FC-Chicago

Hello all ! Happy belated Islamic New Year (celebrated two weeks ago) !

Things at site are going great. This month I’ve experienced a lot and as usual I feel like nothing I write can do justice to the feelings, sights, sounds and smells that I experience. But here goes…

A L’école

Teaching is getting easier everyday, Ala Tantu. For the most part my students are well behaved and have patience with my often mispronunciation of French. The past few weeks students have veen campaigning for positions in the student government. The positions are : Premier Minister, Minister of Education, Minister of Arts and Sports, Minister of Agriculture and Minister of Health and Hygiene. The campaigns consisted of candidates and 5-10 of their supporters coming into each class and giving a brief speech, while their supporters pretended to film them and hold up their cell phones as if they were reporters with microphones. The elections were held this week after class and one of my students was voted as the Premier Minister !

The inter-class school soccer tournament began this week. Each grade plays against the other grades and there is also a team of teachers. The teacher in charge of the tournament told me I could make a women’s teacher team and I laughed pretty hard and said me and what other women ?

The kick-off match was the teachers against the 7th graders. I thought the teachers would win hands-down, but I severely misjudged the 7th graders. « 7th grade »  is a misnomer because, while they are in their 7th year of schooling, they are not at all the age of 7th graders in the US. I swear some of them looked like they were 18 years old (quite plausible). We lost 0-1. There games will continue every night for 2 weeks. The way the students show up to support their classes – singing chants, dancing, making signs – reminds me very much of Homecoming week at my high school, it's very nostalgic. 

Yesterday my class, 12th grade, played against Terminale, the « grands joueurs ». Apparently, as I was informed afterwards, no class has ever been beaten so badly as my class, with the final score being 1-6. There are 2 games left, if we can win them both we’ll stay in the tournament.

FC-Chicago

My girls soccer team, FC-Chicago (the girls wanted to name themselves after my « native village » but FC-St. Charles was too difficult to say) is starting to shape up. There are about 40 girls (grades 7-10). When I was in Conkary for Thanksgiving I splurged almost half of my monthly allowance to buy soccer jerseys for the girls and have the name of our village screenprinted on the back. In hommage to my highscool I picked jerseys that are orange and black. The girls are pretty stoked and the boys are jealous.  Practice has become increasingly difficult however, because the boys season started and they’ve taken over almost every soccer field (AKA open dirt area) in the district. However, I have been able to bribe some of the teams to let the girls play for an hour  by letting them use one of my real soccer balls. 

Bengbe Side (planting peppers)

My newest endeavor has been helping a women’s cooperative on their pepper/eggplant farm. Last week I biked 4kms through the palm forest out into the next village (village is a generous term here – there were approximately 3 houses and maybe 5 huts) to get to their farm. There are approximately 100 women that work in the copperative but at any given time only about 20 of them are working on the field. They showed me around the farm and taught me how to plant and fertilize peppers and eggplant. My comprehension is somewhat slow since the women speak only Susu. At about 2pm the women take a break to eat rice and sauce that they prepared in the woods over their log fire. We sat around a common bowl and ate with our hands. It had been awhile since I ate with my hand (since Dubreka) and apparently things got a little messy because the 65 year old women next to me took her head scarf off to wipe the oil off my face. For an instant I felt like a baby, but then I felt the overwhelming sense of comraderie, gentillness and love that these women have.The President of the co-op asked me if I could teach the women how to read, write, and do basic math. That’s quite a task, but Inshallah I will do my best to help them. 

Wasalaam