hey all- things are good here in Benin
School started on October 4th. My first classes were on the 15th, which I think is the earliest any classes were held in Klouekanme. I am teaching 5eme and 2nde zhich are the equivalents of 8th and 11th grades, respectively. The students' ages are all over the place, including many older than me I'm sure. One or two of these is even in 5eme. My 5eme classes aren't very large for here - 50-70 kids. My 2nde class has 110, or so I've been told. Class meets 2x a week for 2 hours at a time. It's quite a long time to hold class for, except that the students don't take notes; they need time to copy down everything on the board because it essentially serves as their textbook. They take a long time to copy for I think two reasons: 1) they have very little practice reading and writing compared to people in richer countries; 2) they are obsessed with form, for example I've heard of teachers debating whether the 'th' in a date (ex Oct. 4th) should be superscript, underlined or both. .. This results in a constant switching of pens an use of rulers to make dividing lines perfectly staight and of a different color.
I see this obsession with minutiae as a symptom of a wider problem: critical thinking is a foreign idea. I don't mean critical thinking in the sense of being able to grapple with very complex and abstract ideas. I mean critical thinking in the sense of being able to solve basic problems which one hasn't seen before, and to recognize patterns. For example, while teaching (ago' I used sentences such as 'the time is 8:00. Two housrs ago it was 6:00.' However, when we got to 'nine hours ago it was ____' they were lost. After 15 minutes explaining in French maybe a handfl of students understood.
The school system shows another big difference between Benin and the States: here, hierarchy is of supreme importance. Teachers always have students bring them food, erase the board, carry their bag, etc. Students do not talk back, and for good reason - if they do they get punished either with hours (usually spent doing yardwork at the school, ie manual labor) or physically. Students stand when teachers enter the room. The students also have a hard time calling me anthying but Monsieur or Teacher. I found this out after a teacher explained that these students who called me 'yovo' (white person) wouldn't call me by my name because that didn't show enough respect. I can believe that calling someone yovo isn't disrespectful, but I find it hard to believe that it is more respectful than my name.
As for teaching such large classes, it's not terribly hard here because the students are well behaved and as a man I get their respect easily. The same is not true, unfortunately, for female teachers here. It's hard to focus on individual learning, which is so important for a language class. Instead, we focus on pair and group work. It's the best you can do with this many students in a language class. Of course, the good students just give their group all the answers, then work stops. What can you do though?
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
One week as PCVs! (only 103 to go)
So Eric and I have been volunteers now for a bit over a week! After swearing in last Friday, which was alright although I was feeling sick to my stomach the whole day (better now though!), I went to Lokossa to spend some time with Eric's host family and buy a few more things for the house. Then on Saturday evening I went back to Aplahoue to be with my family, although unfortunately nobody was really around and I spent my last night mostly in my room. I guess the concept of "family time" here isn't the same as it is back home, and that's fine. Then on Sunday Eric came in our taxi (coincidentally the same battered-up peugeot we had taken to Klouekanme during our post visit, so at least we knew that it would function alright) and loaded up all of my stuff into the car. My papa insisted on coming with us to Klouekanme even though I was a bit nervous that once we arrived he'd want to stay for a while and hang out and all Eric and I wanted to do was drop off our stuff and rest. The ride up was fine, a bit bumpy as the already-bad roads had been worsened by the rains, and we arrived. My papa left right away as soon as we had unloaded our things from the taxi and Eric and I set to work putting our house together.
We are lucky to have another volunteer in Klouekanme who helped us do things like meet our neighbors, find our way around the market, get food to eat for dinner, etc. And we were lucky enough to inherit a lot of furniture and house items from the volunteer I replaced, so our first few days in Klouekanme were not too bad and we could at least sit on chairs and eat at a small table!
For the past week we have basically been doing a lot of house work including getting screens put on our windows, getting our front door lock replaced, cleaning and scrubbing, buying things at the market, and so on. It's a lot of work getting things done and there's still so much more to do, like getting more furniture, getting screen doors, and other projects.
Our house is actually pretty big: there is a living room and then two rooms, one of which serves as a kitchen and one as a bedroom. Then we have a back courtyard which is huge and has a covered area for a shower and another covered area for a Beninese kitchen (they cook outside) which we use as storage. The walls are painted pink and blue, which is nice compared to the normal concrete color. We live in a concession, basically a walled in area with a few other houses, a well where we get our water, a latrine area, and some fruit trees (including mango- can't wait for mango season!). The only thing we don't like is that the latrine is accross the concession so we have to walk over to it instead of it being in our own house, and everyone knows what you're doing when you're walking to the latrine. But it will be fine. Our neighbors are nice and speak Fon, not Adja, so we'll have to learn a little of both languages! And by the way, they are REALLY hard (for me especially- at least Eric knows how to learn such languages) and I can't say I'm making much progress yet. But we're getting a tutor and we'll see how that goes.
Other than house work, Eric and I have been reading a lot, spending a lot of time with our post mate, thinking of things we're going to do here, and just relaxing a lot before we have to start real work. Eric is starting work on Thursday, and as a teacher he has a pretty normal schedule. I on the other hand have no particular schedule and probably won't start "working" for a few weeks. And by the term "working" that can mean anything from giving a talk to a women's group for an hour, to building a mud stove, to doing an environmental education workshop, and so on. So my job might only be one hour a day, or it might be six or none, depending on the day and what I feel like doing and what my NGO partners feel like doing. So we will definitely be having a lot of free time, which I am happy about. I have a lot of projects planned and so does Eric. I want to do a lot of gardening around our concession, read a lot, learn to play banjo, and probably a lot more. Eric is going to work on his grammar for Adja and that will probably take up a lot of time. I think we will definitely work hard during these two years but have free time as well!
On Sunday Eric and I had a really fun day. We rode our bikes out to the town of Lalo, where our postmate has a Beninese friend, an older guy who is president of the health center and who has known PCVs for years so he speaks funny English. We just hung out, drank some sodabi (local grain alcohol- neither of us had very much!) had amazing pate with legume sauce and walked around the town. We got a taste of real village life there, since the guy has no electricity and lives in a mud house in the village. Klouekanme is mainly a market town so there are some wealthier people living there, but the surrounding villages are certainly rustic but very pretty. I think we'll be spending a lot of time in Lalo as its very relaxing and really fun to hang out at the guy's house there.
That's about all I can think of to write. Basically Eric and I are getting adjusted to Klouekanme. Compared to Lokossa and Aplahoue our town is relatively calm and we don't hear the "yovo song" (obnoxious song sung by children and sometimes adults whenever a white/foreign person passes by) all that much. It will take a little while but I think we be well integrated into the community within a few months.
Oh yes, we also have a new address in Klouekanme now:
Sheena Vanleuven/ Eric Morley
B.P. 70 Klouekanme
Benin, Afrique de l'Ouest
So things can be sent there, or to Cotonou. And we both have cell phones now (yes!) so if you want the number, please email us. We would love to talk to everyone, so don't hesitate to call once you have our number!
Well, until next time. It will probably be in about a month, and by then we should have lots more to tell! And I will put up pictures- the computer is being particularly slow right now but it should work next time.
We are lucky to have another volunteer in Klouekanme who helped us do things like meet our neighbors, find our way around the market, get food to eat for dinner, etc. And we were lucky enough to inherit a lot of furniture and house items from the volunteer I replaced, so our first few days in Klouekanme were not too bad and we could at least sit on chairs and eat at a small table!
For the past week we have basically been doing a lot of house work including getting screens put on our windows, getting our front door lock replaced, cleaning and scrubbing, buying things at the market, and so on. It's a lot of work getting things done and there's still so much more to do, like getting more furniture, getting screen doors, and other projects.
Our house is actually pretty big: there is a living room and then two rooms, one of which serves as a kitchen and one as a bedroom. Then we have a back courtyard which is huge and has a covered area for a shower and another covered area for a Beninese kitchen (they cook outside) which we use as storage. The walls are painted pink and blue, which is nice compared to the normal concrete color. We live in a concession, basically a walled in area with a few other houses, a well where we get our water, a latrine area, and some fruit trees (including mango- can't wait for mango season!). The only thing we don't like is that the latrine is accross the concession so we have to walk over to it instead of it being in our own house, and everyone knows what you're doing when you're walking to the latrine. But it will be fine. Our neighbors are nice and speak Fon, not Adja, so we'll have to learn a little of both languages! And by the way, they are REALLY hard (for me especially- at least Eric knows how to learn such languages) and I can't say I'm making much progress yet. But we're getting a tutor and we'll see how that goes.
Other than house work, Eric and I have been reading a lot, spending a lot of time with our post mate, thinking of things we're going to do here, and just relaxing a lot before we have to start real work. Eric is starting work on Thursday, and as a teacher he has a pretty normal schedule. I on the other hand have no particular schedule and probably won't start "working" for a few weeks. And by the term "working" that can mean anything from giving a talk to a women's group for an hour, to building a mud stove, to doing an environmental education workshop, and so on. So my job might only be one hour a day, or it might be six or none, depending on the day and what I feel like doing and what my NGO partners feel like doing. So we will definitely be having a lot of free time, which I am happy about. I have a lot of projects planned and so does Eric. I want to do a lot of gardening around our concession, read a lot, learn to play banjo, and probably a lot more. Eric is going to work on his grammar for Adja and that will probably take up a lot of time. I think we will definitely work hard during these two years but have free time as well!
On Sunday Eric and I had a really fun day. We rode our bikes out to the town of Lalo, where our postmate has a Beninese friend, an older guy who is president of the health center and who has known PCVs for years so he speaks funny English. We just hung out, drank some sodabi (local grain alcohol- neither of us had very much!) had amazing pate with legume sauce and walked around the town. We got a taste of real village life there, since the guy has no electricity and lives in a mud house in the village. Klouekanme is mainly a market town so there are some wealthier people living there, but the surrounding villages are certainly rustic but very pretty. I think we'll be spending a lot of time in Lalo as its very relaxing and really fun to hang out at the guy's house there.
That's about all I can think of to write. Basically Eric and I are getting adjusted to Klouekanme. Compared to Lokossa and Aplahoue our town is relatively calm and we don't hear the "yovo song" (obnoxious song sung by children and sometimes adults whenever a white/foreign person passes by) all that much. It will take a little while but I think we be well integrated into the community within a few months.
Oh yes, we also have a new address in Klouekanme now:
Sheena Vanleuven/ Eric Morley
B.P. 70 Klouekanme
Benin, Afrique de l'Ouest
So things can be sent there, or to Cotonou. And we both have cell phones now (yes!) so if you want the number, please email us. We would love to talk to everyone, so don't hesitate to call once you have our number!
Well, until next time. It will probably be in about a month, and by then we should have lots more to tell! And I will put up pictures- the computer is being particularly slow right now but it should work next time.
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