School's Out!! (well...it has been...)

** this was supposed to be posted about 3 weeks ago when I wrote it, but internet has been down in Dogbo, so it's been a little delayed**

Well, I made it! Part of me is so proud and relieved I made it through my first year but another part of me wishes we had 3 months left because there's so much material left to cover. In the last few days of school I did smile when I realized how far my first years have come since the very beginning. They were writing full sentences with subjects and verbs and compliments and everything! Not all of them of course, hehe, but many! I don't feel anywhere near such progress with my second years, but I think that's a combination of poor and unuseful curriculum along with their behavioral problems. Oh well, I already talked to my counterparts and administration and I don't have to take that level next year!

In other news, since internet has been down in Dogbo I haven't been able to update as often as I would have liked. One fun adventure recently has been visiting some of my students' parents. I'm taking 10 girls to a summer camp we're organizing at the end of June and I needed to get permission slips signed. Of course for some parents I also needed to convince them to let their daughters leave with me. Unfortunately, one of my brightest girls refused my invitation and wouldn't even let me try to convince her parents because she thought they'd never accept.

The visits to the other 10 girls' houses were really varied in a lot of different ways. Some were a 2 minute walk from school, most about 10 or 15, and for one we had to walk down the "highway" for 45 minutes to get to her village 7 km away. Amazing that she walks it 4 times a day in extreme heat or pouring rain with taxis, motos, and trucks flying by. Some of the parents were young but some were very old. Most of them (especially the older ones) spoke no French at all and we used another family member as a translator. Some invited me into concrete houses to sit on a couch, while others pulled out a wooden bench from a mud hut. Interestingly, the younger they were and the more French they spoke the more questions they pressed me with and the more worried they seemed. I think the very old ones were just amazed to see a foreigner in their homes and willing to trust me with anything. One man got confused for a bit and thought I was taking his daughter all the way to the US. He seemed a little disappointed after that, hehe.

Overall, it was really fun and I feel like I understand each of my girls a little bit better. On the walks out to their houses we also passed lots of my other students' houses, who were both shocked and excited to see me. I think next year I'm going to encourage my students to invite me over to meet their families. I'm not sure how yet, but I'll figure something out.

On a sadder note, I learned a few weeks ago that one of my students died. His name was Doris. I had missed several weeks of school in April due to sickness and other Peace Corps obligations. My first day back, the kids were working quietly on an activity and I was silently taking attendance. When I said aloud, "Doris is absent," one of the boys closest to me just said "No, he died." So non-chalant, like as if he was saying, no, he's with the principal, or yea, he went to visit his uncle for the week. I kind of just paused and stared at them with my mouth wide open. "What??" I said. "Yea," a few replied, "he died." Most of them didn't even look up from their activity to partake in the conversation, but I think some who did were a little surprised by my response (as I was by theirs). It was as if they didn't know whay this was so hard for me to understand. I asked how and a few merely replied "mal au tete", which is basically "his head hurt." Hellloooo....that could mean 5 million things! I mean I guess I know it wasn't an accident or something. But yea, I think in my moment of shock someone was trying to comfort me by saying, "Yea, he was here Monday and Tuesday, and then never came Wednesday because he died."

I mean, really. It was just crazy. In truth I wasn't completely shocked by the death because Peace Corps warns us that students often die. I've even heard others talk about losing students this year (one had a "sick finger"). But of course it was/is still sad nonetheless and just as much shock comes from the students' response as from the death itself. I don't even know if the school officially announced it to them or if it just got around by word of mouth. But yea, I guess now I understand why at the professors' meeting at the end of every semester they announce for each class how many started, how many passed, how many failed, and how many died. What a different world.