April / May 2009

After easter break, things quieted down a little. Here are some highlights...

- I was very tough on my students. We had an exam in class and the students cheated horribly. At school i am only alotted 100 sheets of paper per sequence. I have 500 students, so I have to give them the paper exam, tell them not to write on it, and collect them for use in the other classes. Unfortunately, this time, students stole copies, and gave them to other students. I found out, so i cancelled the scores from the exam, and gave them a new harder exam on the blackboard. Most of the questions were the same as on the first exam, so i thought it was fair. If the students studied for the first exam, they should be prepared for the second. If they planned to cheat, they will fail. This was the first time that i was really really tough on the kids. Now i am prepared to be tougher for next year.

- I have a french tutor. One of my neighbors is a french teacher for anglophone students in primary school. I met him through another teacher, and we arranged to meet a few times per week for french lessons. He gave me a brief assessment, and I speak french at a Form 2 level (8th grade). Hopefully that will improve

- May 1 is Labor Day. Lauren came into town, so I spent time with her. This is the first time that I missed the march past at the grandstand, but it was ok. Later in the evening, we met Jimmy for grilled fish. There were huge crowds of people celebrating the holiday. I also met the mother of one of my students. That was nice.

-EYUMOJOCK

-I traveled to eyumojock with my staff social group. Earlier in the year, they came to visit us, so now it was our turn to visit them. We traveled in the back of a pickup truck , which was not very comfortable. Eyumojock is pretty close to Nigeria, and the road is terrible. Of course, i got carsick. We arrived at GBHS Eyumojock and the students greeted us with songs. It was nice. After lunch, we started the games portion of the day, with cards, ping pong, and checkers. I played cards, and came in second place. Around that time, the rain started, so the volleyball match, and soccer match were played in the pouring rain. We had some time to rest, then we prepared for the evening dinner. I got dressed up and ate dinner with the principal's family, then around 10pm (2 hours late - african time), we went to the hall. I was already tired, and after 2 hours of speeches, I lost all interest and took a brief nap. It was rude, but i was just so tired. Around 1am, we were served dinner. After dinner was dancing, but i left as soon as possible to go to bed.
-The next morning, i was up early, bc we were traveling to Lake Ejagham. Its a beautiful lake, with many stories of legend. For example if you are traveling near the lake and you have no food or water, you can pray to the ancestors (who live in the lake) to give you some. The food and water will then rise up out of the center of the lake, and you can swim or row out to get it. Also, in the middle of the night, you can hear drum beats coming from the center of the lake, from the ancestors. Anyway, after that, we went to lunch and headed back to Mamfe. I was really frustrated on the way back. the teachers were really making fun of me. they were asking me things in the dialect or in slang words that i obviously didnt understand and laughing at me. Most of the time i can laugh back, but sometimes its difficult.

-In other news, I got sick again. Bacterial dysentery this time, and that is not fun. Its a good experience bc now i understand it but i dont want it ever again.

-I was really busy with the last week of school. I gave my final exam, which went well. I had one of the discipline masters at school come to each class for collection. The school really worked to make sure that there was little or no cheating on the final exams. In my free time, when i wasnt marking exams, i helped the secretary at school type exams. She was given too much work to handle, and then the delegate at the ministry of secondary education gave her more work. i didnt mind helping though.

-YAOUNDE
-I missed some school to travel to yaounde to help plan training for the new sed/ed trainees. We worked for 2 weeks to plan everything, and had some group events in between. One pcv was leaving, so there was a ceremony for her. we cooked some group meals like homemade ravioli, chili/cornbread, and quiche. it was delicious. during the weekend, we decided to have a peace corps prom. there was a tie on the theme, so our new theme became 'post apocolyptic winter wasteland'. most everyone dressed like zombies, and we wore ridiculous clothes. i actually wore a plastic market bag . it was really fun though. At the end of the 2 weeks, i was preparing for vacation to egypt and morocco.