L.D.T.: Lycee Departemental de Tougouri

L.D.T.

Sign for the new library we just got, thanks to the Canadians.

Soccer field

The trimester is almost over (already!) so I’ve decided to have another blog entry with more information about my school. I teach at a lycee, the equivalent of a high school in the U.S., but have grades 6e to Terminal (equivalent of 6^th to 12^th grade). In Burkina, secondary education volunteers teach either at a lycee, like me, or at a CEG (College d’Ensignement General). A CEG is equivalent to a U.S. middle school with 6e to 3e (6^th to 9^th grade). One reason Tougouri has a lycee rather than just a CEG is because it is a departmental head and services 42 smaller villages. (Side note: Burkina is divided into 13 regions, 45 provinces, 350 departments, and 8000 villages. Tougouri is the head of one of the 350 departments). Despite servicing so many villages, there are only about 300 students in 6e and the numbers decrease as students age, with only 20 students in terminal. Despite the fact that school is mandatory to the age of 16, according to the government, the percentage of people who actually attend secondary school until 16 is very small, about 10%.

Because so many people do not attend school, Burkina’s literacy rate is only about 13%, favoring men at 18% and women at only 8%. Only about 1/3 of Burkina’s 7 year olds (average age to start school) actually attend primary school. The government wants 60% completion rates by 2010, but I doubt that is going to happen. Schooling, for the most part, is not free, although some new pilot schools have been established that are free. Parents do not want to spend money on schooling and some even see schooling as a threat to traditional values. For example, it costs around 25/30,000 CFA to attend L.D.T. for one year for one child, which is a lot of money given that the majority of the population lives off of less than 1000 CFA/day (equivalent of less than $2US). Another problem is finding spots for all the students. L.D.T. only has 315 places for students in 6e coming from 42 villages. Also, since many of these villages are rather far away, students have to either walk/bike several kilometers each way or find a place to live in Tougouri, which of course costs money. Some students find other families to live with during the school year, and a few lucky ones live at an NGO sponsored house in Tougouri.

Burkina has several national exams: after primary school, after 3e, and a third (the BAC) after terminal. Students need to pass these exams in order to continue on to the next grade leve. Also, students need to pass their individual classes. Grades are based out of 20 and students need to get an average of a 10 to continue and a 7 to redouble. Often students who do not pass will redouble the grade, but they can only redouble once per grade at any one school. Students who really want to try again, and have the money, can redouble again at a different school if they cannot pass twice.

The majority of jobs here do not require a high school diploma (or passing the BAC). As more than 80% of the population lives in rural areas, many people are farmers. A small percentage of the population are functionaries (civil servants: policemen, doctors, teachers, etc.). However, even to get a job as a functionaire one does not need to have finished secondary school, all one needs is to have passed the national exam after 3e (equivalent of 9^th grade). To teach at the secondary school level, one does need to have passed the BAC, but 4 years of university is not necessary. There are different levels of seconardary education teachers (with different pay scales of course) that require different amounts of schooling at university or training for teachers. After finishing school, functionaries are required to serve one year for “free”; they get paid about 30,000CFA/month ($60US) when normally they would be making 100,000+/month ($200US). Comparatively, this a lot of money to what most of the population lives off of, but 30,000CFA is not a lot to a functionaire who is more educated that most so usually wants to buy better food, medicine, etc., which means spending more money. Additionally it is hard to get teachers to work in small villages because they’ve all been to the city and like life with electricity and running water (as do I). So teachers end up spending a few years at most in village before requesting to be moved to a city, even though village is where they are needed most, which is why I am here!

Now, about my December. Winter break starts the 23^rd with the conseil de classe (final trimester meeting to discuss progess of students). However, I cannot give a test after the 9^th because I need to calculate averages and give ranks. Fortunately, I have my computer (with a good battery!!!) to do this. At the beginning of the trimester, when assigning dates for tests, I did not know exactly when the semester ended, so I’ve had to do some rearranging recently with test dates so they all fall before the 9^th. But it all got figured out, as I’ve found all things do, just sometimes takes some time. Some teachers talk as if they are going to stop teaching after the 9^th, but I am definitely continuing on, because what else would I do?

A Few Photographs

Siad: my favorite little boy ever!

I think he's going to be walking soon!

My 4e class

girls at Thanksgiving

Cooking stuffing

Chicken being grilled

Ryan holding the chickens before they were killed...and eaten

On a taxi brousse eating brochettes, what could be better?

Times in Tougouri

chicken on my pepper plants

"Sahel apples" I've recently found at site

It's so hot even the candles are melting...and it's not even hot season!

Tuesday November 10, 2009
Why, when writing guide books, do the authors only mention the rare animals one might encounter only at a reserve or park when visiting a country? There is no mention of the animals one sees on a daily basis. And here, in Burkina, one sees (and hears) many animals everyday. Not only are there cats running around (as mentioned in an earlier blog) but there are dogs, donkeys, goats, chickens, and a variety of other farm-type animals. Now the donkeys here do not do much running around, as they are either pulling a cart or shackled so they cannot get away. I really don’t like seeing people throw rocks at shackled donkeys to go faster, because obviously they can’t- they are shackled! Also, someone lied about the braying noise donkeys make or maybe donkeys just make different noises in Africa. When they bray, they sound (and look) as if someone is yanking out their vocal cords. It is a very unpleasant noise, but other than that donkeys here are very mild mannered. Chickens, on the other hand, I do not like. I particularly detest the chickens in my courtyard. At first there was only one, who had its nest in my shower area and pooped on my porch. I must admit that I stole some of its eggs and ate them, but wasn’t fast enough in taking all of them, so now there are chicks running around. The chicks are so cute for about a day and then they also started pooping on my porch. I guess I should be glad that they do eat insects, but recently they have decided to site right where I planted some new pepper plants. And because I am not always at home to shoo them away, I now have no more pepper plants. I’m just glad I don’t also have goats or cows in my courtyard to eat what plants the chickens decide to not sit on. Also, the roosters are constantly crowing, whether it’s 10am or 10pm. I think their internal clocks are messed up, especially when they start going off at 2am, when it’s definitely not dawn yet and I still want to get a few hours of sleep!

African Cats

Wednesday November 4, 2009

Normally when one says “African cats” they are referring to large predator animals such as the lion, cheetah, or lynx. These animals do live in Burkina, though not as many as in the savanna of eastern or southern Africa. However, when I say “African cats” I am not referring to the lion, but to the house cat, which is much more common here. And I seem to have bad luck with these African cats. First off, Eloise (my cat) had kittens in September, one of which I gave to another volunteer, Kait, and the other I gave to a student here in Tougouri. However, this second kitten did not want to leave its home, my house. Even after giving it to the student, it kept returning to my house, somehow knowing where it came from, and would meow all night long, waking up the whole courtyard. During one of these times in the middle of the night, I spent 30 minutes chasing it around the courtyard by moonlight trying to catch it. Once I caught it, I put it inside my house thinking that it was hungry and would be quite once inside. But no, it just continued to meow and almost seemed to get louder if that was at all possible. So the next day I had a student bring it out in the bush far away so it wouldn’t come back and disrupt sleeping in the middle of the night. I might be uncaring to just have it sent away like that, but at least I didn’t give it to someone to eat. And it turns out that that student just brought it to his village 12km away. So one problem solved!

Now I’m having another problem with another cat. I think Eloise is in heat and her “boyfriend” knows it, because this strange other cat has been showing up at all hours this week, trying to approach Eloise. I woke up last night to a loud hissing near my head, which turned out to be this other cat hissing at Eloise. So I wake up and hiss back at this cat and it leaves me alone, at least for the time being. Then later this morning I got home from teaching and the strange cat is in my house! It had figured out how to use the window flaps Eloise uses to get in and out of the house. This will not do. As I come it, this other cat gets scared, as it should, and goes to leave my house by the flaps, in the process breaking a ceramic mug I had just bought. I’m just hoping this cat will not show up again tonight or more might get broken than just a mug!

Mefloquine Dreams

My new "roads" in Tougouri looking towards school from my house

and towards center of "town"

Thursday October 29, 2009

I can’t say I’ve had many adverse side effects from taking mefloquine (preventative anti-malarial medicine) on a daily basis. However I become a slight insomniac the day and the day after I take Mefloquine and have had a few vivid dreams. My first Mefloquine dream worth noting is one I had at my host families’ house during stage about a month in. At this time, I was sleeping inside (because not allowed to sleep outside where it was cooler..long story), so sleeping inside I would wear as few of clothes as possible and sleep with the door shut. So this night I’m only wearing shorts and a sports bra (not culturally appropriate to be out of my room). I wake up in the middle of the night, scared for my life, thinking that there are tons of spiders coming out of my pillow. I jump out of bed and run outside, where my host mom finds me jumping around, almost hyperventilating. She calms me down, not before bringing me a pagne to wrap around myself, enough for me to tell her that there are spiders all over my room. She goes to my room, discovers no spiders whatsoever and comes back outside. By that time, I’m more calm and have realized that the spiders were probably a dream. So I try to explain this to her, while not knowing the word for « dream » at the time and end up telling her that malaria medicine did this to me. I’m sure my dream just made her think that Americans are just crazy.

I haven’t had any other really scary Mefloquine dreams, though a few others have involved spiders as well. In another dream I was headmaster of a private school where everyone wore these very elaborate green uniforms. Unfortunatly it wasn’t Hogwarts…

Last night I dreamed that I was back in the U.S. on vacation and forgot (don’t know how) to go to the grocery store. This was horrifying at the time so my family stopped at a store on the way to the airport to come back to Burkina. Rushing through the grocery store I couldn’t find the things I wanted and had to hurry to make the plane. I woke up crying. Even though I woke up crying, I’ll take grocery store mishaps over spiders erupting from my pillow any day (or night). I wonder what my next dream will be about…

Things that make me laugh :

1. Being told that by widening and flattening the paths into “roads,” Tougouri will be “a big town like Ouaga”
2. When sitting cross-legged, being asked if I’m doing “Tai Chi.” How people here know about Tai Chi, I don’t know.
3. Titling a section a section on a test “What Am I” followed by various descriptions of plant parts that students are supposed to identify by name and I get many responses of “I am a young boy/girl named…” before they read what comes next.
4. Having to explain multiple times that I am not cooking with dirt when I was seen putting dirt into a pot to make a dutch oven
5. Hearing “bye-bye” from little kids all the time, even when I’m just arriving some place, because that’s what you say to the white person

My Courtyard

Sunday October 18, 2009

There is a custom here of when eating and someone walks by, you say “Vous-etes invitee” (You are invited), basically inviting them to share with you. The polite response is to decline by saying “Merci, Bon Appetit” and I have never seen anyone actually take someone up on the offer. However, the other day I saw someone in my courtyard actually take someone else up on the offer and come back a few minutes later with a bowl and serve themselves. Now I’m a little nervous to say “Vous-etes invitee” because I don’t want them to actually take my food, but I also don’t want to be rude by not saying it. What to do, what to do…

So I share a courtyard with 6 other houses, 5 of which are currently inhabited. In the one closest to me (they are all actually very close) lives Mr. Sodre (goes by Sodre) who teaches English at the lycee. Sodre shares a latrine and shower area with me, which I am still a little skeptical about, but seeing how it goes for awhile before trying to get that changed. Sodre lives in the house Becca, the volunteer before me lived I for a year, before my current house was built. I am very glad I have this newer house, because the old one is made of mud with low ceilings and a crazy mural on the wall-not sure who put it there…In the mud house directly across from me lives Valerie. She just arrived this week and I think she’s another teacher at the school but I’ve only ever seen her sitting outside the Surveillant’s office, so I’m not exactly sure what she does. Then comes Madame Diallo’s house. Madame Diallo teaches French and is a very nice woman who I already like a lot. Her son, Sied (I’m spelling that wrong) was born last December and is really wonderful, despite having peed on me twice already. He already smiles when he sees me (ok and maybe everyone else too), so how can I not like him? And he hardly ever cries, which I see as another definite plus.

Then comes Mariame. Mariame is the school secretary and is very African in that everyone is part of grande famille and therefore your stuff is her stuff. One day I told her she could use some of my vinegar because she was saying that she was out. So later that night, I’m in bed on my porch asleep, Mariame comes up and wakes me up to ask me if she can use my vinegar, I sleepily respond and then she just walks right in my house and starts looking for it. Granted, I should have locked my door, but someone would have to wake me up and literally step on my mattress to get inside, so the door was unlocked. But still, you don’t just walk into someone’s house, even here you don’t do that. Mariame is very nice, but doesn’t seem to understand that I’m different and gets a little frustrated when I don’t understand what she is trying to say. She has a son Salmad, who is 2 or 3 I think and is a crier (not that much fun). Needless to say, even if I wanted to sleep in late, my courtyward would wake me up.

Last is David’s house, which shares a common wall with mine. So I guess you could say that I live in a duplex. David is the Censeur at the lycee and seems nice, but I don’t know him all that well yet. He has been in Tougouri for at least 4 years already (that’s a long time when teachers get affectated generally every 2 years) and is very hard working. Although I don’t know him that well, I think I could go to him with any questions.

So that’s my courtyard and the people I will be surrounded with for the next two years (unless they get affectated). I hardly have any privacy, but can escape into my hot house if I really need to. And I think living with people will be good for my French because I will be forced to talk to people outside of school on a daily basis.