Last week I began my 3 pm class on Thursday afternoon with menacing clouds in the distance. Luckily they hadn’t arrived yet or else my students definitely wouldn’t have. Anyway, I began my lesson and hurried to get through as much as possible before the clouds broke and rain on the tin roof drowned out any hope of the students hearing me. Even though the rain would halt my lesson I was still excited for it to come and wash away the oppressive heat. Unfortunately, the once black and menacing clouds arrived a dull gray and didn’t treat us to much rain, just a small drizzle for while.
When the rain started, the sun was still brightly shining from the other side of the sky. So as my students quietly copied down clothes vocabulary (trousers, NOT pants of course, for British English) I started scrambling across the room trying to look out the holes between the straw walls and cement beams for a rainbow in the sky. I couldn’t find one but figured I ought to explain to the kids what I was doing. Luckily just the week before I had given them color-by-number rainbow worksheets (thanks mom!) to teach them colors. I had a student pull theirs out to explain that’s what I was looking for and asked if they knew what it was. “Ah hah!! Oui, oui, Madame, we know, we know.” I was about to explain the pot of gold and all when one boy said quite loudly, “Le serpent!! Sorcerie!!” All the kids laughed at the shock on my face and when I emphatically replied “What?? No!!!” I explained that we believe there is a pot of gold at the end of it and it’s very good luck. He just kept saying, no no, it’s bad, it’s sorcery. He wasn’t arguing with me, he just continued with his work and quietly repeated, no no no. Eventually I knew it was a battle I’d never win if the discussion was between good and evil, so I just said “ugh, it’s all science anyway and none of these stories are real!!!” I doubt they had any clue what this science was I was talking about, and I know the other students enjoyed my story, but my bet is at the end of the day they still all believed in his.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Too much Cotonou!
I'm down in the capital right now and unfortunately I'll have to be coming down every weekend for 5 out of the next 6 weeks for work and meetings. Boo to so much travel! But I suppose it's good I'll be keeping myself busy and passing the time.
One big reason for so much time here is to prepare my project "Take Our Daughters to Work Day". In conjunction with a big fundraiser dinner I'm helping to organize for Saturday, May 8th, we decided to invite some girls down from our villages to accompany professional Beninese women to work on Friday the 7th. Then, I'll be running a seminar for the girls to talk about career and education planning on the 8th and they'll give a short presentation about their experience to the dinner guests on Saturday night. The dinner is to raise awareness and funds for our Gender and Development Program and I'm excited that attendees will actually get to meet some women and girls who have benefitted from one of our projects.
It's all very exciting, actually. The whole project is in partnership with an NGO called Maman Modeles. It's comprised of professional woman located around the country and its been fun to meet some of them and see how much enthusiasm and energy they have for the project. Take Our Daughters to Work used to be a huge project for over 50 girls funded by USAID and run by Peace Corps Volunteers, but when USAID cut funding the project ended in 2003. My boss and the Maman Modeles were very excited and willing when I approached them with the idea of restarting it on a smaller scale (we'll have 8 girls this year). We held essay competitions for 3rd year secondary school girls in which they had to write about what woman they admire and why. Just yesterday I met with a Maman Modele to choose our 8 winners from amongst 38 entries. I've spent the rest of my time here writing up permission slips, grant proposals, and schedules, and I think it's already to go now until our big event! I'll be bringing 3 girls from Dogbo so I'll have to notify them and visit their parents for permission this week.
One of the most encouraging (and easy) things about this project is the history of the project itself. I found out from my boss that multiple girls who participated in 1999 and 2000 actually kept in touch with their Maman Modeles, finished their educations through university, and then their Maman Modeles helped them find professional jobs and relocate here to Cotonou. One of our Maman Modeles this year was actually a participating girl herself in 1999. Now she's a popular news reporter on one of the 3 major channels here in Benin. I'm jealous of whatever girls gets to spend Friday with her and the news crew!!
So, lots of time in Cotonou devoted to that, but also planning for our summer camps, a regional rep meeting with admin, and then, maybe the most exciting thing is 19th-22nd of May we have our official Close of Service Conference. It's at one of the nicest hotels in Cotonou with a full pool, AC, and CNN! I'll also be getting my official date for home at that point and then it'll be less than 3 months til the end. Crazy how time flies and it's all almost over! On the other hand, at this point I'm starting to look for and apply for jobs and I'm just getting anxious to get home to friends and family. Luckily all this weekend business will help the time fly by even faster and hopefully all of our projects will work out great in the meantime!
One big reason for so much time here is to prepare my project "Take Our Daughters to Work Day". In conjunction with a big fundraiser dinner I'm helping to organize for Saturday, May 8th, we decided to invite some girls down from our villages to accompany professional Beninese women to work on Friday the 7th. Then, I'll be running a seminar for the girls to talk about career and education planning on the 8th and they'll give a short presentation about their experience to the dinner guests on Saturday night. The dinner is to raise awareness and funds for our Gender and Development Program and I'm excited that attendees will actually get to meet some women and girls who have benefitted from one of our projects.
It's all very exciting, actually. The whole project is in partnership with an NGO called Maman Modeles. It's comprised of professional woman located around the country and its been fun to meet some of them and see how much enthusiasm and energy they have for the project. Take Our Daughters to Work used to be a huge project for over 50 girls funded by USAID and run by Peace Corps Volunteers, but when USAID cut funding the project ended in 2003. My boss and the Maman Modeles were very excited and willing when I approached them with the idea of restarting it on a smaller scale (we'll have 8 girls this year). We held essay competitions for 3rd year secondary school girls in which they had to write about what woman they admire and why. Just yesterday I met with a Maman Modele to choose our 8 winners from amongst 38 entries. I've spent the rest of my time here writing up permission slips, grant proposals, and schedules, and I think it's already to go now until our big event! I'll be bringing 3 girls from Dogbo so I'll have to notify them and visit their parents for permission this week.
One of the most encouraging (and easy) things about this project is the history of the project itself. I found out from my boss that multiple girls who participated in 1999 and 2000 actually kept in touch with their Maman Modeles, finished their educations through university, and then their Maman Modeles helped them find professional jobs and relocate here to Cotonou. One of our Maman Modeles this year was actually a participating girl herself in 1999. Now she's a popular news reporter on one of the 3 major channels here in Benin. I'm jealous of whatever girls gets to spend Friday with her and the news crew!!
So, lots of time in Cotonou devoted to that, but also planning for our summer camps, a regional rep meeting with admin, and then, maybe the most exciting thing is 19th-22nd of May we have our official Close of Service Conference. It's at one of the nicest hotels in Cotonou with a full pool, AC, and CNN! I'll also be getting my official date for home at that point and then it'll be less than 3 months til the end. Crazy how time flies and it's all almost over! On the other hand, at this point I'm starting to look for and apply for jobs and I'm just getting anxious to get home to friends and family. Luckily all this weekend business will help the time fly by even faster and hopefully all of our projects will work out great in the meantime!
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