Update, update, update from Bonnie

Once again everyone,

It has been so long since I have written. Here are a few highlights of the past couple of months.

Fasting is like running a marathon?
So yes, I felt a bit homesick the first week after I got back from visiting friends and family in the USA. But couple weeks of back at site, back with my other “family” made it all better. I only caught about 6 days of Ramadan at site, and then it ended. I fasted all 6 days and was getting more and more used to it, ready to do more. I equate fasting from getting up in the morning to sundown to running a marathon (though the most I have done is a half marathon, but have heard much talk about it). Around 4pm in the afternoon of a day of fast is probably like hitting 18 mile mark in the marathon, you really hit the wall, so hard to go on, so ready to give up. You are struggling so hard mentally. A lot of people came to the library to distract them from the unbearable thirst. Thirst, that was my problem. Luckily we hadn’t started school, so I didn’t have to go through talking for 4 hours and not being able to drink a single drop all day. The celebration at the end of Ramadan has always been my favorite holiday in the Muslim culture. It is really worth celebrating if you fasted for 30 days, only eating and drinking after sundown each day; give up all recreational activities for 30 days (I couldn’t even play music tapes at the library); not have sex for the month of Ramadan (although some people say that they can have sex after sundown, I can’t seem to find a consistent answer on that). I think it is a real achievement to fast for 30 days straight. Such a discipline builder.

School didn’t start until the Oct.22nd, partially because we wanted to wait till Ramadan is over. People are generally very grumpy when they are hungry and thirsty. One day I fasted in Conakry, I was about to past out at 4pm.

Vivre le changement! (Long live the reform!)
The new wind blowing out of ministry of education this year is cracking down on teachers. Teachers will be severely sanctioned if they don’t do their job well. So we’ve had many teachers’ meetings to get everyone to be very rigorous with the kids. We have to be their model to be on time and follow all the rules, and make sure the kids follow the rule. I am glad to see so far everyone has not slacked off, and I am not the only one who turns away students who are late. Though I am bit skeptical that this wind will remain strong at my school next year. Some students also like to choose what subject they like to attend (here everyone takes all the same subjects). Some will come to school in the morning but not go to their first period; instead they hang out in the bushes with their friends wait for the second period. Some students we would only see the day of semester final exam, so this year we are enforcing the - if someone has 25% or more of absence in a class, sorry, you can’t take the semester final exam. I am also bombing my students with lots of homework every single week, mostly out of their textbooks, forcing them to go pick up their textbooks and read them. Understand what they read, not just sounding out the words. If they can’t come to the library, I want them at least read some homework problems in a textbook, and learn to use the textbook to supplement the lessons I give. Of course, I suffer from having too much homework to grade, close to 200 paper to grade and comment a week, kind remind me of my engineering days checking shopping drawings (sorry to you non engineers), but it’s worth it.

Teaching, being a librarian, after class tutoring, yoga “instruction”, etc.
I crammed all my 14 hours of teaching this year in 3 days (M-W), 4 times a week in the afternoons I am at the library, when I am not teaching and not at the library, I am preparing for the lessons, grading homework (those damn homework), preparing for weekly English class for a small group of students, 2 math review sessions and holding them, plus occasionally transforming our library to a “yoga studio” to do yoga with my students, then I still have to make sure I do leave sometime to visit my students’ family (cos if you don’t they will get on your case), which has reduced drastically this year since I spent so much time at the library. So, my days are really full, but I am as usual enjoying it very much. The only downside is there are always so much things racing through in my head, but I seldom have time to reflect on how I am doing my job and trying to figure out some lessons learned.



The library is working out well. I have a handful of kids that come almost everyday, plus another random 5 kids, so daily we have about 5-10 visitors. Very encouraging. I think the fact that the air of reform is blowing in the country; and how few students passed their national exams last year really scared kids and they are trying to take studying more seriously. Also the fact that the library is something entirely new and foreign in their life helps also. Novelty.

I hold English class, math review sessions all in the library and encourage other teachers who want to review with their students to do so in the library as well, the more students are exposed to the library the better. I’ve noticed that my 7th and 8th graders come a lot more then 9th and 10th, lot more boys come than girls also. But that is starting to change a little bit. Dieu merci.

Drama at school
The principal at my school continues to be an a*#^, but I am not someone who is afraid to say the truth to his face. Ever since he came to our village, which is about a few months after I started teaching here in 2005, he has always came up with many excuses so he doesn’t have to teach or even if he is scheduled, he teaches very little in a year, on the other hand he is very on it to push different things that students have to pay which are not useful and not required by the education ministry, all to make money for himself, plus passing undeserving students to the next grade as long as he receive money. Here, it is very common for a principal to teach because we have such shortage of teachers. So, this year he has unfortunately hurt a small part on his foot and came back to school late. No, he can’t play soccer, but he can definitely get to school on his motorcycle and walk slowly to the classrooms, have a student copy the lesson on the blackboard and he explains it while sitting in a chair. We the teachers collective made a schedule so the principle teaches geography which is his specialty to 7th, 8th and 9th grades at the beginning of the year. The principal didn’t object to it at first but I think he was waiting for us get tired of waiting and assign it to someone else. We weren’t going to let him off this year. Then one day he came to school, rearrange the teaching schedule, reassigned the French teacher for 8th grade to teach geography for all grades, and 8th grader do not have French classes at all. Not at all! Can you imagine that? Here every grade must have 8 hours of French lessons a week. As it is, the students are very weak in French. What will become of them if they don’t learn French for a whole year? Unbelievable! And he changed it without discussing it with the education director of the school, and just left a note to tell us to apply it. Luckily he is the only one, who thinks dictorship still can get by, the education director sent the modified schedule right back to the principle and said no, we can’t undermine the future of our kids like that. When I supported the education director, the principal cut me off half sentence and told me it wasn’t my business, he should really watch what and how he talks to me, I threw it right back to him, telling him that education of kids is everyone’s business, that’s too bad that I take it more seriously then a national. I still get angry every time when I recount this incident.


Library, always the library, part of the reason why I came back to Guinea…
I am also trying to groom a fellow teacher (he is young, unmarried, therefore less family stuff to worry about) to help me out at the library; slowly shift more responsibility to him. I’ve also written a long letter to all the people from my village “who have made it” to reinvest back in their village by supporting the library financially. As a good Muslim, the rich should make sacrifice regularly to the poorer ones, so some people send many bags of rice yearly back the village. I hope they can direct a small portion of the money for food for the mind.

Bbbbuuuurrrr…
What else is new? It is getting colder and colder for me at site now during our winter. I put on my fleece and socks early morning and late at night.

Our family is growing!
Peace Corps Guinea family has finally got new training group after skipping 2 groups due the strike that happened early this year. So we are up to 50 now, hopefully in a year time we will be back into 100+ volunteers. There is so much to be done here.

If you made it this far, you really deserve a huge holiday wish from me. =)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!