Me=teacher...?????

So… guess what?? I AM a teacher! This is a very new/foreign/bizarre assertion to make out loud. But I am now halfway through my second week of model school. There isn’t really anything “model” about this school; it’s pretty real. I am in a real Cameroonian school, with real Cameroonian students (and a large amount of those students, just like it will be in a real Cameroonian school), teaching from the real Cameroonian syllabus, with real Cameroonian textbooks. It’s crazy! The class I have taught the most is Cinquième, or our equivalent to seventh grade. They are… a handful. But they are certainly energetic and they keep me on my toes and they make me laugh a lot. Discipline is the big issue with these kids. Examples: they love hitting each other! I confiscated an old electrical cord one of my students had brought to class and was poking the girls in front of him with… one boy stole chalk from goodness knows where and started drawing on all the desks in the radius of his reach. Later, I was writing on the board, and I looked down and there was a child next to me pointing at the left side of his body. He was covered in chalk! The same kid had taken the commandeered piece of chalk and drawn all over the other child! They are obsessed with writing in their exercise books using red and blue pens (red to write the headings of activities/exercises, and blue to write the actual content) and rulers (or protractors or folded paper or other pens, anything that has a straight edge) to draw lines under headings, or fill in the blank lines or chart lines, etc. so stealing each others pens and rulers is a common practice. They all sit at benches that can comfortably seat two students. But they like to squeeze four or five to one of these benches and practically sit on top of each other (and then shove and elbow each to win some space). There is a class prefect, who is supposed to help the teacher discipline, take role, make sure the classroom is clean, etc. I would think this would totally be the kid who gets beat up after school behind the bleachers, but it’s actually the opposite- he’s very popular and relishes his role of enforcer. His favorite admonishment phrase is “Stop noise!” and another tactic is to appeal to me, with “Mada me, they are disturbing!!” ah, sometimes it’s pure chaos, and all you can do is laugh! Like I said, they definitely keep me on my game. I mean, these stories are just so ridiculous, all I can do is be entertained by them. What else can you do? What is probably more of a challenge than the discipline is the level of English of my students. The Cameroonian syllabus calls for teachers all across the country to teach a very specific level of English to each level. But the level it assumes my cinquième level students have attained is simply not reality for the majority of my students. What’s more, there is a monstrous gap in my class between a few students who can speak English very well and those who don’t understand a word that comes out of my mouth. How can I create lessons that instruct the lower level students on a plane that they can understand without boring my more advanced students out of their minds?? It is certainly a challenge, and one of the many reasons why the Cameroonian education system needs to evolve and grow and change. Just one of the many frustrations that comes with (attempting to bring about) development.

But there are some great moments to even out those annoyances/aggravations. Like I’ve taught the upper level classes, called première and terminale, which are the equivalent of juniors and seniors. They are soooo great. They are of course much better behaviour wise. In the one class, we had a discussion about different religious stereotypes! They discussed amongst themselves and talked about stereotypes that they know others have of their religion, and stereotypes they have of other’s religions. It was so great, they were hesitant at first, but they got really into it! The Cameroonian system is so structured and generally only allows for teachers to dump unmanageable amounts of information on their students. Most Cameroonian teachers simply lecture to their students, and there is never any room for discussion or generation of ideas or critical thinking. It’s terrible, many students can only regurgitate would has been ingrained into their heads, and they are terrified when asked to do anything in class besides take notes. Obviously, this is awful for teaching language. They need to speak to ever have a hope of being able to communicate in English. So it was super amazing to have them participate in and enjoy an activity where they actually got to speak and voice their opinions.

Another great moment, and this is especially for Puh’tok people: I have now taught all my classes the bananas song and the Penguin Attention! song!! I they freaking love them both. Forcing my students to sing camp songs is my way of channeling my longing and nostalgia for Puh’tok… next I may just start making them sing, “I wanna go back, where!?”

I was walking home with my friend, Julia, and we walked past a house where another volunteer lives. I think they are probably 8 or 9 children who live at this house, and we see them almost daily, as we pass their house on the walk home. They usually run out to greet us, but this day, they started running towards us, yelling “Madame Kihn! Madame Kihn! Madame Kihn!” I was so confused as to how they knew my name! It turns out their older sister is in my 5eme class. She had told her parents and siblings about me, and described well enough that the kids recognized me when I walked by the house! It was such a surreal and funny and rewarding moment.

Some other highlights:

- Fufuldé language learning has been going relatively swimmingly. We learned to count yesterday. Would you like to know how to say 999 in fufuldé? Because I can tell you! It’s “teeméré jowé nay e cappande jowé nay e jowé nay.” Yeah… I can’t wait to get to the market in Hina to test out my fufuldé counting skills!

- I went on my first shared moto ride (up until this point I’ve only been brave enough to ride with just me and the driver). I think I should have stuck with that rule. It’s very common in Cameroon to shove as many people/objects onto a moto as humanely possible. I have seen 5 full grown adults on a moto, and am waiting to top that record. But when Julia and I tried, we did not experience success… First of all, a moto can just barely fit two adults when they are of normal size. So, with the driver in front, me in the middle, and Julia in the back, all of our personal space bubbles were violated, actually, they were demolished into smithereens. One has to pretty much straddle the person in front of them to not fall off, and let’s just say, I was all up in this moto driver’s grill. So we were going to centre-ville (the center of town) to the super-marché (supermarket), but when we were almost there, we saw that the paved road had been blocked off because they were doing some construction. Our moto driver took the unpaved road. Unpaved road in Cameroon is synonymous with giant ditch. So it was quite treacherous, and all I could think was, “we are going to fall, there is no way we won’t fall off this moto.” And… surprise! He lost balance and the moto tipped over! We were completely fine, because the moto was almost completely stationary at this point, so we were able to kind of jump out of harm’s way. I don’t think either of us will be sharing any motos in the next two years!

- My host mother asked me what kind of cream I put on “tes taches” to treat them. Literally translated, tache is a spot. She was referring to my freckles. I had to explain that they were not a malady or skin ailment, but a part of my skin that I had been born with. It was pretty hilarious. I tried to explain that many Caucasian have freckles and it’s just part of our pigmentation. it was just so funny to me. I never thought I would need to explain freckles to someone!

There’s less than a month left of training, I can’t believe it! Time has flown by, but at the same time it seems like I’ve been here for months and months. Very soon it will be off to post, fingers crossed I can get myself and all my stuff there without too much of a challenge. Love and miss everyone terribly, thinking about all and hoping you’re all doing fantastic!!