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Thursday, October 29, 2015

teaching 9th grade English

I've been teaching 9th grade English at our school for almost a month now.  It is VERY different from the adult classes that I've been teaching for the last few years.
In my adult classes I've had 8-20 students in each class, usually 15 or 16.  In the 9th grade I have over 40 students.  The adults are motivated since they chose to take the class and paid to be there.  Some of the 9th graders do want to learn, but some of them are just there because they have to be.  Adults are mostly calm, quiet, and attentive.  The 9th graders poke at each other, steal pencils, whisper or talk, and need to be told repeatedly to open their books and follow along with what we're doing.  It also seems like some of them are still in the stage of pushing and testing the teacher to see what they can get away with in class.  I don't like being tough and strict with them, but that is what I have to be for now.  I have taken down some names to deduct points from those students' scores, and on Monday I had to ask a disruptive student to step out of the classroom.  She initially refused, so I calmly said that if she didn't go now I would go find the school principal to come and see her.  She went then, and I hope that this incidence is the worst that I will have to deal with in this class.  Everyone got really quiet when I asked the student to step out!
In class on Wednesday, when I teach them for a 2 hour block, they started getting antsy and talking more during one of the exercises we were doing.  Though I try to speak in class in English as much as possible, I took a little break to give them a reprimand in French.  I reminded them that they are incredibly blessed/lucky to be in school, that there are plenty of kids in Mali that don't have the same opportunity.  You could have heard a pin drop as I gave this speech!  I said that if they want to waste their time in class by not paying attention and working, that they could go outside and sit on a bench instead of bothering the students who do want to learn.  I said that I want to see them all succeed and pass the test they have to take at the end of the year; that I will to my part to teach them well, but that they have to do their part to learn.  I said that it is a shame to waste their chance for an education, that with a good education they will have choices in life, they can do what they want.  I also reminded them of what I said on the first day of class: that I love the Malian people and want to help them in the small way that I am able to help.  I have given the students my phone number and said that they can call if they have a problem and need someone to talk to, and if they want to come by my house to visit sometime that they are welcome if they can call ahead to see if I am at home.  I don't know if any of them will ever call or come to visit, but at least they know that I care. :)
Here is what the classroom looks like from the back.

And here are a couple of chalkboards that were in the back of the classroom one morning. There is very little in the way of resources for the students but they can learn a lot if they apply themselves.

blister bug wound - ouch!

I got a blister bug wound!  It isn't a "bite" because they don't bite but rather secrete their nasty blister-juice.  I had heard of these, but after 6 years in Mali this is the first time I've had one myself.  I didn't see the bug (actually a beetle), though I may have squished it to make it do this to me.  Often a blister bug wound will be a long line and mine is round, but I am pretty sure that it's from a blister bug.  The stuff they put out is called "cantharidin" and it blisters one's skin because it's a poisonous chemical.  So what I have is a second-degree acid burn.  And it's really painful!  This picture is after 5 days of suffering.  That is the side of my leg/knee in case you're wondering.


Here is what Malian blister beetles look like.  I didn't take this photo, just found it when I did research.  I was trying to see what I might possibly be able to do to relieve the pain of this blistery wound.  There isn't much that's very helpful to do but wait, but I felt a little better by reading that it is a burn and that burns are the most painful kind of wound.  So me thinking that this hurts terribly is justified.  The poison of this bug is so strong that horses and other animals can die if they eat it! 

Duck gets a wife

Our male duck is no longer a bachelor!  We got a female duck from friends in the village.  When I brought Mrs. Duck into the yard and set her down, Duck did a dance.  At least that's what it looked like to me; he seemed pretty happy and was shaking his tail feathers and bobbing his head.
This isn't a great picture, but the ducks are shy.  They waddle quickly away if I come close to them, but they seem to be learning not to go too far if I bring them food.

our land: wall progress

Here is what our land and the progress on the enclosure wall looks like today.
The foundation is done all around and the cement sections are started.  This big open space that you are looking in through will be the gate.  They need to put more metal pieces between the sections and cement them in and do more bricks to make the wall high enough all around.  Once that is all done the wall will need to have a coat of cement smoothed over it so that you won't be able to see the bricks anymore.  For right now we are waiting for more money for this project, so this is probably what it'll look like for a few weeks at least.

Sunday, October 18, 2015

our land in Mali

Just over 2 years ago we bought a piece of land in Mali.  We were given a special gift of money to be able to buy 2 lots on the edge of town, maybe 3 miles from where we live now.  One lot is considered sufficient for a house, but it seems to me that if you build a house on 1 lot there's hardly any yard left after.  Our 2 lot piece of land measures 20 by 30 meters, which is about 66 by 98 feet.
In the first picture you can see JP standing on our land, this was just after the purchase was final.  As this is the edge of town, you can see that there are a few small mud-brick houses in the picture, but mostly it is open fields. The big tree was on our land, but we had to cut it down.
 The second picture was taken about 6 months later.  The first picture was during the rainy season, so it was green.  The second picture shows the brown desert look we have here the rest of the year.  You can see that the big dangerous tree that was cut down.
 The last 2 pictures are from this week.  There have been some big changes, and there are more to come!  There are 2 neighbors that have built houses that border on our property.  The whole neighborhood has a lot of new construction happening.  We have been gifted more money for this project, and we've been able to have a well dug (you can see a man using the well in the bottom photo, he is standing on it and that black thing is to pull up water) and we are in the process of getting an enclosure wall built around the property.  It is normal and necessary here to have each property walled-in.
 Below you can see 2 men in the trench that was dug for the foundation bricks of the front wall of the property.  One day there will be a gate right where that guy is bending down.
Work is really progressing!  We are going over there almost every day to check up on things, so I'll post more photos soon.
We would love to build a house on this property, and if fact we already have an official approved blueprints plan for a house.  Before we could start building the wall we had to turn in all our plans for the property to be approved by city hall.  It was fun to design the house and map out the property.  I minored in Art in college, and I saw those design classes I had to take coming in handy.  I was drawing and erasing and drawing on graph paper for a few weeks! There aren't mortgages here like in the states, so it is just a matter of if we can find a personal loan or more gifts of money to allow us to go forward with building on our land.  We are so thankful for what is already happening!

Saturday, October 17, 2015

we got a duck!


We got a duck!  We want a male and a female, but so far we found this male, or "drake."  We should be getting a female soon and then hopefully they will make some cute little ducklings.  The adult ducks here aren't so cute, but the babies are.  This guy is not very friendly.  He seems pretty afraid of people; if he can see me at all he just freezes and stares at me unless I come too close and then he runs/waddles away.  He hasn't made the connection yet that people give him food.  The duck and the 6 chickens we have get along fine.  They all sleep in the coop together at night.  Two of our hens are sitting on eggs right now, so I should have some cute baby chick pictures in a few weeks. (but don't count your chickens before they're hatched, right?!)

Sunday, October 4, 2015

village clinics

We were able to go along with a doctor friend to see 2 medical clinics in villages.  Some of the "roads" we traveled on were really just paths or trails, and we were lucky that it hadn't rained in a few days because the village roads turn into mud puddles, or mud pits rather, after the rain.  It was clear why some people need to have Land Cruisers!
Above: this is what the first clinic looked like from the outside.
Above is our doctor friend, he is a fantastic pediatrician.  What is he doing?  Putting up shelves!  It is good to be flexible and ready to do whatever needs doing!  JP stepped in and helped with the shelf project once it got started so that the doctor could do other work.
The reason the shelves were being put up is that the clinic's office/exam room is small and they didn't seem to be very good at organizing things there.  The man in charge of the clinic is trained and certified as a nurse, but the work he does led me to think of him as a doctor.  In the photo below you can see his desk before the shelves.  How could he find anything?
Here is the nurse/doctor at his desk after the shelves were up.  It was going to take some time to get down to the desk surface, but don't the bottles of medicines on the shelves look great and orderly?
We went to another clinic in another village.  This one is newly built and was larger and better organized.  One of the big things that these clinics do is provide a safe place and trained nurses to help women give birth.  I read that in Mali 1 in 19 women die in childbirth, so this is a huge need.

about school and the first day

Thursday was the first day of school for kids in Mali.  The schools (even private schools like ours) all run on the same schedule set by the government, but the government doesn't let anyone know the schedule until the last minute.
I know I could look online and find a schedule for every school I attended in the states for this year, and it would show all of the days off for the year as well as when the last day of school is planned to be (which depends on snow days since I am from MN, but still it would give you a good idea of dates so you could make some plans.)
People here found out on Tuesday that school would begin on Thursday.  We don't know the dates for days off, they'll let us know a day or two in advance.  I am not a fan of this system.

  My first year in Mali I helped in the school's kindergarten which now has its own buildings across the street and is where I teach English to adults in the evening. Now I am teaching 9th grade English.

I get excited and a bit nervous when it is the first day of class for adult English class, but I've done that quite a few times now and I feel like I know what I'm doing there.  This was a different and new situation and I was very nervous but didn't want to let it show.

On the first day of school there was a short ceremony around the flagpole. 
At 8:00 it was time for class to begin.  The 9th grade classroom is on the second floor of this building.  They stay in the same room all day and teachers for different subjects come in for 1 or 2 hours at a time to teach.  I was given a class list... 46 students.  This is WAY too many for 1 class, and especially for trying to learn a foreign language, but 46 students in 1 class is way less that you'd find in any public school here.  On the first day of school there were "only" 26 students in class, and it was the same the second day, on Friday.  I imagine that this is due in great part to the fact that they only announced the date for school to start 2 days before school started!  A lot of kids spend time during their summer break in villages with extended family.  Plus, it was the biggest Muslim holiday of the year last week, so a lot of people travel for that.
So here is a picture in the classroom of the 26 students on the first day.  I tried to be very cheerful and energetic but I felt like I got a lot of blank stares in return.  Education is done a bit (really more than a bit) differently here than what I experienced growing up.  The government has tests that the students must pass at the end of the 6th and 9th grades to be able to continue to the next grade.  Every school uses the same school books, and the tests are based off of what they learn in those books, so I do need to teach in a way that they will be prepared for their big test at the end of the year.  The students could buy books for themselves at local bookshops, but most don't.  In many schools the students don't have books to use at all and the teacher writes from the book on the blackboard and the students spend time copying into their notebooks.  Our school has enough 9th grade English books so that every desk can have a copy, or 1 book for every 2 students to look at.  They are not allowed to take the books home, only to use them during class.
The first day of class was mainly introductions, rules, and a little bit of review of things that they were supposed to have learned last year.  The school principal came in and greeted the class, told them to show their teacher respect, and reminded them that they need to work hard and remember that they will have a very important test at the end of the school year.

I had a dry erase whiteboard made and installed in this classroom before class started.  There is also a huge chalkboard at the front of the class.  I am going to try with the whiteboard a bit more, but I may have to wind up taking it down and putting the 2nd chalkboard back up.  The students, especially those in the back, complained that they can't see well because of light reflecting off the board.  Closing the window shutters isn't an option, so there will always be light hitting the board.  I can use the board in adult English classes, so it isn't a waste, but I am terrible at writing with chalk - it is very different from using a marker on the board.

One more thing for now, I usually am able to learn all of my student's names within a month when it is a class of less than 20 and they are wearing name-tags.  I am hoping to learn these 46 students' names at least by Christmas!  I spent time this weekend making name cards for each student to display on their desks during English class.  I hope that this idea will work.