Reading Stephen Greenblatt's rather caustic review of Ralph Feinnes face in "A Man of Principle," his take on the recent film adaptation of Coriolanus written for the NYRB, I was delighted by his focus on the one moment of great pity that Shakespeare gives us in which a man treats Coriolanus kindly and when the meet again C struggles to remember the man's name. I was thinking about this exchange between anonymous soldier and commoner because the station has recently become inundated (an ironic word to use in the dry season) with soldiers performing military reconnaissance exercises. I did not know this at first, for the first time I saw them they were looking up into the mango trees and I thought they were a community organization devoted to helping cats stranded on high. But their fatigues (and fatigue?) made their allegiance to violence clear. But I decided to withhold judgement because of contemplations on Coriolanus and watched them take their ease beneath a tree. I went to my kitchen and gathered seven cups and glasses (I had to make do with what I had) and took from my fridge a carafe of very cold water. I then took this outside and shared it with the sweaty and frustrated soldiers. I hope by this act of kindness that they will remember humanity if they ever encounter inhuman situations.
The above is written with charming naïveté. No? The reality is that I live in a city where there are infrequent clashes between the police and the army that end in death and property destruction. That might be something you do not know, the sheer level of violence that I hide in my Potemkin village.
School this week was wonderful. I gave the exam, the students complained, and almost universally their grades improved. My enforced system of note taking culminated when, on Monday, I looked through their notes and offered extra credit (one says bonus points) ranging between .25 and 2.25 for them. By the way, my students are terribly confused by my system of grading. In Cameroon, and perhaps elsewhere, when a teacher makes a check on the paper it means that something is correct. But when I do, it means their is an error. Here is a common scenario. One side of the sheet has three sets of five questions each for a total of fifteen. I tally each of the sections and write the number to the side and then the total at the bottom. But I guess this is difficult to figure out because the students will approach me and say that I counted incorrectly and proceed to add the four numbers together! Or, say there are five questions. Two of them are wrong. I thus put 3/5 at the top of the page. The students who missed the two questions laugh thinking that I made a mistake (after all there are two red marks and the student thinks he or she should have gotten 2/5). But the students that actually score 2/5 groan at me that they should have 3/5 because there are three red marks.
It is all very confusing and made all the more so by the secret of the stickers. I handed out my exams and made sure everyone got one sticker. Anything over 12.5 earned two stickers and over 17 three. Well what a hullabaloo. Students pealed off stickers and claimed I forgot while wearing the sticker on the forehead or ears. They begged for an additional point not, though, to change the grade but simply to gain more stickers. Others thanked me for the gifts and one particularly wiley girl exchanged stickers with other students put two more on her exam and showed me that she had three stickers and thus I made a mistake with the grading, she had earned 17/20! So I had a big laugh with them all.
The only other relevant event to relate concerns an experience I had while drinking shah. I remain the only white person I've seen drinking the nectar, and so am used to people coming in and joshing a bit with me. But yesterday five came in and started complaining that tourists were overrunning everything. They then proceeded to try and order shah, but had no idea how to do it. When they got their tasters they received the small colored cups with only a tiny sip. For contrast, when I enter I get a long handshake, greetings from the kids, laughs and hoots. I receive my shah in a big translucent cup and it is always full. You see the irony of the situation?the Cameroonians were complaining of me as a tourist, but they were the tourists to this small world of mine. After they left we all had a bit of a laugh and I ate some corn fou fou djamba djamba.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Wherein I teach heart with a silent aitch
What a peaceful and restful and productive week this was, no onerous duty, no surprise landings by aliens, in fact there were only four blows of note on the gong of life.
In the first gong, whose echo sounded brazenly, we administered the loot from bilingual week to the students, the administration came up to our small office (principal, vice, discipline master, chaplain) and each said a dozen or so words in English and then we coordinators called the names and told what the prizes we for and the administration handed them out. The prizes were crayons (called colors), erasers, pencils, notebooks, scissors, and pencil sharpeners. Following this we had a feast which Oliver's wife had made of fish, fuleri juice, and plantains. We was a very pleasant affair.
The second gong, which thudded bodily, was on Valentine's day. A day where things happen here in a rather subdued manner. I began each class by drawing an enormous heart on the board and dozens of small ones. I then game a short lecture on sending, always a good verb, valentines (thanks again for the Tree ma). I then brought out a piece of paper and gestured for the students to imitate me. I folded it in half and tore the folded side along the lines of an exaggerated question mark. Ooo the students were delighted to see that I suddenly held a heart in my hand, and incidentally all their hearts in hand as well. How delighted they were, insisting that they could not figure it out and I simply must do it for them. But I simply
Put on my long-suffering look and began a slow glasses polish that jumpstarted their brains. I then had them all write out "roses are red / violence are blue / sugar is sweet / and so are you" and told them to give it to their mothers. I then began to start on the lesson, but could get nowhere for every time I turned around one would yell for me to look and he or she would show me a valentine fresh-formed. Some students had near a dozen at the end, and then by Thursday they had the audacity to tell me they had run out of room in their notebooks! That evening I delivered my own valentines. Mommie Shah got a bottle of Djino (a very sweet tropical fruit drink that people like) and so did Alfred's wife. Then I got cooking. The other day one of the three recently arrived Canadians mentioned a hankering for reeses. I tucked the knowledge away and then went out on Tuesday to purchase a small thing of Tartina (like nutella but without the hazelnut) and some scoops of ground peanuts. I then melted the tartina in the sun, which is now blazing merrily, and poured it over the mounds of peanut and pricked it with a toothpick and set it in the freezer. Wait wait wait. I delivered the platter and ended the giving of valentines.
The third gong sunk into the spirits of all woodenly. My mom sent me some stickers and I graded the student homework with them and suddenly had students throwing homework in my hands at the end of class that they had "forgotten" to give me the day before. Yeah right, they just wanted stickers! And to do what with? Well to feminize the male of course, for it is apparently great fun to stick them on the ears and adopt a Runway Strut. I also, during coffee, rather impishly stuck one on the hand of the vice-principal next to whom I sit. He sort of looked stunned and the administrators at the table were nonplussed while he asked me why I had done it. I said that it was because he was good homework, a comment which got the table laughing. Then he asked why I had chosen pink to give him. Well I had not chosen the color for it was simply the next in the row of stickers, but since he was wearing an elegant pink tie I told him that I wanted him to match. Well, that afternoon, while sitting on Alfred's porch-he is convalescing from a flare-up of his old injury-the vice came to visit as well and proudly showed me his hand which was still adorned with the sticker.
The fourth gong sounds hollowly. I came into class pouring forth energy, brilliant lesson in hand and was met, not with the accustomed cheer of thirty voices, but with thirty hollow eyes. That is right, I am not miswriting (though given the atrocity of the spelling on this blog I can forgive you for thinking that). I only had fifteen students. The school the afternoon before had driven everyone out who has not paid. And thus in my other classes I had nine and twelve. It was, sad to say, amazing. We were productively to a scary early-Fordian manner. The students labored along the assembly line of knowledge and as a class produced brilliant vehicles. And by vehicles I mean conversation vehicles. And by brilliant I mean that the sentences had subjects and matching verbs in a tense that made sense.
In the first gong, whose echo sounded brazenly, we administered the loot from bilingual week to the students, the administration came up to our small office (principal, vice, discipline master, chaplain) and each said a dozen or so words in English and then we coordinators called the names and told what the prizes we for and the administration handed them out. The prizes were crayons (called colors), erasers, pencils, notebooks, scissors, and pencil sharpeners. Following this we had a feast which Oliver's wife had made of fish, fuleri juice, and plantains. We was a very pleasant affair.
The second gong, which thudded bodily, was on Valentine's day. A day where things happen here in a rather subdued manner. I began each class by drawing an enormous heart on the board and dozens of small ones. I then game a short lecture on sending, always a good verb, valentines (thanks again for the Tree ma). I then brought out a piece of paper and gestured for the students to imitate me. I folded it in half and tore the folded side along the lines of an exaggerated question mark. Ooo the students were delighted to see that I suddenly held a heart in my hand, and incidentally all their hearts in hand as well. How delighted they were, insisting that they could not figure it out and I simply must do it for them. But I simply
Put on my long-suffering look and began a slow glasses polish that jumpstarted their brains. I then had them all write out "roses are red / violence are blue / sugar is sweet / and so are you" and told them to give it to their mothers. I then began to start on the lesson, but could get nowhere for every time I turned around one would yell for me to look and he or she would show me a valentine fresh-formed. Some students had near a dozen at the end, and then by Thursday they had the audacity to tell me they had run out of room in their notebooks! That evening I delivered my own valentines. Mommie Shah got a bottle of Djino (a very sweet tropical fruit drink that people like) and so did Alfred's wife. Then I got cooking. The other day one of the three recently arrived Canadians mentioned a hankering for reeses. I tucked the knowledge away and then went out on Tuesday to purchase a small thing of Tartina (like nutella but without the hazelnut) and some scoops of ground peanuts. I then melted the tartina in the sun, which is now blazing merrily, and poured it over the mounds of peanut and pricked it with a toothpick and set it in the freezer. Wait wait wait. I delivered the platter and ended the giving of valentines.
The third gong sunk into the spirits of all woodenly. My mom sent me some stickers and I graded the student homework with them and suddenly had students throwing homework in my hands at the end of class that they had "forgotten" to give me the day before. Yeah right, they just wanted stickers! And to do what with? Well to feminize the male of course, for it is apparently great fun to stick them on the ears and adopt a Runway Strut. I also, during coffee, rather impishly stuck one on the hand of the vice-principal next to whom I sit. He sort of looked stunned and the administrators at the table were nonplussed while he asked me why I had done it. I said that it was because he was good homework, a comment which got the table laughing. Then he asked why I had chosen pink to give him. Well I had not chosen the color for it was simply the next in the row of stickers, but since he was wearing an elegant pink tie I told him that I wanted him to match. Well, that afternoon, while sitting on Alfred's porch-he is convalescing from a flare-up of his old injury-the vice came to visit as well and proudly showed me his hand which was still adorned with the sticker.
The fourth gong sounds hollowly. I came into class pouring forth energy, brilliant lesson in hand and was met, not with the accustomed cheer of thirty voices, but with thirty hollow eyes. That is right, I am not miswriting (though given the atrocity of the spelling on this blog I can forgive you for thinking that). I only had fifteen students. The school the afternoon before had driven everyone out who has not paid. And thus in my other classes I had nine and twelve. It was, sad to say, amazing. We were productively to a scary early-Fordian manner. The students labored along the assembly line of knowledge and as a class produced brilliant vehicles. And by vehicles I mean conversation vehicles. And by brilliant I mean that the sentences had subjects and matching verbs in a tense that made sense.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Wherein the gong is forgotten
How wonderful Monday was this week, I three upon the board a brilliant set of vocabulary, which the students eagerly copied. Animal, the sound it makes, and a common verb associated with the animal. Thus the sound of a duck is a quack and the duck can swim, waddle, or fly. And so on and so forth. I was very excited to have this preliminary vocab development out of the way because this week we would be practicing comparative adjectives and superlatives. Feeling might, I returned home. And then I came to school on Tuesday.
I had known that there would be a phenomenon called Youth Week, but I fused to let it enter my intelligence in such a way that it would play a role in forming my calendar. But it was not to play a formative role but rather a destructive one. I thought for sure I could teach until noon, but at morning coffee I learned that all non-testing grades had school canceled. Arrggghhh, I watched my intellectual property (my syllabus for the week) grow dusty. So I passed the week by coming to school in the morning to see if maybe there would be a chance I could teach only to have my hopes continually dashed, though on a brighter side my students delighted in seeing me and we spoke a bit of English together while they, very kindly, lamented the fact that they could not be in class. I say "very kindly" but a great deal of the actual reason is that the students have to march for hours. This is the phenomenon of youth week. It culminates in every school marching in Independence Square. And the marching needs to be well rehearsed. But also, and I did not now this until Thursday night, the students practice for a talent show, which brings us to...
The gong show of Ngaoundere wherein someone neglected to bring the gong.
Thursday morning Alfred and I went to a dingy quarter of Ngaoundere because I wanted to try a new drink that is only really served in the morning. Bili-Bili is a drink made from millet. But where shah is smooth, almost food like, bili-bill is sharper and foamy if it sits. It is also a mysterious red color that swallows the light. Not great, it is nonetheless fun to drink because it comes in small pails for 500francs and one serves those around and is equally served in turn. And the cups are the bottoms of calabash gourds. We did not take a lot since we arrived late and it was gone for the day, but after grabbing a quick piece of meat some folks there decoded to share with us do we had a taste. An enormous diffence between this place and Mommy-shah. Is that the latter is small and intimate and the former is rowdy and filled with workers about to head out on their day. Also it had a courtyard wherein a constant impromptu market is in session, and in a delightful manner everyone has a calabash resting on the ground before him or her as though they were school children gathered alongside a river bank preparing to release their boats like so many little rascals.
After we ascended the hill back to our quarter and went to school for the daily disappointment of not teaching, I ran into Oliver whom I hadn't seen all week. He proceeded to tell me that the English club would perform that night. I responded enthusiastically but confusedly because I knew nothing of any performance. Turns out that all the schools that would march on the weekend also have talent shows on the thursday before. How I wish I had known since it would have been great fun to plan a whirlwind to some other schools. The event was to begin at six o'clock, but being accustomed to the fact that Cameroonian clocks are all broken, I was at ease when we did not arrive until seven ten. After all, we should get a chair at least. But it then did not begin for another half hour. It was neat to see my students come in and take their seats as well because I never see them outside their school uniforms and they all came very well dressed. It is also interesting to see who travels together outside the classroom. If I had guessed about close friends before that night I would never have paired those who were together. It was also really wonderful to see the older kids in the class watching out for the younger and making room on chairs for them. They're good kids, I suppose, just with ephemeral memories and that is what I struggle to remember myself.
The show began with a traditional dance number by the youngest classes and they performed admirably, and then everything intensified as the em-cee raised his voice to welcome the youth of Nigeria, the name of a five-male breakdance troupe. And who should lead them than my very own Nana, the same young man who broke dance way back when I did my lesson on Rihanna. It was quite thrilling and everyone was watching eagerly. Then came the strangest dance of the evening. The Chadian dance. Out came six or seven boys in garb, the leading one waving an umbrella, and they bobbed up and down to know rhythm I could figure out, and the crowd went wild, they went wild not for the dance but for what was suddenly happening. Chadians poured out of the crowd and were throwing 500, 1000, 2000 franc bills everywhere and this went on for at least eight minutes. Then there was a long series of lip-syncing, called playback in French, which is horrifyingly popular here. The way in which it works is that a group gets together, practices a dance, and then pretends to be the performer. Some are entertaining, but it is the sort of thing that is neat once or twice and in doses of under two minutes. But tens of these shows of five minutes gets unbearable. Intermittent with these entertaintments, came the out-of-tune / step / energy gospel singers, the unique form of Cameroonian entertainment called the NewsCast, and a brilliant brilliant ColPro school day in three minutes. In the style of Complete Works of Shakeseapre, abridged, these students went through all their teachers and the imitations were spot on, from the physical and tonal characteristics of the principal, to the whistle of bell, to the students who are hungry, lazy, sleeping. It was the highlight. Every time my students were out I felt very proud, so that was nice to recognize in myself. Although I am torn because a show like this should, I still feel, be organized outside of school and not have school canceled for it. Then Alfred, Oliver, and I left because our ears hurt. Two hours later when we came back, the show was still going strong and indeed continued until midnight, and that is just too much playback for me.
The marching on Saturday was as you might imagine, hot and dusty and tedious to watch. But I only saw two or three schools. Lycee Classique and ColPro before retiring to a bar with a chief of Buminda who came with me and Alfred and Oliver, driving us around in his military jeep that Nader would have written a sequel to his first book about. Not just unsafe at any speed, but unsafe at no speed.
I had known that there would be a phenomenon called Youth Week, but I fused to let it enter my intelligence in such a way that it would play a role in forming my calendar. But it was not to play a formative role but rather a destructive one. I thought for sure I could teach until noon, but at morning coffee I learned that all non-testing grades had school canceled. Arrggghhh, I watched my intellectual property (my syllabus for the week) grow dusty. So I passed the week by coming to school in the morning to see if maybe there would be a chance I could teach only to have my hopes continually dashed, though on a brighter side my students delighted in seeing me and we spoke a bit of English together while they, very kindly, lamented the fact that they could not be in class. I say "very kindly" but a great deal of the actual reason is that the students have to march for hours. This is the phenomenon of youth week. It culminates in every school marching in Independence Square. And the marching needs to be well rehearsed. But also, and I did not now this until Thursday night, the students practice for a talent show, which brings us to...
The gong show of Ngaoundere wherein someone neglected to bring the gong.
Thursday morning Alfred and I went to a dingy quarter of Ngaoundere because I wanted to try a new drink that is only really served in the morning. Bili-Bili is a drink made from millet. But where shah is smooth, almost food like, bili-bill is sharper and foamy if it sits. It is also a mysterious red color that swallows the light. Not great, it is nonetheless fun to drink because it comes in small pails for 500francs and one serves those around and is equally served in turn. And the cups are the bottoms of calabash gourds. We did not take a lot since we arrived late and it was gone for the day, but after grabbing a quick piece of meat some folks there decoded to share with us do we had a taste. An enormous diffence between this place and Mommy-shah. Is that the latter is small and intimate and the former is rowdy and filled with workers about to head out on their day. Also it had a courtyard wherein a constant impromptu market is in session, and in a delightful manner everyone has a calabash resting on the ground before him or her as though they were school children gathered alongside a river bank preparing to release their boats like so many little rascals.
After we ascended the hill back to our quarter and went to school for the daily disappointment of not teaching, I ran into Oliver whom I hadn't seen all week. He proceeded to tell me that the English club would perform that night. I responded enthusiastically but confusedly because I knew nothing of any performance. Turns out that all the schools that would march on the weekend also have talent shows on the thursday before. How I wish I had known since it would have been great fun to plan a whirlwind to some other schools. The event was to begin at six o'clock, but being accustomed to the fact that Cameroonian clocks are all broken, I was at ease when we did not arrive until seven ten. After all, we should get a chair at least. But it then did not begin for another half hour. It was neat to see my students come in and take their seats as well because I never see them outside their school uniforms and they all came very well dressed. It is also interesting to see who travels together outside the classroom. If I had guessed about close friends before that night I would never have paired those who were together. It was also really wonderful to see the older kids in the class watching out for the younger and making room on chairs for them. They're good kids, I suppose, just with ephemeral memories and that is what I struggle to remember myself.
The show began with a traditional dance number by the youngest classes and they performed admirably, and then everything intensified as the em-cee raised his voice to welcome the youth of Nigeria, the name of a five-male breakdance troupe. And who should lead them than my very own Nana, the same young man who broke dance way back when I did my lesson on Rihanna. It was quite thrilling and everyone was watching eagerly. Then came the strangest dance of the evening. The Chadian dance. Out came six or seven boys in garb, the leading one waving an umbrella, and they bobbed up and down to know rhythm I could figure out, and the crowd went wild, they went wild not for the dance but for what was suddenly happening. Chadians poured out of the crowd and were throwing 500, 1000, 2000 franc bills everywhere and this went on for at least eight minutes. Then there was a long series of lip-syncing, called playback in French, which is horrifyingly popular here. The way in which it works is that a group gets together, practices a dance, and then pretends to be the performer. Some are entertaining, but it is the sort of thing that is neat once or twice and in doses of under two minutes. But tens of these shows of five minutes gets unbearable. Intermittent with these entertaintments, came the out-of-tune / step / energy gospel singers, the unique form of Cameroonian entertainment called the NewsCast, and a brilliant brilliant ColPro school day in three minutes. In the style of Complete Works of Shakeseapre, abridged, these students went through all their teachers and the imitations were spot on, from the physical and tonal characteristics of the principal, to the whistle of bell, to the students who are hungry, lazy, sleeping. It was the highlight. Every time my students were out I felt very proud, so that was nice to recognize in myself. Although I am torn because a show like this should, I still feel, be organized outside of school and not have school canceled for it. Then Alfred, Oliver, and I left because our ears hurt. Two hours later when we came back, the show was still going strong and indeed continued until midnight, and that is just too much playback for me.
The marching on Saturday was as you might imagine, hot and dusty and tedious to watch. But I only saw two or three schools. Lycee Classique and ColPro before retiring to a bar with a chief of Buminda who came with me and Alfred and Oliver, driving us around in his military jeep that Nader would have written a sequel to his first book about. Not just unsafe at any speed, but unsafe at no speed.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Wherein many hips tell many truths
Cameroon likes weeks of celebrations, and I guess yoking them together is the preferred calendrical control. Thus we go from the National Week of Bilingualism to the National Week of Youth but the latter begins on Monday while the former ended on Friday. The week proceeded in three stages, the third of which had to do with ColPro but not bilingualism.
Wednesday
The day of competitions between the various colleges and lycées of Ngaoundere, of which there are over fifteen. I had no idea, and each has its own special uniform, ranging from the scotch-plaid of Amity International, to the yellow of Classique, to the gray with flowing white veils of Islamic, to the sweater vests of a school I never quite caught to our own sky blue with Boy-scout patch on the breast pocket heraldring (I.e. In the shape of a medieval heraldry) allegiance.
The day began with a surprise, the administration had met and decided to give each student five hundred francs for the day. Now the words sit easily on the page, but the battles that took place to make it happen would scar the screen of my iPad and burn the eyed of any readers out there. As it was, we were the only school to bring all our students by moto and not some sort of rented vehicle. This is, as a sideline, one of the most enormous differences between America, at least Yankton, and Cameroon. I never attended a school activity and did not have my transport guaranteed. In fact I had to fight to attend the event in any way other than by the school provided transport. But here someone must know someone who knows yet another to get a vehicle. The school does not even have possession over a car, much less a bus. And what is more when they tried to borrow from the ELCA bureau they learned that certain vehicles lacked the papers to be driven. But we arrived at the competitions and took our places. We were only abou an hour and a half late which meant we were an hour and ten minutes early to the actual start. And why did we wait? For the same reason as at the military camp many years ago. These official events like to have public figures, who are less than thrilled to be there, launch the ceremony, and the new regional director of bilingualism took his sweet time in getting there, stood up, sat down, hear a rendition of the national anthem (marvelously performed, I might add, in a really stimulating and understandable manner. The words and rhythm of the anthem are impossibly hard and most people sing it without understanding it). And the director stood up and delivered an utterly unpracticed speech, some lackey must have written it, and struggled through the English making the obvious mistakes of someone uncomfortable to be reciting (much less speaking) a foreign language. And then the speech switched to French and that two was painful. And this man is director of bilingualism? Ahhh, okay we accept such things as cameroonian, I suppose. Hut then he left and the truly bilingual directors of Ngaoundere Launched the program. We began with:
Poems. The style here is not that of oral interp in SD, but of a cross between epilepsy and rap with some limb-throwing gestures. At least that is what the popular ones do. The dullest were a series of acrostics. And the other style is a crisply spoken English with lots of military metaphors connected with styles of education. The most bizarre a man came out and introduced himself as Cameroon. A woman came out and said she was English. Another woman came out and said she was French. The boy proceeded to say "I am a polygamist. I am married to both. I sleep with English when I want to do business and go oversees. I sleep with French when I want to travel in Cameroon and conduct civic affairs).
Songs: everyone was supposed to have three minutes, but this they told us only upon arrival (organization is something Cameroon education waits for) and so some schools entered singing, sang three songs, and left, here too there are differences. Some schools featured a dynamic singer with a backup, other schools made signs that they would throw up to intitiate chanting. Also, I heard We Are the World five times and in three of them the singers were crying even as the impresario was pushing them off the stage. It is pretty cool, though, because everyone knows it and would join in.
Newscast. Self explanatory, and very hard to understand as the mics failed here. Also, for a country where all the kids I've met want to be journalists (that is television newscasters) there is a major lack of creativity and practiced voice presence.
Skit. These varied from classroom scenarios where a student refused to go to English class and thus finds her future closed off to confrontations in a hospital about AIDS prevention.
Debate. I thought this was going to be really dynamic but it turns out not to be a debate between schools but rather a school presented a practiced discussion. It was pretty boring, but there was a funny announcement before it began that said this was an academic exercise and we were not to think that the opinions revealed belonged to the students, the teachers, or the institution.
Quiz, this was very interesting. Questions were asked in both French and english and varied from grammatical issues to Cameroonian history and geography, to international sports. I did not do very well past the grammar questions.
Traditional dance. And this is where the hips stopped lying. You know the reference? A song sung by Shakira (or a song that Shakira sang) a while back, perhaps in 2006, no? Back when she called out her hips don't lie and she danced for the world cup in Germany. Well these student groups came gyrating out in groups from three to twenty. Boys were bare-chested and heavily muscled and girls wore whirling colors and often skirts of long grasses. And for the most part they had slashed of white paint across their bodied in different patterns according to where they came from. But this was no hula, lest you get the wrong idea, for the drums best impossibly fast and the bodies dashed against nature's imprisoning bodies. Unlike dervishes, these dancers do not move in circles, rather it is a hypnotic pentadecahedron. Shakira might have moved her hips through four or five angles, but these kids gave proof to her mendacity when their moved through a cycle of truth equal to fifteen sharply defined angles of the hips. It is astonishing to watch as they pop lock and drop to the best of traditional drums.
The results gave ColPro
first prize in the essay contest (held on Jan 7th)
second In the poem
Third in the dance
Friday
I found myself accompanying five students to Independence Square for an event before the governor and mistress of education. There was no money, so I paid the student transport. We arrived on time at eleven. We learned at eleven forty that the event had been postponed until two, so I rushed back and taught a class the manner of making comparatives and superlatives with less, least; more, most and then returned to the kids awaiting. Or rather, I awaited them. We were soon together, but I had no ides what to do having been left to fend for myself by the actual coordinators of the club. So I ended up failing to register us in time and so was scolded by someone. But it turned out okay. The prizewinners accepted their loot. Twenty thousand francs, two backpacks filled with notebooks and pens, and six satchels filled with crayons, notebooks, and pencils. Very cool.
Saturday, and the reason I did not post yesterday
The faculty had an obligatory spiritual retreat that was weird because the faculty has not been paid and so are upset at the administration but everyone had to pretend to get along. It bugs me a lot, but everyone seems quite good at it. We were supposed to leave at seven and actually managed to leave at seven forty, so that was pretty good. When we arrived Alfred and I split off because he has some folks from his village there. We were at Wacwa (where I was last week for the student picnic) and when we got to their house they gave us some corn foufou djamba djamba. Excellent. And by the time we returned people were ready to get down. We were in a small airless chapel, which did not really matter at eight thirty, but by three was filled with flies and distress. The program was simple, two two-hour talks by church officials, a pastor and the bishop. The former spoke of dynamic faith and delivered a series of platitudes. The most distressing thing here is that one of the teachers asked the difference between Martin Luther and Martin Luther King Jr. Then, because we were behind schedule, the coffee pause was canceled so we kept sitting there. The bishop then spoke, his piece on "être use eglise ensemble" seemed a smooth rehash of what he has spoken of before, most angled to defend himself from detractors. Nothing really addressed teaching, though of the first speaker I asked a question about translation (because he was talking about Luther) an the role of translating the world for students in a way that does not bring about blind obedience. This, by the way, was the overarching theme of his speech and continued a bit in the bishops and underneath it all was the demand that they want obedience to themselves. It was rather a pity when I thought spiritual retreat would mean thinking about pedagogy in a church school, but it was instead honoring figures of power. For lunch Alfred, Oliver, and I went and visited another friend of theirs on the camp, so that was refreshing, and when we returned we broke into small groups. At the end, during discussion, I stood up and scolded everyone for talking about being "ensemble" when certain teachers were noticeably absent, our fellow English teacher Rev. Besson who is sick something horrible, but the administration told no one, and I said that if togetherness is desired, than it needs to be a circular share of knowledge and not pyramidal tyranny. Then I clinched it by saying "the faith of an institution is in the people, not the building" and then there was a lot of fuss because no one else had known Besson was sick, and so we ended. We ended at 4:36 a full hour before reported. This is the first thing I have attended in Africa that ended early. So yeah for that.
Wednesday
The day of competitions between the various colleges and lycées of Ngaoundere, of which there are over fifteen. I had no idea, and each has its own special uniform, ranging from the scotch-plaid of Amity International, to the yellow of Classique, to the gray with flowing white veils of Islamic, to the sweater vests of a school I never quite caught to our own sky blue with Boy-scout patch on the breast pocket heraldring (I.e. In the shape of a medieval heraldry) allegiance.
The day began with a surprise, the administration had met and decided to give each student five hundred francs for the day. Now the words sit easily on the page, but the battles that took place to make it happen would scar the screen of my iPad and burn the eyed of any readers out there. As it was, we were the only school to bring all our students by moto and not some sort of rented vehicle. This is, as a sideline, one of the most enormous differences between America, at least Yankton, and Cameroon. I never attended a school activity and did not have my transport guaranteed. In fact I had to fight to attend the event in any way other than by the school provided transport. But here someone must know someone who knows yet another to get a vehicle. The school does not even have possession over a car, much less a bus. And what is more when they tried to borrow from the ELCA bureau they learned that certain vehicles lacked the papers to be driven. But we arrived at the competitions and took our places. We were only abou an hour and a half late which meant we were an hour and ten minutes early to the actual start. And why did we wait? For the same reason as at the military camp many years ago. These official events like to have public figures, who are less than thrilled to be there, launch the ceremony, and the new regional director of bilingualism took his sweet time in getting there, stood up, sat down, hear a rendition of the national anthem (marvelously performed, I might add, in a really stimulating and understandable manner. The words and rhythm of the anthem are impossibly hard and most people sing it without understanding it). And the director stood up and delivered an utterly unpracticed speech, some lackey must have written it, and struggled through the English making the obvious mistakes of someone uncomfortable to be reciting (much less speaking) a foreign language. And then the speech switched to French and that two was painful. And this man is director of bilingualism? Ahhh, okay we accept such things as cameroonian, I suppose. Hut then he left and the truly bilingual directors of Ngaoundere Launched the program. We began with:
Poems. The style here is not that of oral interp in SD, but of a cross between epilepsy and rap with some limb-throwing gestures. At least that is what the popular ones do. The dullest were a series of acrostics. And the other style is a crisply spoken English with lots of military metaphors connected with styles of education. The most bizarre a man came out and introduced himself as Cameroon. A woman came out and said she was English. Another woman came out and said she was French. The boy proceeded to say "I am a polygamist. I am married to both. I sleep with English when I want to do business and go oversees. I sleep with French when I want to travel in Cameroon and conduct civic affairs).
Songs: everyone was supposed to have three minutes, but this they told us only upon arrival (organization is something Cameroon education waits for) and so some schools entered singing, sang three songs, and left, here too there are differences. Some schools featured a dynamic singer with a backup, other schools made signs that they would throw up to intitiate chanting. Also, I heard We Are the World five times and in three of them the singers were crying even as the impresario was pushing them off the stage. It is pretty cool, though, because everyone knows it and would join in.
Newscast. Self explanatory, and very hard to understand as the mics failed here. Also, for a country where all the kids I've met want to be journalists (that is television newscasters) there is a major lack of creativity and practiced voice presence.
Skit. These varied from classroom scenarios where a student refused to go to English class and thus finds her future closed off to confrontations in a hospital about AIDS prevention.
Debate. I thought this was going to be really dynamic but it turns out not to be a debate between schools but rather a school presented a practiced discussion. It was pretty boring, but there was a funny announcement before it began that said this was an academic exercise and we were not to think that the opinions revealed belonged to the students, the teachers, or the institution.
Quiz, this was very interesting. Questions were asked in both French and english and varied from grammatical issues to Cameroonian history and geography, to international sports. I did not do very well past the grammar questions.
Traditional dance. And this is where the hips stopped lying. You know the reference? A song sung by Shakira (or a song that Shakira sang) a while back, perhaps in 2006, no? Back when she called out her hips don't lie and she danced for the world cup in Germany. Well these student groups came gyrating out in groups from three to twenty. Boys were bare-chested and heavily muscled and girls wore whirling colors and often skirts of long grasses. And for the most part they had slashed of white paint across their bodied in different patterns according to where they came from. But this was no hula, lest you get the wrong idea, for the drums best impossibly fast and the bodies dashed against nature's imprisoning bodies. Unlike dervishes, these dancers do not move in circles, rather it is a hypnotic pentadecahedron. Shakira might have moved her hips through four or five angles, but these kids gave proof to her mendacity when their moved through a cycle of truth equal to fifteen sharply defined angles of the hips. It is astonishing to watch as they pop lock and drop to the best of traditional drums.
The results gave ColPro
first prize in the essay contest (held on Jan 7th)
second In the poem
Third in the dance
Friday
I found myself accompanying five students to Independence Square for an event before the governor and mistress of education. There was no money, so I paid the student transport. We arrived on time at eleven. We learned at eleven forty that the event had been postponed until two, so I rushed back and taught a class the manner of making comparatives and superlatives with less, least; more, most and then returned to the kids awaiting. Or rather, I awaited them. We were soon together, but I had no ides what to do having been left to fend for myself by the actual coordinators of the club. So I ended up failing to register us in time and so was scolded by someone. But it turned out okay. The prizewinners accepted their loot. Twenty thousand francs, two backpacks filled with notebooks and pens, and six satchels filled with crayons, notebooks, and pencils. Very cool.
Saturday, and the reason I did not post yesterday
The faculty had an obligatory spiritual retreat that was weird because the faculty has not been paid and so are upset at the administration but everyone had to pretend to get along. It bugs me a lot, but everyone seems quite good at it. We were supposed to leave at seven and actually managed to leave at seven forty, so that was pretty good. When we arrived Alfred and I split off because he has some folks from his village there. We were at Wacwa (where I was last week for the student picnic) and when we got to their house they gave us some corn foufou djamba djamba. Excellent. And by the time we returned people were ready to get down. We were in a small airless chapel, which did not really matter at eight thirty, but by three was filled with flies and distress. The program was simple, two two-hour talks by church officials, a pastor and the bishop. The former spoke of dynamic faith and delivered a series of platitudes. The most distressing thing here is that one of the teachers asked the difference between Martin Luther and Martin Luther King Jr. Then, because we were behind schedule, the coffee pause was canceled so we kept sitting there. The bishop then spoke, his piece on "être use eglise ensemble" seemed a smooth rehash of what he has spoken of before, most angled to defend himself from detractors. Nothing really addressed teaching, though of the first speaker I asked a question about translation (because he was talking about Luther) an the role of translating the world for students in a way that does not bring about blind obedience. This, by the way, was the overarching theme of his speech and continued a bit in the bishops and underneath it all was the demand that they want obedience to themselves. It was rather a pity when I thought spiritual retreat would mean thinking about pedagogy in a church school, but it was instead honoring figures of power. For lunch Alfred, Oliver, and I went and visited another friend of theirs on the camp, so that was refreshing, and when we returned we broke into small groups. At the end, during discussion, I stood up and scolded everyone for talking about being "ensemble" when certain teachers were noticeably absent, our fellow English teacher Rev. Besson who is sick something horrible, but the administration told no one, and I said that if togetherness is desired, than it needs to be a circular share of knowledge and not pyramidal tyranny. Then I clinched it by saying "the faith of an institution is in the people, not the building" and then there was a lot of fuss because no one else had known Besson was sick, and so we ended. We ended at 4:36 a full hour before reported. This is the first thing I have attended in Africa that ended early. So yeah for that.
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