Life has a certain charm when you live in a small African village and have nothing to do. I spent the month of September going on bike rides, reading books, and watching the shadows move on my front porch (I threw myself a party the day the sun moved far enough south to shade my porch the entire afternoon). Though it might sound a little dull, I had actually started getting used to this life. I enjoyed people watching and knowing that the most stressful part of my day was deciding whether to eat rice or couscous for lunch. That said, I was very excited this week when school started.
School technically starts at 7am, and though I had been warned ad nauseam about the school year getting off to a slow start, I showed up Monday morning promptly at 6:30. Right. The director rolled in a little after 8:00. Most of the students who were going to show up had showed up by then, so the vice principal started taking attendance at 8:30. One by one, he called the names of every student in every class. When their name was called, each student walked from the courtyard into their classroom. Then the VP read the next name. This thrilling process took about three hours. Luckily I realized about an hour into the ordeal that my presence was neither necessary nor required. So I left.
After observing the rigor of the first day, I showed up Tuesday mentally prepared to not spend any time in front of students. Much to my surprise, the director asked me if I was ready to go. “Hell yeah!” said I…in French. He took me to my first class and introduced me to the students, a class of about 80 sixth graders. In my opening spiel I mentioned that I had gone to school in California; no one recognized the state until I mentioned that the popular TV show 24 is set there. Then the faces lit up. Terrorist-fighting Jack Bauer is about as popular here as riding donkeys. Since most of the students don’t have text books, I spent the first class going over the program for the year. Yup, I spent half an hour writing out the table of contents from their math book. Very exciting. Then we went over classroom rules and grading. Nothing to crazy.
I actually got to teach on the second day of class. I started right in on the first chapter of sixth grade math. To my surprise and delight, the lesson actually went really well. I think the kids mostly understood my French, and they more or less paid attention. Something tells me that will change. I have two classes each of 6th and 7th grade math. The 7th grade classes are reasonably small; there are about 45 kids in each section. The 6th grade classes are more typical of Burkinabe sizes- each section has about 90 kids. Yup. 90 sixth graders and me. One of the classes meets every Monday and Wednesday from 3-5pm; can’t wait for the hot season. With the four classes I have 20 hours of teaching per week. Add in lesson planning, grading, and French practice, and I think I’m actually going to be doing quite a bit of work, especially this first year. I guess the shadows on my front porch will have to go on without me.
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