If I had a million dollars...

Teach a bunch of 10th graders how to use if clauses and then ask them to write a paragraph about what they would do if they had 5,000,000 cfa (approx a million dollars). Then, explain to them what it means to 'be creative' and remind them that a paragraph is not a list. Then remind them that this is not group homework and that I should be receiving 50 different paragraphs, not the same one copied 50 times. Wait until the next class, collect their papers, and among all the randomness about buying motos and calling parents this is what you might get:

"If I had 5,000,000, I would had visited Mme Kristin house in USA and I would have got in mariage her sister. After The mariage I would not have let her suffer from any danger. Arrive to our country she would not have returned to USA and I would have taken her the audience to see our president of republic." (authentically replicated with typos and grammatical errors intact for your reading pleasure)

Hilarious. Luckily for him I was too pleasantly surprised while reading this that it wasn't until later that I got mad at him for obviously NOT following my lesson about the correct tenses to use in if clauses. I let my sister know about the proposal right away but she declined. Too bad, it would have been nice to have a sister in Benin so I could come back and visit often ;-).

P.S. Post office is still closed...Turns out the "replacement" for the normal lady took about 50,000,000 cfa and ran. Great. After trying for 2 days to see the mayor who keeps going out of town, I threw enough of a fit this morning that they were like "oh, well there is the deputy mayor"...So I went to see him and although the mayor's office is next door to the post, nobody at the office had any idea of this closure. He was actually really nice and made some phone calls right in front of me although of course he didn't have any number for any kind of post office. What he did learn was that the post does actually know of this closure and they are doing an investigation. I said I just wanted to open the door and get my packages and he said that's not possible because the justice officials are involved and I have to wait until they complete their investigation. So, I'm assuming I'll get the packages sometime around July.