Second Trimester

Second Trimester

The second trimester is done and I am back in civilization at last. Last week I spent most of my time sweating away in our little tin roof office calculating grades for all my students by hand which becomes a bit tedious. The longer I sat there calculating averages I realized how technology is saving the world time, I would have done anything for a laptop with excel. What would have taken me an hour with a computer, took about 2 days with my calculator. Anyway it was a bit frustrating to say the least, but I have become pretty good at just turning off my brain and just working in auto pilot here in Burkina. This trimester went well in regard to teaching. My students are getting used to my teaching style and my American accent. Discipline is a problem at times since I don’t hit the students, so I have found other ways to make them obedient, like taking notes in an invisible chair and running laps around our school.

The education system of Burkina Faso is a bit of a mess really. In my rural experience students coming in knowing little to no French and are expected to learn in French, when they should be taught in their local native language. In an ideal world that would work but since there are many local languages spoken in this tiny country, a unifying language is needed for the economy and government. The colonial Gods have chosen French for Burkina and now the rest is well a historical mess. Some families refuse to speak French to their children at home, trying to show them the importance of their heritage and native language. This I agree with, and local traditions should be safe guarded, but when my French is superior to some of my students and they can't understand there is a major educational problem. My last exam I gave in my youngest math class the average was less than 30%, all because students could not understand some of the simple verbs I had used to write the test. Language is one of the major problems. Another major problem is the work ethic and reliability of my colleagues. Some of our schools teachers only come to our small village twice a trimester, once to give class, and once to give a final exam. This was the case for our English teacher this last trimester. I asked the students to see their English textbook and have them read a few sentences for me, their reading and comprehension was horrible. I looked at some of my students English notebooks and they had only a few pages of notes for the entire trimester. After 4 years at the CEG my students have to take a national exam to pass on to the next level of education and English is one of the important sections. How can rural students be expected to become involved in the development of their country if they can't even receive an education? Well I guess that is why I am here. The shortage of teachers in this country is just plain sad. It is really hard for the government to convince the small number of Burkinabe teachers after going to University in Ouagadougou and making out of the village life style, to move back to a village and live in difficult conditions teaching village students. Basically once you make it out of village, get an education and see a bit of development you don’t want to go back. This paradox is difficult with no easy solution. So it becomes sad when students in villages continue to be at a disadvantage to those in lager cities. The government has no working method of checking up on how many hours a teacher teaches per week, or how many exams he or she will give per year. And if you file a complaint on a co-worker it would take months to get to the right person and for action to be taken. So basically the students in many rural schools get screwed. Also the importance of education to most in my village is unknown, when parents pay the small tuition fee for the public school they think that it goes directly into the pockets of the teachers. Some have no idea that it goes to the government and to improve the entire education system.

I am hoping to start a sort of Classroom Pen Pal Exchange with some US schools. Some of my friends are teachers in the states and I hope to work with them to exchange questions between students in Burkina with those back home. It should be a very interesting and educational opportunity for both classes. If you know anyone who maybe interested in doing some sort of classroom exchange give him or her my contact information.

In my Physics/Chemistry class this Trimester we did a unit on atomic structure leading in to metals and electricity. It was surreal trying to explain these concepts they probably will never need to use, in my tiny village to my students with nothing but chalk and a black board. I bought some marbles to help explain atomic structure and some batteries, light bulbs, wires and switches to give demonstrations on circuits and conductivity. They worked in groups to experiment with different circuit configurations and it was really rewarding to see the students first exposure and approach to science. Since they rarely see any hands on experiments the students really enjoy any demonstrations or group work that we do in class. It can be really rewarding. I have become pretty good at using limited village resources and a little imagination, to show simple science concepts, and you all would be surprised at what you can find in Balla on market day. This trimester went by in a blur and they say they only go by faster and faster.

Music Lessons

I am taking Djembe lessons from a guy I met at a concert in Bobo. He lives and works with a French guy who is exporting high quality West-African instruments to shops in Europe. The instruments he exports are the highest quality instruments I have ever seen yet in Africa. He exports Djembes, Ballophones, and Koras. I bought one and play it in village. My teacher works for him making the instruments and tuning the drums and getting them ready to ship. He is an amazing drummer, but has never been to primary school. He is about 20 years old, and can't spell his own name. I am giving him guitar lessons, in exchange for drum lessons. Most nights after both struggling to learn with our broken French, we switch back to our native instruments and play for a while. That’s when it gets fun. I am hoping to record some music and look into linking it to my blog. The ballophones are hand tuned to the pentatonic scale by shaving and carving. This process is tedious to watch but since labor is so cheap here in Burkina the outcome is amazing. I had my guitar tuner with me one night and I checked it, it was right on.

Last week in Balla, I broke out my drum and played at a funeral with about 6 other drummers from the surrounding villages. Funerals are a lot different here than in the States. In village if someone had a long happy life you basically have huge party to remember their life, on the other hand if someone had a sort life there is virtually no funeral and just a quite burial. The longer the party, the more important the person. Judging from the party we had last week this man must have been the mayor or something. Every night they were dancing, drumming and drinking Dolo till the sun came up, and they did that for about 5 days. Some people didn’t sleep. The one night I ventured out with my drum and played was one of the most bizarre experiences I have had in village. I was sitting next to the other drummers on a long bench in a large courtyard. All the drummers had their various drums and a calabash of Dolo at their feet, which was immediately refilled the moment it was emptied. There must have been over 400 liters of Dolo there. There were two large circles of old and young women dancing around the drummers. The dust was so thick I could barely breathe. Some of the little kids could have been straight out of a Missy Elliot video. Every song was a like a top 40 hit and everyone knew all the words. One of the old ladies leading the dancers would come up to the lead drummer sing a few lines so he could recognize the song and everyone would just start pounding away. Being white, it was a little rough at first, but I have a little rhythm in me, and a few liters of Dolo didn’t hurt. I played until about 3 am, and had to go home with my swollen hands and fingers, but they kept playing well into the morning. My rings didn’t fit for days.

Village Health Care

First of all every sickness in Burkina Faso can be cured traditionally. HIV/AIDS no problem, they have a local medicine man that can give you some leaves to make a tea or to rub on your skin to make it all better. You can see traditional posters all the time with paintings of the common diseases here and ways the traditional healers can save you, all for a price. So in villages most of the people will try traditional ways to cure their aliments. I think that some times certain things can have some positive effect, for example they make a lot of teas with different leaves from rare species of trees in our forest. I think that maybe these could have some chemical compounds that might help fight against things like Malaria, if not directly, indirectly by repelling mosquitoes that carry the disease.

Every Sunday in Balla we have a village market. Vendors come from Bobo, our regional capital and from the surrounding communities to sell everything and anything they can to make a little money. Most of it is household items, and food. But a good portion of the goods sold are medications. There are no prescriptions, no consultations, no doctors, and no pharmacists. You simply walk up, to the man describe your problem as best as you can and he will give you some knock off brand of something. Normally the packaging is in English or Chinese, which obviously can't be read. So they take as many as they need to feel good. Needless to say on Sunday the majority of Balla is pretty doped up. I asked an old man drinking Dolo under our huge tree how many of those anti-arthritis pills he had taken. He looked up with glazed over eyes and said about 6, with the empty package on his lap. I read the label, and the dosage was 1 every 8 hours as needed, also said not to take with alcohol. He had been drinking all day. I tried to explain that to him about dosages in broken Jula, but to no avail. Basically any common cheap prescription drug you can find in Balla on market day. Being cheap knockoff's of major drugs they are relatively cheap, how well they work on the other hand is a question I don't need to find out first hand. My friend had bought some Aspirin knockoff and was proceeding to take 4 or so because he got dust in his nose. Good idea buddy, good. I have also been trying to inform the villagers that taking cheap antibiotics repeatedly can create antibiotic resistant bacteria, but it is really hard to change their minds, and with no education in biology they simply don't believe me. It's frustrating.

If those two approaches don’t work they finally try western medicine and go to our small local clinic. Most villages are within a day of a clinic and they have the capabilities of prescribing antibiotics and steroids against infections, delivering babies, and giving HIV/AIDS tests. The clinics are expensive in comparison to the traditional healers or market day knock off’s. This makes the clinic a sort of last resort, and usually by the time they decide to foot the bill it is usually too late. Needless to say like all medical facilities death is inevitable and the village clinics see quite a few. Also most clinics are supposed to be trained in giving an HIV rapid test that is cheap and easy. Some village clinics can and do, but most of the villagers I have talked to are just too afraid to get tested. If the test comes back positive they won’t have the money for the antiretrovirals. Since they know the disease is fatal and can’t be treated they just would rather not have the death sentence. The causes of most village deaths are unknown. If I ask why he died, the villagers simply say that he was sick.

That got a bit heavy at the end there, so just to cheer things up a bit. I am on vacation now for the next two weeks and will be heading to the capital Ouagadougou for a while and possibly up to Mali and into the Sahara. It is just not hot enough for me down here and I want to get a turban and ride some camels.