My Oprah Moment

Well, hello there!

I feel like I've sort of been neglecting you all.  I've been such a compulsive blogger up until this point.  It's been over a week since my last update.  Considering I have daily internet access—a luxury not bestowed upon most of my fellow Volunteers—there is simply no excuse for this dearth of posts!  But don't blame me, blame Jocelyn Wildenstein:

God, I love Jocelyn Wildenstein.  Cute as a button!

Anyhoo, my absence can really be explained by the fact that the first month of school has already gone by, sweeping me completely off my feet in the process.  I teach 18 hours a week, and have a total of 500 or so students.  18 hours probably doesn't seem like a lot of work.  However, because most of my students, regardless of their age (I teach a wide range, from 13-year-olds all the way up to the grown-up teachers at my school), started out at pretty much the same level of proficiency—a level I like to call "Not Proficient At All, Meaning They Can't Even Hold a Mouse Properly or Locate the On/Off Button on the CPU"—every class gets the same lesson.  Therefore, I am giving the same lecture SEVENTEEN TIMES A WEEK (I teach the teachers for two hours each session, which explains the one-hour discrepancy).  The.  Same.  Lecture.  No exaggeration.  Now, I'm a patient person with a substantial level of intestinal fortitude, but can you imagine having to describe what an operating system is and does to roomful after roomful of wide-eyed Burkinabé seventeen times in one solitary week?  Oy vey!

I do what I can to try to liven up my lessons—not to make them more engaging for my students, but more bearable for me.  This week, we're honing their typing skills, so I've put material over their hands so that they can't see the keyboard and have to find the keys by touch and memory.  To enforce the no-peeking rule, I've taken to standing on top of my desk and playing the "Keyboard Police."  Basically this means that I emit a crazy sound of faux abject horror and wildly point my finger at anyone who lifts the material off their keyboard, which usually causes the class to erupt in raucous laughter.  In fact, just the sight of me standing guard three feet in the air on top of my desk is enough to make them laugh.  Kids here—especially girls—tend to be meek, solemnly polite, and highly reserved.  So, when they see some jacked-up white guy acting a fool all over the premises, they react with exhilarating glee, maybe even loosening up a little.  At least this allows me to have a little fun amidst all the monotony of the lesson itself.

I’ve also started spending part of my week advising the English club at my school.  Although the students here are incredibly dedicated to and passionate about learning English, their speaking abilities are generally minimal.  Unfortunately, they don’t have the textbooks, audiotapes, and movies that language students in the States do.  Instead, they depend wholly on the notes they take in their classes, which are taught by Burkinabé teachers who, while having a good grasp of English, aren’t fully fluent in the language.  The English club, therefore, is less of an extracurricular activity than it is a vital resource for students who are really committed to their studies.

One of my computer science students, Faïçal, is the president of the English club.  At the beginning of the school year, Faïçal told me that there was a risk of the club being cancelled because, per the administration, they needed a faculty adviser and none of the other teachers were available.  I told him that in no way should they cancel the club and to just tell me when and where and I would be there as the adviser.  Well, you’d think I’d just given him a limited edition boxed set of Murder, She Wrote, because his eyes lit up and a huge grin spread across his face.  Then he said, in thickly-accented English, “Thank you very much for saving our English club.”  It was such an Oprah moment!

We had our first meeting this past weekend, where I helped them answer tricky grammar questions, work on pronunciation, and understand some of the differences between American English and British English.  They even expressed an interest in the American political system, which led to me explaining how the electoral college works.  Sidebar: Booyeah, Obama.  It’s so nice to have Burkinabé yell, “Barack Obama!” rather than “Tubabu!” at me, and—even better—I don’t have to lie and tell people I’m Canadian anymore!

 Anyway, the meeting went well, and all the students/members are really motivated and enthused.  Apparently, I am the first native speaker they’ve had as an adviser, so they’re pretty jazzed about that.  As they stood up one by one to introduce themselves, they each said something to the effect of, “I am excited that Mr. Michael will be teaching us English.”  Another Oprah moment!  It was so precious. 

So, the first month of school has been grueling, enjoyable, hectic, and fulfilling.  School is certainly making the time go by fast.  And, now that I’m in the swing of things, I finally feel like I can make it out here for the duration of my two years of service.  That’s gotta count for something.

PS: EVERYBODY GETS A CAAAARRRRRRRR!!!!!!