Schools Out For Summer

Saturday night and I’m in bed before 8:30. Yogi is not happy, whining, creating pagaille in the room. He still has lots of energy and wants to stay up and run around. But I have a cold and I think lots of sleep will do me some good. And I’m the Alpha dog so he just needs to calm down and accept it.

Having a chicken is not as easy as they made it sound. She poops more than any other animal on the planet, I swear. I don’t know how she comes up with that much poop from the two handfuls of rice she eats a day. Also, she is on a thirst strike. I haven’t seen her drink water at all. But I leave a small bowl of it where she can reach it all the time so maybe she is not so dumb not to drink if she is thirsty. She is uncomfortable so she bobbles around half the day trying to get comfortable, complaining. I can’t freaking wait to let her outside. Then we’ll see if she comes home or not. I’m going to make her a little nest on the porch so I don’t have to keep her inside nor have to worry about her when I am away, like at girls’ conference in two weeks.

So I had planned to spend the whole day on the couch, nursing my cold, but around noon I decided to go and saluer the Sous Prefet and family. Then I heard music coming from the school and remembered I had been invited to the “fermature” of the primary school. Now, when I was invited, he made a motion like he was locking a door, which led me to believe that we were literally just going to close the school and I was like, “why am I being invited to this?” No, it’s more like a closing CEREMONY complete with all the kids years 1-5, parents, friends, teachers and officials. I guess it’s a good thing I showed up because they had me on the list of officials to announce. So I had to give a little wave when the MC announced “la femme du Corps du la Paix, Oumou Diallo”. I was NOT properly dressed. I was wearing a dirty tank top and a pair of long shorts the tailor made for me and plastic flip flops. At least the shorts were made of Guinean fabric? Never make the mistake of thinking you can go somewhere and just hang out in the back and act casual. Cause it never happens.

So after a bunch of waiting and speeches and kids going to the microphone and doing recitations (this is how they learn here…they are made to memorize several series of phrases in French consisting of introducing themselves and their parents, saying where they go to school, etc, etc, etc), they line all the kids up and start to read off each kid’s name. Now, it’s not in random order or alphabetical order, it is in the exact order of how well they did on the three yearly compositions. So, kid with the highest average is read first and so on until the kid who did most poorly sheepishly walks by the table of officials including me, the CRD, the director of the Koranic school (I think), some dude from the Gendarmerie (cops), the district representative, the DPE (Prefectoral education director) and the DSPE (Sous Prefectoral education director). Then all the kids yell at kids who are still standing on the other side of the mango trees. Maybe those are the kids who REALLY didnt do well who don’t get their names read. I think of what this would be like in America. I think people would be outraged because in the US we put such an emphasis on self esteem and not hurting people’s feelings even if the plain truth is, you did the worst on your exams.

Parents and family friends give some of the kids money as they do their walk of fame (or shame) and each kid is expected to put 1 mille franc in a basket at the officials table. I ask the DSPE what the money in the basket is for. He says something about the teachers contract not being fulfilled and basically the money goes to pay for the taxis to take the teachers back to where they are from. Because lots of teachers don’t actually live where they teach and go home to their families for the vacance. Why they don’t just move to where their job is like we do in America is beyond me. They have to be here from October to July, seems worth it.

After observing this whole ceremony for awhile I decide I want to give money to the top girl in each class. Unfortunately I did not decide this until the last class, the 5th, was being announced. And then the top girl was, like, 13th. Of maybe 40 or so. She looked confused when I handed her 2 mille. Other kids who were getting money would only get 1 mille per donor so I wanted to show that the top girl was important so I doubled the cadeau. I asked the DSPE to show me the top girls from the other 4 classes at the end but it turned into a pagaille and Nene came up and said “allonsi” so my goodwill gesture of trying in a small way to encourage girls to stay in/do well in school was thwarted. Next year.

So if you ever wondered how integral rice is to life here, here’s a little slice: the kids learn a song that they sang multiple times during this ceremony and a bit of it goes like this: “When I’m hungry I eat the rice. When I’m thirsty I drink the water.” What else are they going to drink? There’s no milk (well, there would be if they’d milk the cows but they don’t do that), sodas are way too expensive and that’s pretty much all we got. Although occasionally a kid will earn 500 francs and go buy a Jolly Jus packet (kinda like a Kool-Aid packet) and flavor their water. I also like how they say THE rice. It’s like that time in training when Yarie said she was going to do the cooking that day and I said, “what are you going to make?” and she looked at me like I was an idiot and said, “the rice!!”

On the Sous Prefet changement front, Mr. Bangoura arrived back from Conakry yesterday evening. He told me that when he told the Prefet he was being changed, the Prefet was like, “no! You are my best Sous Prefet! I told them not to do that!” And then suggested a way Mr. Bangoura might keep his job. And if Mr. Bangoura WEREN’T such a decent Sous Prefet he might have gone that road but he didn’t, dude’s got principles. Unlike some others who are keeping their jobs. So they are moving to Conakry. Which is one of the better places they could move, for me, because it means I can see them when I am in Conakry for my quarterly visits. It’s better than, like, Boke. Where I never plan to be.

He also said the guy coming to replace him is a good guy but I don’t know how well he knows him and I wouldn’t put it past Mr. Bangoura to say nothing but nice things so the community gives the guy a fighting chance. Nene came by my house today and said that people have been coming over to the SPs house all day to cry. Including me.

C’est la vie.