clubbin in Tchamba

written 25 April

Since I've been back from Ghana, things have been moving along quite nicely. I've been really busy. Heather and I started two clubs together: and English club for adults who already speak a little bit of English and want to get better, and a club for "4eme" (middle school) students. I've also been helping some HS students study for a big exam.

--Club d'Espérance--

The theme of the club at the middle school is "what do you want to learn about?" We meet every Wednesday in the afternoon. Our first meeting went, as Heather and I agreed, "not bad". I don't think the kids were completely comfortable. Heather and I are trying to run this club very informally and democratically. The students are used to the dictatorship of the Togolese school system, so when we asked them to get into groups and discuss what activities they wanted to do with the club, they didn't really know how to handle it. But we also handed out a little questionnaire to get to know the kids a little better. We asked them things like their age, what section of Tchamba they live in, who they live with, if they have a kid, or a boyfriend, or if they're having sex yet-- stuff like that. I was pleasantly surprised with the results.

The second meeting went even better than the first, and I would say we upgraded from "not bad" to "alright". The theme of the second meeting was "us" (Heather and I). So we brought in pictures of our families and friends. I had a poster of New Jersey (it was a Drew University poster that I found in one of my suitcases; no idea how or when it got there) and Heather had stuff from Texas. We took questions from the kids and they asked stuff like if it was cold in America. I went into a long description of what snow is like and how you have to shovel it from the sidewalks. The explanation was so drawn out because they don't even have sidewalks, let alone snow to cover them. It was exactly like when I'm telling a story to my family or friends at home but in the other direction: "So I stopped by the tchouck market to grab a beignet for lunch and--", "wait, what's tchouck and what's a beignet?"

Anyway, the third meeting was... well, it looked like it was going to both crash and burn, but pulled out of the tailspin at the last minute and made a safe landing at "pretty good". Heather and I talked to our friend Fatao who is a technician at the hospital. He's a great guy and he's successful and young. He'd be a great speaker about "how to win at life", meaning "this is how you get a job at the hospital that requires skill instead of selling soap in the market". Heather was taking a trip up to Dapaong to see some friends, so I was to handle this club meeting Han style...Solo. The day before the club I went to the hospital to help out with vaccinating the mothers and infants and Fatao told me he was going to be busy the following day, but Phillip could cover for him. Phillip is on his way to becoming another Fatao, but he's not quite there yet. He's just an intern at the hospital and he's not nearly as welcoming or friendly as Fatao. I don't know him very well, so I didn't know whether I could trust him to show up to the club. I decided that i'd find a safety net and go talk to my homologue, Affo, who works for an NGO called Plan (www.plan-international.org). He's of the same caliber as Fatao and would have a thing or two to tell the students about how to be successful. He agreed to come talk to the club. Come Wednesday morning, he told me he couldn't make it, he was busy. So an hour before the club was supposed to start, I biked over to my friend Nicole's house. She also works for Plan, but she just moved to Tchamba and I didn't know her nearly as well as I knew Fatao or Affo; we had just met not too long ago. I asked her if she was busy and if she would do me a favor. I asked her if the Phillip guy is a no-show, could I call her and have her come to the middle school. She agreed, and I thanked her dearly.

After giving Phillip more than an hour to come, by having a rock, paper, scissors tournament and then a few rounds of hang-man, I decided to call Nicole. I was really nervous, and when she got there I gave her a few pointers at the last second as to what to talk about. She talked a bit about where she grew up, and what her work is now. I asked the students if they had any questions for her, and they didn't, so I asked her a few to get started. I asked her questions about university and what she studied and stuff. Then the kids started opening up and asking questions. Nicole was awesome! She talked at length about what her life is like working for an NGO as opposed to someone who drives a moto. She talked about how she sold little jewels while she was going to university to help pay for it, and how she wanted to become a director (directrice) of an NGO one day, but not necessarily Plan. She was great, and said everything I dreamed a guest speaker would say. After I told the kids what their little assignment that they had to do before next week was (list the 5 things most important to you, and the 5 things you thing are the most important to the community of Tchamba), I gave them their English phrase for the week ("the future is what you make it") and explained what it means in French. And then the meeting for the day was over. I walked Nicole out to her moto and thanked her dearly. I wish I could speak French better, if only to thank her more sincerely. She told me I was good with the kids. I don't know if that was from the heart or just in response to my pathetic gratitude.

--English Club--

Today was our second meeting, and I also conducted this one Han style. I am not nervous in the least at English Club because I can always say, "Hey! All the people in this room who are from an English-speaking country, please raise your hand... that's what I thought." Luckily, it hasn't come to that yet, and I don't think it will because it's only adults and they won't give me any bullshit like the middle-school kids do. The biggest issue with this club is the timing. Before the first meeting the librarian agreed we could use the library and said 9am would be a good time, cause he wanted to be in the club too, and that's when he's there. So at the end of the first meeting we asked how everything was, and he suggested we move it to 10am instead. Oh, and also, could we move it to a different location with a chalkboard? Gah! So, this morning, I showed up to the new location at the new time, 10. At 10:15, one guy showed up, Mr. Missih, who is one of my favorite people in Tchamba-- his whole family is awesome, one of his daughters is in Club d'Espérance. He told me that the Minister of Security was in town and there was a meeting or something, so everyone was busy. He asked if we could all meet this afternoon, and said he would tell everyone at the meeting about the change. So I went about my day and showed up later in the afternoon. After waiting only a half an hour, Mr. Missih was again the only one to come. He and I waited for about another hour, shooting the shit, and then some more people showed up (none of whom were the library guy). When we were about four people deep, we decided to get started.

This week's topic was "Family". We talked about mothers and brothers, in-laws and steps. It was fun and I was only nervous once when I forgot how to spell niece for a few seconds. At the end of the club we changed the time back to the original 9am, but kept the new location. Mr. Missih assured me that he would get more people to come next week.

--Study Group--

So we are less than a month away from the BAC exam. Yeah, Nolan, it's the same Baccalaureate as in France, I looked into it. The exam is extremely difficult and it's what prevents a lot of students from graduating high school. You have to take the BAC your "junior" year and the BAC II your "senior" year. Two other volunteers put together a study guide specifically for the English section of the exam. I went and found two girls who I knew were in their "junior" year and would be taking the exam next month. I asked them if they were interested in having me help them with the English section. They said yes, and I told them to find some friends who were also interested. They each found another, bringing the grand total to four.

So the other day, three of them (one was sick or something) came over my house and we studied English using the document that that other volunteers drew up. After studying for about an hour, I had to cut the lesson a little bit short, cause I promised a guy I would eat dinner with him. The girls were a bit bummed, and I was extremely impressed with how dedicated they were. They told me that next week, if I bought some ingredients, they would cook me dinner, and we could study late into the night. I told them, hey, if you want to study that much, I'll be right there with you; I'll deprive myself of sleep if need be. This is the kind of stuff they're up against, here are a few examples from the study guide, and keep in mind that English is at least their third language, after French and at least one, but sometimes up to like four local languages:

"In 1519, Ferdinand Magellan, five ships, and more than two hundred ___1___ set sail from Spain to find a water ___2___ to the Spice Islands. Despite suffering starvation, ___3___, torture and death, they discovered the passageway known today as the Strait of Magellan.
Magellan left the Spanish ___4___ of Seville in 1519 with a group of five ___5___ to circumnavigate the world. Although the captain general of the trip was Portuguese, he sought support from the ___6___ King Charles because King Manuel of Portugal refused all help for Magellan. Due to his Portuguese nationality, Magellan had a lot of difficulty controlling the sailors of his group and frequently had to stop rebellions, or mutinies. He even responded by ___7___ many sailors to show his strength to the others who might oppose him."

"The United States is a very unique country because its population is ___1___ diverse. After declaring independence from England in 1776, immigrants have continued to ___2___ from Europe, Asia, and more recently Africa. Because it is a “melting pot” of culture, the ___3___ States have many different ethnicities. For ___4___, about 40 million of 300 ___5___ Americans are African Americans; mostly decedents of slaves.
Most ___6___ left impoverished and difficult situations to seek the “American Dream” of earning good money, supporting a ___7___, and owning a home. Despite such diversity, immigrants united using the English ___8___ in pursuit of their goals."


And that's basically my life in a nutshell (or blog post). How bout a big round of applause for those who have been keeping in contact by calling me regularly and sending letters, it helps a lot. And it's not just the content of the letters that keeps me going, it's knowing that you thought about me and took some time out of your busy day to drop me a line and let me know what's going on in your life. And for anyone who hasn't written or called, well...

I'm gonna wrap this post up with a few fun facts:
I saw a scorpion the other day in my front yard.

• My poop was green yesterday.
• I ran 8 km this morning.
• Emily got me smoking cigarettes, but I only let myself smoke half of one at a time, and only on days with prime dates.
• I'm currently reading both "Infinite Jest" and "The End of Poverty".
• I saw a scorpion the other day