A giant game of telephone, anybody?

Knowledge and fact are sort of subjective things here in Benin. I can ask 5 different people when the rainy season will start and one will tell me "oh, soon. it will come, it will come", one would say April, another May, and someone else would just say, oh well, a month or two after the heat starts. So much is based on personal opinion and perspective that it's often hard to get a true or concrete response to any question. This only becomes more frustrating when a real problem exists that needs to be solved, such as my issues in November with the post office being closed for over 2 weeks. Nobody even noticed or cared enough to find out why or tell any authorities about it (I'm the one who informed the mayor's office that sits just next door).

Well, this phenomenon has only become more amusing to me in the last 2 weeks because the entire South-Western part of Benin has been having huge issues with power outages. It's normal for the power to go out for maybe an hour or two at a time, but we've been having 12 to 16 hour outages with only a few hours of power in between. The first full day everyone was a little surprised and the giant game of telephone began! When I left school at the end of the day I started hearing all sorts of stories from colleagues and neighbors. One said we were being punished for political reasons. Another stated vehemently that it would remain out for 4 days straight (it came on about 4 hours later). There were reports of it out in all big neighboring towns on the highway, but then others said it was already out in Cotonou and the entire country. Some said power was cut from Ghana because our government didn't pay for it. Radio stations were apparently announcing all sorts of random things as well, just to add to the confusion.

Despite having been here for 19 months...we still totally fell for it! All the volunteers in my region were texting each other to complain about the outages and see if anyone knew why. Turns out we exchanged our local "theories" and none were even remotely similar! We also texted volunteers in Cotonou and the North and of course they all had plenty of electricity. So...here we are 2 weeks later and the outages continue! I have no idea why, but I think by now everyone is thinking it does have something to do with power coming from Ghana. I think it's basically like a rolling black-out situation. Anyway, it's really quite obnoxious and the hard part is that my part of Dogbo is on a hill and is mostly pump water (not wells), so once the power goes out, the water is cut an hour or two later because the water in the system runs out.

In other news, the first semester is officially over this week, I can't even believe it! Crazy how it's going so fast and quickly approaching the end :-(. I was looking at my lesson book from last year and realized that up until this point so far this year, I have given 27 lessons, but the ENTIRE second semester last year I only gave 9 lessons total. Due to the school breaks and exams it's really barely any class time, and it's pretty ridiculous. But then of course the 2nd semester grades count twice as much towards their final grade at the end of the year, even though they barely do even half the amount of work!

So we spent this last week giving the kids the final calculations of their semester grades. My two classes of first years did really fantastic, I'm so proud and it was so cute to see them light up when they saw their grades. Passing is 10, and I gave lots of 14s, 15s, and 16s. For most this is their first year of school and I saw that their grades in other classes are rarely above 10, and never above 12 if that. I'm happy to see that they all have been doing well even though I think I've been being harder on them recently.

Unfortunately I can't say the same for my 5th year students. Only about 8 of the 40 received passing grades, but even worse is--- get this--- they are on strike against me and the other professor I teach the class with. I give participations grades to all of my classes which get averaged in as quiz grade. For almost all of my students (including most of the 5th years), this grade increases their overall average and is often higher than one or both of their written quiz grades. Well, all of the students who received failing participation grades also happen to be the troublemakers (surprise, surprise), and the day of grade giving they started shouting and refusing to accept the grades. The system has been well explained and clear since the beginning and unfortunately they took it open themselves to try to "solve" this issue by then blocking the door with benches and desks the next day and declaring a strike. Since we aren't "technically" in class time (they stop class for 2 weeks for grade calculation), the administration hasn't sought fit to address the issue or the students at all. Honestly, I'm not too worried about it...the grades are in the book and the principal says they stay!!

In happier (and much less stressful) news, my friend Ryan is flying in tonight!! We're spending the week in Dogbo and starting our trip to Burkina Faso and Mali on Friday. It should be great!