Azove, Football, and In Service Training – Oh, the good times continue

Since getting back from Burkina Faso, life has been good and busy. With school, I spent almost a week officially putting all of my students “moyennes” (averages) in the grade books. I had already calculated them before break, but it was quite the process officially writing them down for the school. And nothing was explained to me about how to do it – it was a learning process. I think they just assume I know exactly how everything works here. And officially calculating and writing down the moyennes is nothing like in the states. The teacher’s must write each students grades in two different books. One book is for each student with every single quiz and exam grade and final grade, and another book with a carbon copy for the students to have themselves.  In the states, I am assuming teachers do all this with computers. But the capacity for that is not here, and they feel that this is more official anyways. Apparently a lot of other teacher’s ask students to read them people’s grades and get help with writing it in,  but I do not feel comfortable having one or two of my students see all the other students grades – so it just took me forever! However, it was interesting to see the grades that I gave my kids in comparison to their grades in other classes. I often thought I was being too hard on them, but I saw patterns when looking at the grade book. Most of my best students do well in most of their classes, my average students are average students all around, and my worst have bad grades all around. And their best grade was often with me. So I am not so evil

 During this calculating the grades week I had another experience where one learns to just accept the frusturating situation, and move on. Basically, I was going over the exam that the students took before break with my students and holding class with the plan of writing the rest of my grades that afternoon, when the censor (Vice Principal) storms in  and forces me to write  my grades in the notebooks at that  EXACT moment and not hold class. How am I to know all of the grades HAD to be written in before I continued teaching? And really where is the logic there? These kids have so many interruptions with class, and not enough class time, it seemed strange to me not to hold class if I had a plan of getting everything done anyways. I got in a heated discussion with him in front of the class trying to explain my point of view, but he resisted and I was forced to stop class. I walked out of my class in a huff at the utter stupidity of the situation. But as it is in the Beninese way, both I and the censor made up, laughed, and shook hands about an hour later. The Beninese are absolutely amazing at forgiving and forgetting and hardly ever holding grudges. Not like the States. So cultural misunderstandings and misunderstandings are often not a huge deal. So I held a few classes (although the admin said we did not have to until all the grades were done, I was informed that teachers usually do continue because the students are so behind and we must keep going.  I am learning as I go…), wrote in the grades, and then we had the big end of the semester teacher meeting. We had one at the beginning of the semester too, but this one was about double the time. It was a 5 hour long meeting with no break. Fun. Not. I tried to understand as much as I could, but it was held in mumbled French, which can be a little tiring after awhile. The interesting part of it was when they handed us sheets of paper with the break down of how each class did (every single 6ieme, 5ieme, 4ieme, 3ieme, 2ieme, etc), and the best and worst students for each class and the school.

My post mate and I got the correspondence club up and going again now that we got the responses of letters from the states, and the break was over. Many of the kids were excited to get their letters, and hopefully we will send letters soon back to the states. Just like any club, the numbers have petered down a bit, but at least some kids are getting something out of it, and English hopefully seems more applicable to them.

The girls football team is going great! We had a game against Dogbo for International Women’s Day on March 8th. It was awesome even prepping for the game to come and a great awareness opportunity. I made posters for us to put around the school and the community, and students were super intrigued. Surprisingly, the director was really supportive of this event and gave the official approval to let me put signs up, and I would see students throughout the week reading: “Azove vs. Dogbo pour La Journee Mondiale Des Femmes” (International Women’s Day), and students asking how they could get there to watch. We were able to get them “Les Zovettes – Club de Football d’Azove” (our team name) shirts and sneakers with the GAD (Gender and Development) Small Projects fund – which I picked up in Cotonou.

The day of the game was, overall, exhilarating. I can’t override the fact that the other team was two and a half hours late in Dogbo (the coach had insisted we be there at 2:00 for a 4:00 game, and they did not show up till amost 4:15), and so Allison and I were getting impatient as one can imagine. We had gotten a bush taxi from Azove to Dogbo for the girls and had left at 1:00 so we were waiting awhile.  However, the girls handled it wonderfully, and it was actually pretty fun overall doing some pre-game practice, crazy dancing to the music being played by the announcers who were there for the game, and really just letting loose and celebrating the day. Once things got started it was very exciting. The Dogbo girls were huge, a few years older than our girls (at least), and had totally official uniforms, shin guards, and cleats.  I felt like we were in some movie where it is obvious that the competition is great! But oh well, we had to play! The Dogbo coach had even arranged for totally official referees, music,  and announcers. The showing of support for the Dogbo girls was good, but I was soo proud that a handful of my 5ieme boy students, and some of the other girls who we could not fit into the taxi (only 15 could fit, when there are are about 20+ who had come to many of the last few practicies) came to show their support. It was great.

Anyways, the game started, and man , were the girls trying. However, the field was about twice the size of what we practice on, the girls were about twice the size, and the Dogbo girls had the cleats and shinguards and the like to give them an advantage. So, our girls were not great, but man did they try!! It turned into a crazy day when it started to absolutely POUR, i mean almost hail, a little after half time. I think this is what made the day so intense. Literally, I could barely see what was happening, and it started to virtually flood! The first of the big rains for the season, I guess, after it being so dry. But what a day for it to come! Most of the spectators ran off, but we kept on playing! Play on! Soon, Allison and I started dancing on the sidelines with the Dogbo girls who were holding chairs over their head and singing, and our team scored in the midst of this! We rushed on the field to the girls in crazed happiness, hugging and laughing and lifting each other up, all of us absolutely soaked to the bone! So it ended up being 7-1, in favor of Dogbo, but it really did not matter. All 17 people crammed into the 9 seater taxi back to Azove, as we attempted to get out of the sheets of rain and flood, and the girls were singing songs in Adja (with the radio), the whole way back, with an incredible energy and power. It was an incredible day, and definetly one of the most memorable for me thus far in the Peace Corps, and one of those days that I will remember for a lifetime. I think the girls had a great time, through it all, and I hope feel more empowered because of it!

Speaking of girls, I have attempted to start a girls club at my school. We have only met once so far, but the girls were so psyched to do it! I met with the girls from my two 6ieme classes one day, and then with  my neighbor Krystal’s 6ieme class. I talked to them about International Women’s Day,  that this club was for THEM and for them to have an opportunity to be supported through school (with the low number of girl students) , and then got their ideas of what they would want to do during a Girls club. They all seem to be REALLY interested in girls football (the trend continues), getting help with English, doing art, talking about future job possibilities, among others. Then I got some information about them by   having them present each other and answering questions about their favorite things, dreams for the future, etc. It was great to just meet with the girls, and they really continually inspire me. I hope to do something really positive with this club and to form even closer bonds with my students. Like the girls football team, I think it is really important to be developing these mentoring connections with the youth here.

I also have discovered even more cool parts of the area near where I live. A few weeks ago, my post mate Allison and I went to really go explore the offerings of the  gardens in Aplohoue, one of the areas right outside of Azove  – in search of a broader selection of vegetables, really. We of course, biked to the gardens, which are between Azove and Aplohue, and down this huge, huge hill. We went to about 4 or 5 different gardens – some I had quickly been to before with my director months back during my post visit, but this time, we were really in search of something.  Unfortunately, the selection is limited right now, I guess the end of the season for many vegetables, and we have not quite hit the season of others, but we were able to  buy some fresh lettuce. However, it was soo cool anyways to see these beautiful gardens, to know that they are here right near us, and to experience some calmness and tranquility right outside of the town limits. All of them were a little different too . I feel like there is always so much here to appreciate and discover. I am truly lucky to have this post.After the gardens, Allison and I finally introduced ourselves to the doctors at our hospital in case of any emergency where we could not get all the way to Cotonou – trying to cover all bases!

Continually enjoying the “marche” days and my home. Sheena and Eric, two volunteers from Klikame, about a 45 minute zem ride away came for the weekend to go the Azove marche (famous in the area!) and it was so fun eating the plantains, drinking the fresh  juices, checking out the tissue, as usual   Experiencing the craziness. And it was great hosting. I am enjoying cooking more and more, and I got to say, I am getting better all time can’t wait to really dig in with all the selection I will have back in the States!

I seriously love my neighbors, especially the kids. Really sad that my little neighbor Mikey is still in the hospital, but I love spending time with Maso, Flo Flo, and their grandmama. I think all of my neighbors and I are continually becoming more and more comfortable with each other, which leads to good times. Flo Flo even made me some yam pile Grandmama Flo Flo speaks no French, but we have a wonderful time bantering back  and forth in gestures. My other neighbors too are great, and I just love sitting with them and talking, and I feel like just a part of the neighborhood. And I am enjoying my beautiful, sandy runs in my area

I am here for the weekend in Cotonou after the In-Service Training (IST) for TEFL which was held at the Songhai Center (http://www.songhai.org/songhai_en/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1)  in Porto Novo (Benin’s actual capital), which is a really neat place that focuses on improving agricultural productivity – with each part of the center working off of each other, so nothing goes to waste. Really cool and very innovative. The training itself was fairly interesting. All of the TEFL volunteers  came together and our “homologues” (counterparts) came for the training as well. We have chosen counterparts – a teacher from our school – who we are supposed to be working with during our two years here. I think it was a really good opportunity for teacher development for both them and us – especially in regards to visual aids – and will hopefully assist in having someone kind of on the same page as me at school, so I do not feel like I am always in the dark with what is happening. My homologue Wilfred is a really nice guy, who seems really open to ideas, and helping with secondary projects , etc. Hopefully, I can also improve my ability to assist with collaboration and teacher development after this training. It was also a really good chance to see everyone as usual.

Only a week until my friend Courtney is visiting from the States (so awesome!), so we will hang out at my post, and see a bit of the South before going to Cotonou for the All Volunteer conference and GAD (Gender and Development) auction and dinner which many of you all have been soo awesome to donate too!

So life continues on. It is coming up on 8 months, so time is flying by – but I still have 19 months to go! Crazy!

Peace and Love,

Jordan