And second week, too, I guess! Well, Monday October 4th, we finally decided to get around to having school :) I met both my classes (I only teach classes in the 4th and 3rd grades, and there is only one class per grade at that level) that day, but spent most of the first day introducing myself and explaining a little about the Peace Corps. Unlike the US, class schedules here aren’t the same every day, meaning that my daily schedule varies as well. At my school, most of the classes take place in the morning, 7-12, we then have the lunch break/sieste from 12-15 and classes again from 15-18. Yes, that’s right, 18 or 6pm. To be honest, most grades don’t have class that late, and if they do it’s only one day a week. I had one afternoon class this week, and you can really tell that the kids are tired. 15 (3pm) is also about the hottest time of day, so to be stuck inside can be brutal. Luckily, most classes fit into the morning.
Friday of the first week, we had a teachers’ meeting where we found out that we were getting another professeur for math and physics/chemistry. With only the 4 original professeurs, we didn’t have enough people to cover all the hours. I feel kind of bad, because if I was able to take a full course load, we wouldn’t have needed the other prof, but I also know the school is really growing, so they would’ve needed someone next year anyway. The new prof took one of my P/C classes, meaning I now only teach 4th Math and 3rd P/C. I definitely feel like I could be doing more, and offered to take an English class, but the other teachers are paid by how many hours they teach, so they want to have full schedules. And I get paid the same regardless, so I feel bad taking classes away from them. But we’ve already talked about having an English club, and I hope to offer a sort of study hall/tutor session for both 3rd and 4th grade, hoping that I can help with math, physics/chemistry and English questions.
I also mentioned to my health center that I have quite a bit of free time and could help out there, but after talking to a health volunteer realized that I could do more giving mini health lessons to my students at the school. The nurses at the health center also mentioned that last year they talked to the school about how to stay healthy and avoid pregnancy. Right now, I think I will try to work that in as a mini lesson at the beginning of some of my study hall times.
Now that school’s started and the professeurs are back in town, I’ve hung out with them a few times in the evenings. We never really do much, just sit and chat, but it’s nice to be able to hang out with people who speak French well, and can even help with translation when I don’t know the French word :)
I also bought a light/battery combo, so I have light in my house now!! It was getting really hard to make dinner with a flashlight, and to be honest, that’s all I’ve really used it for. I will probably have papers to grade at some point coming up, so I know it will be nice then, too
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Saturday, October 2, 2010
To
My last blog updates were when I was on a mini-vacation to Bobo, the second largest city. I met up with a bunch of volunteers who are currently taking part in the Peace Corps Burkina Faso Bike Tour, a fund raiser for the Gender and Development committee. They biked just about the entire way around Burkina! I, unfortunately, was not able to join them for any of the actually biking (there are rules about how much you can leave site your first 3 mos), but it was fun to see them and wish them luck!
Other than that, nothing else has really been going on here. Toby is doing well! I attempted to make him some tô (the corn-flour goo that is the staple food source here), but it didn’t turn out so hot. He still eats it though. To the make the tô, I first had to make my own flour, which was interesting. I bought dried corn at the marche a while ago, but finally got around to finding a neighbor to help me.
First, we had to wash the corn, then pilé, or pound, the kernels to remove the skins. (and when I say “we,” I mean mostly my neighbor because I’m actually pretty useless when it comes to manual labor here. I’m pretty sure my neighbor girls who look about 7 are stronger than I am…) After the skin was removed and the kernels were washed again, they had to soak overnight. The next morning I went to the mill where my kernels became flour!
To make tô, I had to boil the water the kernels were washed in (mixed with some lime juice) and add in the flour mixed with more water (so it doesn’t clump). Then stir like crazy until your arm feels like it will fall off, and finally place the goo in a bowl to cool and form. And that’s it. Unfortunately, I waited a couple days in between making the flour and making the tô, so the flour was starting to go bad. When the flour comes back from the mill, it’s moist. All of our flour in the US has been dried, something I didn’t even think of as I just let the flour sit (covered to keep bugs out, which unfortunately kept the moisture in) for a couple days. Like I said though, Toby still eats it and that’s all I’m really asking for :) Also, my neighbor saved the skins from the kernels to feed to her pigs, so I liked that nothing was wasted in the process! As I mentioned, even the same water was used to clean the kernels and to make the tô!
Other than that, nothing else has really been going on here. Toby is doing well! I attempted to make him some tô (the corn-flour goo that is the staple food source here), but it didn’t turn out so hot. He still eats it though. To the make the tô, I first had to make my own flour, which was interesting. I bought dried corn at the marche a while ago, but finally got around to finding a neighbor to help me.
First, we had to wash the corn, then pilé, or pound, the kernels to remove the skins. (and when I say “we,” I mean mostly my neighbor because I’m actually pretty useless when it comes to manual labor here. I’m pretty sure my neighbor girls who look about 7 are stronger than I am…) After the skin was removed and the kernels were washed again, they had to soak overnight. The next morning I went to the mill where my kernels became flour!
To make tô, I had to boil the water the kernels were washed in (mixed with some lime juice) and add in the flour mixed with more water (so it doesn’t clump). Then stir like crazy until your arm feels like it will fall off, and finally place the goo in a bowl to cool and form. And that’s it. Unfortunately, I waited a couple days in between making the flour and making the tô, so the flour was starting to go bad. When the flour comes back from the mill, it’s moist. All of our flour in the US has been dried, something I didn’t even think of as I just let the flour sit (covered to keep bugs out, which unfortunately kept the moisture in) for a couple days. Like I said though, Toby still eats it and that’s all I’m really asking for :) Also, my neighbor saved the skins from the kernels to feed to her pigs, so I liked that nothing was wasted in the process! As I mentioned, even the same water was used to clean the kernels and to make the tô!
Conseil de Classe
written 9/30
Today was the conseil de classe for my school, which is basically a meeting with all professeurs and administration to discuss the schedule and program for the year. My school is really small, so there were only 8 of us in attendance; the 4 professeurs, the director/5th prof, the econome/surveillant, the president of the APE and the secretary of the APE. The director is the principal, the econome is in charge of all things financial and the surveillant is in charge of discipline. The APE is the parents’ association, but I think it might be better compared to the school board than the PTA. They seem to have quite a bit of power and access to money for the school.
The meeting started with general information and the presentation of me! I hadn’t met one of the professeurs yet, and hadn’t seen the other two since my visit earlier this summer. We then discussed the schedule for the school year, basically what days we are going to end class for each trimester. We also decided who was going to be Professeur Principal for each class. The PP is the prof in charge of calculating the grades for the class. Yes, each prof decides for the grade for the class they teach, but in the BF system all the grades are then averaged to find the student’s Moyen (literally, mean/average, which is used at the end of the year to determine if the student passes for the year). This is no easy task because they don’t have computers at the school here, so it is all done by hand. (I do plan on making an Excel program and sharing it with my fellow teachers). Because of how much work this entails, they do fight over who has to take the bigger classes, this year the director took the biggest class, 5th, which is 109 students.
The next issue on the table was in fact class sizes. I forget if I’ve mentioned this before, but my school is a college, meaning middle school, which has 4 grade levels, 6th, 5th, 4th, and 3rd. This year my school has two 6th grade classes, each at 90, one 5th at 109, 4th has 60 and 3rd has 41. You’ll notice that our retention rate is not that great. But this is also only the 6th year the school has been around, meaning the 3rd grade class is only the 3rd class to start here. A big concern for the school right now is the size of the 6th grade classes and the fact that next year, we are not going to have room for that many in 5th. So, we need to add another 5th grade class. Well, we currently don’t have a room for another class. We also don’t have enough professeurs for another class. We don’t have enough professeurs for the number of classes as it is! As we were discusses this, the director directed his concern for needing another classroom at the president of the APE, asking him if they can have one built by next year. The president seemed to think it was possible, but that still leaves the question of finding at least one more prof… I also know that the village next to ours is currently building a school, so maybe more of our students will go there, but I don’t think we can count on that. Nor do we want tp, it’s a good thing that the schools growing, it means that more students are continuing with school!
We finished the meeting with any personal requests for supplies or possible schedule changes, as well as a request to the APE to get some of the student desks fixed.
After the meeting we all went to the president’s house for some cold beers and delicious chicken! School started Friday, but I don’t have classes Friday, so I start Monday! I realized too late that because it’s hard to get to my village on Sundays, it would have been better to get Monday off than Friday (if I want to go to the capital for the weekend or something). But we’ll see how this goes and if it’s a huge issue I might ask to switch next trimester. It affects everyone else’s schedule though, so I’m kind of kicking myself for forgetting to ask earlier, or rather for asking for the wrong day off…
I have to admit, I am really ready for school to start! This last week, the amount of free time I have here was really getting to me. This past month I’ve felt a little directionless, and while that was nice at first, I’m glad to start feeling like I’m actually doing something here.
Today was the conseil de classe for my school, which is basically a meeting with all professeurs and administration to discuss the schedule and program for the year. My school is really small, so there were only 8 of us in attendance; the 4 professeurs, the director/5th prof, the econome/surveillant, the president of the APE and the secretary of the APE. The director is the principal, the econome is in charge of all things financial and the surveillant is in charge of discipline. The APE is the parents’ association, but I think it might be better compared to the school board than the PTA. They seem to have quite a bit of power and access to money for the school.
The meeting started with general information and the presentation of me! I hadn’t met one of the professeurs yet, and hadn’t seen the other two since my visit earlier this summer. We then discussed the schedule for the school year, basically what days we are going to end class for each trimester. We also decided who was going to be Professeur Principal for each class. The PP is the prof in charge of calculating the grades for the class. Yes, each prof decides for the grade for the class they teach, but in the BF system all the grades are then averaged to find the student’s Moyen (literally, mean/average, which is used at the end of the year to determine if the student passes for the year). This is no easy task because they don’t have computers at the school here, so it is all done by hand. (I do plan on making an Excel program and sharing it with my fellow teachers). Because of how much work this entails, they do fight over who has to take the bigger classes, this year the director took the biggest class, 5th, which is 109 students.
The next issue on the table was in fact class sizes. I forget if I’ve mentioned this before, but my school is a college, meaning middle school, which has 4 grade levels, 6th, 5th, 4th, and 3rd. This year my school has two 6th grade classes, each at 90, one 5th at 109, 4th has 60 and 3rd has 41. You’ll notice that our retention rate is not that great. But this is also only the 6th year the school has been around, meaning the 3rd grade class is only the 3rd class to start here. A big concern for the school right now is the size of the 6th grade classes and the fact that next year, we are not going to have room for that many in 5th. So, we need to add another 5th grade class. Well, we currently don’t have a room for another class. We also don’t have enough professeurs for another class. We don’t have enough professeurs for the number of classes as it is! As we were discusses this, the director directed his concern for needing another classroom at the president of the APE, asking him if they can have one built by next year. The president seemed to think it was possible, but that still leaves the question of finding at least one more prof… I also know that the village next to ours is currently building a school, so maybe more of our students will go there, but I don’t think we can count on that. Nor do we want tp, it’s a good thing that the schools growing, it means that more students are continuing with school!
We finished the meeting with any personal requests for supplies or possible schedule changes, as well as a request to the APE to get some of the student desks fixed.
After the meeting we all went to the president’s house for some cold beers and delicious chicken! School started Friday, but I don’t have classes Friday, so I start Monday! I realized too late that because it’s hard to get to my village on Sundays, it would have been better to get Monday off than Friday (if I want to go to the capital for the weekend or something). But we’ll see how this goes and if it’s a huge issue I might ask to switch next trimester. It affects everyone else’s schedule though, so I’m kind of kicking myself for forgetting to ask earlier, or rather for asking for the wrong day off…
I have to admit, I am really ready for school to start! This last week, the amount of free time I have here was really getting to me. This past month I’ve felt a little directionless, and while that was nice at first, I’m glad to start feeling like I’m actually doing something here.
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