Septermber to help with training, and then moving back to DC to get jobs and go back to school. We'll see what ends up happening. But at any rate, my internet time is almost up, so I've got to get going...oo'o.
So, if the strikes don't happen, or if they proceed clamly, then there's actually lots of stuff going on for me. Jen and I are planning a Girls Conference for June (pending budget proposal approval). Its s a nationwide conference for volunteers and an middle/high school age girl from each village in which topics as varied as HIV/AIDS, business techniques, environmental protection, and education are discussed in an effort to inspire the girls to continue with their education and help start projects in their towns and villages.
Also - the end of my service may or may not be coming up. Jen and I are really hoping to get a third year position here in Guinea - but we want to be able to work with organizations in the same city. It sounds like the Peace Corps is scoping out some options for us...if they find em, great! If not, then we'll likely be staying here till Septermber to help with training, and then moving back to DC to get jobs and go back to school. We'll see what ends up happening. But at any rate, my internet time is almost up, so I've got to get going...oo'o.
Trouble's a Brewin'
Well – I'm officially starting to get a little worried. Back in January, from the comfort of our Cairo Marriot hotel room, March 31st, the date to which the strikes had been moved back, seemed so distant. Back in January, I felt quite confident that I'd be able to finally finish my Peace Corps service – with no evacuations or anything to interrupt it. I'm just not so sure any more. This past week, I've been hearing much more talk of a strike than I had been hearing even the two weeks prior. I suppose that makes perfect sense – the closer we get to the March 31st deadline for union demands to be met, the more that the strike will come up in conversation. But up until this week, I hadn't really thought that Guineans would necessarily go out in force, as they did a little over a year ago, and demand a change at (almost) any cost. What I hear on the street and from my students is still the same as a couple months ago: a strike is only going to hurt our studies, we don't want a strike, the strike last year didn't accomplish much, a strike is only going to set us back. And yet, despite the fact I hear Guineans talk like this, I'm becoming increasingly worried that when the strike gets going, all this anti-strike talk will go out the window and violence will break out on the streets again.
By almost any measure, most Guineans are not getting a fair deal. Unfortunately, some of the things which I most worry will get getting tempers flaring during a strike are things which even a serious strike couldn't possibly fix, namely, the price of rice and the price of gas. Both oil and agricultural commodities are reaching record prices in world markets. Here in Guinea, some of the biggest issues of contention have been price caps on gas and rice, so that the average Guinean, whose income does not rise steadily with the rise in food and gas prices, can afford to feed his family (and many prices also largely depend on transport costs – hence part of the gas problem). Unfortunately, keeping food and gas prices artificially low through some sort of subsidies or other government intervention is not a sustainable policy. Nor is it a policy that government (and not just the Guinean government, but all governments) should implement. Yes, government subsidies of many commodities abound, even in our beloved USA. But in the US, there's plenty of wiggle room with government funds – subsidizing corn farmers in Iowa is largely not going to affect the funds that go toward building highways and keeping schools running; I'm just not sure that type of wiggle room exists in budgets over here. So the price of food and gas keeps rising all over the world, which means it HAS to eventually also go up in Guinea and unfortunately it looks like these prices hikes are going to coincide with the strikes. I'm just not confident that the combination of anger about the current situation and a hike in prices will lead to a happy ending. But we'll see...maybe I'm just entering panic mode since we already evacuated once last year. The new group of PCVs that swore in last month don't even seem to have mentioned it yet or be worried about it – so maybe I'm just over reacting. I just really hope the next time I update my blog it is not from the dining hall in a Peace Corps training center in Mali.
PS. If you know economics, and you understand this whole economics thing better than I do...please, correct me if I'm wrong...I can promise you that you are smarter than me when it comes to economics
Monday, March 10, 2008
Chaos (and devils??) at my school.
So this past week I had one of the craziest days in a Guinean classroom. No, it was THE craziest day in a Guinean classroom.
Last Wednesday, class had started off normally enough, when I showed up at 10 to teach my kids until 2 pm. After the 10:15 bell sounded (calling it a bell is giving my school too much credit, it's actually an old hubcap that they hit with a stick), I began my class on the simple past in English. The latecomers were still trickling in at 10:25 when I noticed a girl was laying down on the seat of her desk, an uncomfortable wooden thing made to sit two students side by side. At first, I let it go. This was a student who didn't participate much in class and didn't receive any sort of good grades, so I figured at least that she would also not contribute to any class disruptions if she just left. I did find it odd that she had her head down on the seat and not the desk, but I continued with my teaching. A couple minutes later, I decided to ask the girl if everything was ok while my students copied some texts from the board. She didn't reply. I asked her a few times, and each time my questions were met with silence. Finally, I told one of my students to check on the girl to see if she was ok.
When he tried to ask her, she didn't respond. He then tried to lift her head up, but she forced it down onto the desk. He tried to lift her up, but she kept going limp or struggling against him. He finally used all his force to lift the female student, and she didn't try to resist. Instead, she began to moan, scream, and cry and shake in her seat. I instantly became quite worried - I had no idea if she was having some sort of epileptic seizure (I don't even know if that's a correct term) or some other health problem. I handed a student 200 francs (about4 US cents) and told him to run and get some water for her. Of course, at this point, my 65 students were all quite anxious to see the drama that was unfolding in the front of the class and stood up from their seats, rushing to the front of the class to get a glimpse. Meanwhile, by the second, my female student's cries were becoming louder, and in addition to the wailing and screaming, she also began shaking and writhing even more violently , and striking out against anyone in her area. I ordered my students to sit down, and even had to push some of them away from the girl, and told another student to run and get my vice-principal. By the time he arrived a few seconds later, the girl was out of control, letting out piercing screams and resisting the students who were trying to grab her to carry her outside. He told my student to take her to his office, and it took about 6 of my male students to restrain the girl, lift her up, and carry her across the courtyard to the office.
Of course, my students could not resist not seeing the action, and half of them followed the group of guys carrying the girl outside the door. I ran outside and grabbed students by the shirt, arms, and anything else I could get my hands on. It took me a few minutes, but I eventually regained control of my class, quite worried that my student had just had some serious health issue. I returned to teaching, and was five minutes into the lesson, when i see another girl with her head down. At first, I rolled my eyes, and said, oh, now what?? But the girl wouldn't look up even when i told her to stand up and answer a question. Again, a student goes to check on her, lifts up her head, and she begins sobbing and crying with tears streaming down her face. Well, she must be quite upset about her friend's little crisis, I thought to myself. But then, the same scene begins to unfold itself with the shaking, the screaming, and the group of students carrying her out of my classroom. At this point, I new something odd was going on. I regain (once again!) control of my classroom, and resume teaching.
Within 3 minutes, however, I hear screams coming from a neighboring classroom. Then another. And another. And another.
Some sort of mass hysteria had apparently consumed my school, with 7 female students going somewhat crazy over the course of 15 minutes.
"It's the devils, mister, it's the devils!" my students told me. "We can't stay in class, the devils are here," they announced. I asked the students to raise their hands if they were scared of the devils. Four or five did. I told them to go ahead and go home if they were scared, I was going to continue teaching, even after my vice principal entered to tell me that he was cancelling school at 10:45 for the rest of the day.
"I don't care if there are one thousand devils in this room," I told my students, "They are going to learn the simple past in English today and so are you." I managed to keep them in the classroom an extra hour and a half after eveybody had gone home.
I never did find out what caused the craziness that day. Maybe it was Guinean devils (ha!), or maybe it was some girls who wanted to get out of class and get plenty of attention along the way. But either way, the day provided me with one day of teaching that I'm not going to soon forget.
Last Wednesday, class had started off normally enough, when I showed up at 10 to teach my kids until 2 pm. After the 10:15 bell sounded (calling it a bell is giving my school too much credit, it's actually an old hubcap that they hit with a stick), I began my class on the simple past in English. The latecomers were still trickling in at 10:25 when I noticed a girl was laying down on the seat of her desk, an uncomfortable wooden thing made to sit two students side by side. At first, I let it go. This was a student who didn't participate much in class and didn't receive any sort of good grades, so I figured at least that she would also not contribute to any class disruptions if she just left. I did find it odd that she had her head down on the seat and not the desk, but I continued with my teaching. A couple minutes later, I decided to ask the girl if everything was ok while my students copied some texts from the board. She didn't reply. I asked her a few times, and each time my questions were met with silence. Finally, I told one of my students to check on the girl to see if she was ok.
When he tried to ask her, she didn't respond. He then tried to lift her head up, but she forced it down onto the desk. He tried to lift her up, but she kept going limp or struggling against him. He finally used all his force to lift the female student, and she didn't try to resist. Instead, she began to moan, scream, and cry and shake in her seat. I instantly became quite worried - I had no idea if she was having some sort of epileptic seizure (I don't even know if that's a correct term) or some other health problem. I handed a student 200 francs (about4 US cents) and told him to run and get some water for her. Of course, at this point, my 65 students were all quite anxious to see the drama that was unfolding in the front of the class and stood up from their seats, rushing to the front of the class to get a glimpse. Meanwhile, by the second, my female student's cries were becoming louder, and in addition to the wailing and screaming, she also began shaking and writhing even more violently , and striking out against anyone in her area. I ordered my students to sit down, and even had to push some of them away from the girl, and told another student to run and get my vice-principal. By the time he arrived a few seconds later, the girl was out of control, letting out piercing screams and resisting the students who were trying to grab her to carry her outside. He told my student to take her to his office, and it took about 6 of my male students to restrain the girl, lift her up, and carry her across the courtyard to the office.
Of course, my students could not resist not seeing the action, and half of them followed the group of guys carrying the girl outside the door. I ran outside and grabbed students by the shirt, arms, and anything else I could get my hands on. It took me a few minutes, but I eventually regained control of my class, quite worried that my student had just had some serious health issue. I returned to teaching, and was five minutes into the lesson, when i see another girl with her head down. At first, I rolled my eyes, and said, oh, now what?? But the girl wouldn't look up even when i told her to stand up and answer a question. Again, a student goes to check on her, lifts up her head, and she begins sobbing and crying with tears streaming down her face. Well, she must be quite upset about her friend's little crisis, I thought to myself. But then, the same scene begins to unfold itself with the shaking, the screaming, and the group of students carrying her out of my classroom. At this point, I new something odd was going on. I regain (once again!) control of my classroom, and resume teaching.
Within 3 minutes, however, I hear screams coming from a neighboring classroom. Then another. And another. And another.
Some sort of mass hysteria had apparently consumed my school, with 7 female students going somewhat crazy over the course of 15 minutes.
"It's the devils, mister, it's the devils!" my students told me. "We can't stay in class, the devils are here," they announced. I asked the students to raise their hands if they were scared of the devils. Four or five did. I told them to go ahead and go home if they were scared, I was going to continue teaching, even after my vice principal entered to tell me that he was cancelling school at 10:45 for the rest of the day.
"I don't care if there are one thousand devils in this room," I told my students, "They are going to learn the simple past in English today and so are you." I managed to keep them in the classroom an extra hour and a half after eveybody had gone home.
I never did find out what caused the craziness that day. Maybe it was Guinean devils (ha!), or maybe it was some girls who wanted to get out of class and get plenty of attention along the way. But either way, the day provided me with one day of teaching that I'm not going to soon forget.
A missing post - it was on a USB key but I was never able to post it
Well, the new group of volunteers have finally made it to Boke! I’ll have 8 new neighbors (two are a little far away). I guess, really, all but two are far away by any standard…but in Guinea, a PCV located 55 kilometers from you is a neighbor. I have a couple, Mary and Dan, who will live in Boke, and the rest of the volunteers are each about 25-50 km away.
Otherwise, all is going well in Boke. I settled back into my house nicely following the Egypt trip. I learned my lesson from the last time I left my house for more than three days, and DID NOT close my windows this time. You see, when I leave, and close my windows, EVERYTHING begins to grow mold. Last time I left my windows closed, I was wiping mold off of computer cables, my watch, my pillow, and even had to throw out a box of moldy macaroni. And that was only after 5 days of being gone! So I left my windows open during my two and a half week absence, and when I returned, found no mold on anything, just a nice red layer of dust on EVERYTHING. Apparently, the tradeoff for not having mold is just having a lot of dust come in through the windows. Still, wiping dust off of things is much easier to do, and at least you don’t come back to a moldy bed.
Anyway – getting readjusted to life at site again after two weeks of luxury in Egypt was a rather smooth process. Of course, it was helped by the abundance of food that I brought back from Egypt and had received in a number of packages. Trail mix with real M&Ms and real raisins helps you forget about that ridiculously uncomfortable straw mattress and the roosters crowing at the crack of dawn.
School is going well – my students retained much more that I thought they would over the end of year break. Well – some of them did. It’s quite interesting to me that my 12eme students retain (and initially understand) the subject matter so much more than my terminale students. I don’t really know what that is owed to – I mean, I use the exact same lesson plans…and the classes are practically the same size. If anything, my terminale SM class is my smallest one, and they don’t remember ANYTHING half the time. Thank God for my 12eme students.
Next week begin the compositions (midterm exams). That will be the big test to see how much they have learned. Then again, I think I may make the exam impossibly. Since I won’t be able to sit in on my own test for half my students (they are scheduled for the same time), it is a foregone conclusion that cheating will be rampant. We’ll see how it goes.
Otherwise, all is going well in Boke. I settled back into my house nicely following the Egypt trip. I learned my lesson from the last time I left my house for more than three days, and DID NOT close my windows this time. You see, when I leave, and close my windows, EVERYTHING begins to grow mold. Last time I left my windows closed, I was wiping mold off of computer cables, my watch, my pillow, and even had to throw out a box of moldy macaroni. And that was only after 5 days of being gone! So I left my windows open during my two and a half week absence, and when I returned, found no mold on anything, just a nice red layer of dust on EVERYTHING. Apparently, the tradeoff for not having mold is just having a lot of dust come in through the windows. Still, wiping dust off of things is much easier to do, and at least you don’t come back to a moldy bed.
Anyway – getting readjusted to life at site again after two weeks of luxury in Egypt was a rather smooth process. Of course, it was helped by the abundance of food that I brought back from Egypt and had received in a number of packages. Trail mix with real M&Ms and real raisins helps you forget about that ridiculously uncomfortable straw mattress and the roosters crowing at the crack of dawn.
School is going well – my students retained much more that I thought they would over the end of year break. Well – some of them did. It’s quite interesting to me that my 12eme students retain (and initially understand) the subject matter so much more than my terminale students. I don’t really know what that is owed to – I mean, I use the exact same lesson plans…and the classes are practically the same size. If anything, my terminale SM class is my smallest one, and they don’t remember ANYTHING half the time. Thank God for my 12eme students.
Next week begin the compositions (midterm exams). That will be the big test to see how much they have learned. Then again, I think I may make the exam impossibly. Since I won’t be able to sit in on my own test for half my students (they are scheduled for the same time), it is a foregone conclusion that cheating will be rampant. We’ll see how it goes.
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