School came to a stuttering start a couple of weeks ago. The official “rentrée scolaire” is October first, however, that was the day my village decided to celebrate the Muslim holiday Ramadan. Ramadan is the end of the month of fasting and is supposed to coincide with the new moon. The new moon was the last day of September, and so most of the world celebrated then. For some reason our village chief decided to wait a day.
The Ramadan celebration was pretty neat to see. Everyone dressed up in their finest traditional clothes- long, flowing dresses for the women and similar traditional outfits for the men. Even the kids got all snazzed up…it was weird to see some of them wearing any clothes at all, much less fancy ones. Everyone went out to the soccer field by the main road and had a prayer service, then went home to eat. I was invited to eat with one of my colleagues and one of my neighbors. Both families had chicken, and both meals were delicious. I did think it kind of strange, though: when I went over to my neighbor’s house, neither his wife (who clearly had prepared the meal) nor his kids were there. It was just him, me, and several of his male friends. I didn’t ask, but maybe celebrating Muslim holidays is like praying in that men and women do it separately. Anyone know?
Over at the school, about half the kids had shown up, despite the holiday. They sat around for a while, then the Vice Principal installed them in their classrooms. This involved him reading roll, bringing them one-by-one into the classroom, and choosing the table they will sit at for the year. After he finished he had them stay in class for another hour or so, then he told them to go home. I’m not sure what the point of all that was. Due to the holiday, most kids hadn’t come, so he did the same exact thing the next day. That takes us to day number three, a Friday. Needless to say we did nothing. Classes finally started Monday, sort of. Since we don’t have copy services here, the first day of class is typically reserved for giving students the syllabus for the year. The teacher writes the list of chapters on the board, and the students write them down in their notebooks. So I gave my first real lessons the next day, almost a week after the official first day back. Thing is, after having seen the same thing last year, I knew exactly what to expect. I was in complete accordance with the other teachers in not wanting to do anything the previous Friday. I think I’m going to go into shock when I go back to America and something actually starts when it’s supposed to.
We just finished the second week of school. So far, I’m teaching a sixth grade math class and two seventh grade math classes. One of our other math/science teachers is leaving at the end of the month, so I’m probably going to be picking up one of his classes, which I’m excited about because he teaches the older students. There’s only so many times discussing properties of a line (”It goes on forever! It doesn’t even stop at the end of your piece of paper!”) with sixth graders is intellectually stimulating. That said, our next unit is about the order of operations; PMDAS returns. And wait ’til they find out that PMDAS is coming to village, live and in person. She’ll be the biggest celebrity this side of Michael Jackson.
One more quick thing. The US Election. I’m sure you are all sick to death of hearing about it, but I want to point out that everyone here is paying attention. Well, the educated people anyways. Even some of my students know who Barack Obama is. For the rest of them, when I tell them a black man might be the next POTUS, they pretty much think it’s a bad joke. Most of them don’t believe that black people can have money or a solid education, certainly not enough to be in charge of the US. I hope for nothing more than to be able to come into class the day after the election and tell them that America elected a president who is intelligent, cares about people, is willing to listen to viewpoints from around the world, who will continue to provide American aid to poor countries…and who happens to be black.
PS For those of you not in San Franciso…I sent in my absentee ballot recently, happily voting to change the name of the “SF Oceanside Water Treatment Facility” to the “George W. Bush Sewage Center”. Go Bears!
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