September 11, 2009
Well Boulsa is starting to get a little more livable. We both have finally gotten to talk to both of our parents. Neither the parents or us know what the heck is going on with the international calling right now, because we can call home without any problem, but home can't call us. Oh well, just have to figure out what is going on sometime to know when to call.
Becky is now 24! Yeah, I am starting to feel my age too. Tim and I have started to exercise here, and OMG it hurts. Whoever invented planks is a twisted sadist. Anyway, it is one easy way to make sure that we are awake and going in the mornings.
We are starting to have a pretty normal routine here. Tim gets water everyday with my bike. He is always breaking his bike. I will admit, it is entirely worth the inconvenience of only having one bike since I get to watch him ride a bike that is at least 5 inches to small for him :) I go down to the veggie ladies everyday and deal with there viscous badgering. I really enjoy listening to them say that their veggies are so much better than the lady's right next to them. They have even tried to entice me with generous cadeaux. I will admit, the free gifts do help. What can I say, I'm a sucker for extra tomatoes :)
Tim and I are starting to get adventurous with our cooking. This week I made village tacos out of canned corn beef, and I made a creamy tomato mushroom sauce from scratch! Tim made some awesome pizza sauce the other night that we put over village bread and some yummy fried rice. I also made some from scratch bruschetta today that Tim devoured.
We finally made it out to the lycée this week. Tim got to go in and see his lab. It is really nice by the way. There are 25 computers that are linked to a server. He found out that he will be teaching the following grade levels: 4em, 2er, and 1er. He is going to have 14 hours a week of teaching. I found out that I will be teaching two 5em classes and one 4em class. I am going to teach 13 hours a week. I am a little nervous about teaching 4em students since their French level is much higher.
We are starting to branch out a little more in the town. Tim and I have been taking daily walks around the town. We have come across all sorts of interesting things. One thing that I pretty much ran from was a butcher chopping up the head of a hog (EW!!!). We have found all sorts of local bars here in Boulsa; who would have thought? I have gotten pretty friendly with the post office people as I have picked up that archaic thing called writing letter?!?! Thus if you are an avid stamp collector and want me to write you a letter, I have oodles of time. Just shoot me an email sometime with your address and I'll write you a letter. Some of you have no choice and are going to receive endless amounts of letters from me ;)
We have started painting our house. All I can say is I know exactly why whitewash doesn't get used a whole lot anymore. I will say one thing in favor of whitewashing, it comes out of your clothes pretty easily. There is the coolest chemical reaction that happens when we add the water to the paint chuncks/rocks. Oh and if we add hot water, OMG the reaction is three times cooler. Maybe now I know why Em and I got in trouble in chem lab...
NOT SO FUNNY STORY TIME
Authored by Tim:
So Becky and I are going to kill one of the neighbor kids soon. This evening I was reading my book in the bedroom and Becky was under the hanger doing some laundry when a kid came into our house and started to look around. Not cool. I yelled at him when I noticed that he was there and he ran out the door. Becky chased him out of the courtyard. He ran off so we don't know where he went but there was another kid who had come into the courtyard at the same time and we talked to him, then his older brother and finally his uncle. The kids might have thought it was funny or not that big of a deal until the uncle started to scold them Then tonight we were greeting our neighbors and that came up with the kid's mom and the future didn't look bright for him or his friend. While we were talking, the topic of pets came up and we asked were we could find a puppy. They are going to help look for one for us. We both pretty pumped. The kids coming in unnoticed yet again has solidified our decision that getting a dog is a good idea, cause they are not friendly like in the States.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Boulsa!!!
September 4, 2009
So we have now been residents of Boulsa for ten days. Well I'm not really sure where is the best place to start. The first couple of days was really hard for me, but Tim seemed not to have too much of a problem. The first two days, we pretty much just laid around and napped. You would not believe how tired we were after three months of training. It was absolutely amazing to finally be able to sleep in late, 8 a.m.! Tim and I have made it a goal to go out into the community every day. That sounds like it wouldn't be too difficult, but when you don't know anyone in the city and you aren't comfortable speaking the language, it is very difficult. We have survived a couple of marché days now. There are so many people packed into a flee market setting, it is almost surreal then we both remember TIA. The vendors here seem to be rather honest which is a huge surprise! We really don't haggle too much over the prices here since the people are so honest. Usually if they are inflating the price because we are white, it isn't by a whole lot. I will admit that I do miss getting to make the vendors really mad with my stellar negotiation skills over prices. It seems so alien to leave a boutique and not have the vendor absolutely furious at me for getting a reasonable price, instead of the nasaara price, which is at least double if not triple the real price!
The people of Boulsa seem pretty nice. It is a little difficult to get a real feel for the city since so many people are intimidated by us and don't really want to talk to us a whole lot. I guess that is to be expected in a town that isn't used to having white people here. One of my favorite reactions when we greet people is their mouth pretty much hitting the floor. There are times that I have to ask Tim if I said the correct thing to the Burkinabé because I get absolutely no response and they just stare at me. Talk about breaking your confidence in a hurry. I am now rather hesitant to even say hello to people. I really can't explain what this feels like... So Tim and I pretty much live in a fishbowl here. Everyone is watching us because we are new to the town and we are also white. Add to that the fact that kids just come over to your house to stare at you because you are different. Then you also have everyone astounded that you can even greet them in French or Mooré and boy does that make a fantastic mixture. I've never had a problem being the center of attention before, but this is so unnerving. Tim isn't as creeped out by it as I am. However, he does find it hilarious when I try to attract as little attention to myself as possible and it just attracts more attention :(
Our house was, well for the OCD people out there like me, a disaster. I swept the floors three times in one day and was still getting piles of dirt. Not to mention the lovely color my snot turned. Have you every seen reddish brown snot before? Its weird! Let me tell you it did not benefit my cold or our allergies. Tim and I have done a lot of work to the courtyard. We are trying to get the trees to grow straighter, but it is difficult with all the wind that comes in right before a storm. Most of the trees have a slight tilt in the northernly direction.
The kids here are not all fluffy bunnies and rainbows. Thus far, the kids are constantly coming into the courtyard and demanding money, candy, toys, Tim's shoes, our bikes, basically anything that they see we have or can think of. Oh!!! They have even asked us for the keys to the school... Why they think we have those keys... Don't know.
STORY TIME:
Authored by Tim
This afternoon was going along pretty much as normal. I was taking a nap through the afternoon heat and Becky was reading a book to pass the time. Apparently a couple of kids had come into the courtyard without distracting Becky from her book. All I hear is Becky scream and turn to see two kids running from the back door. I get up and go outside to see where they are and what is going on. On the porch there is a pair of flip flops and at the front gate there are two kids one of which is asking if she can have her shoes back. Just to let you know running through our courtyard barefoot would have to suck a lot. There are enough thorns that it would stop the penguin army. Of course I was laughing my ass off as Becky denied the existence of any shoes in our courtyard. So Becky has officially scared a kid straight out of her shoes. :) She didn't even use the LOOK. I don't want to see her use the LOOK on some poor unfortunate soul. They will never be able to recover, and Becky will be admin sepped for child abuse without ever having touched them.
So we have now been residents of Boulsa for ten days. Well I'm not really sure where is the best place to start. The first couple of days was really hard for me, but Tim seemed not to have too much of a problem. The first two days, we pretty much just laid around and napped. You would not believe how tired we were after three months of training. It was absolutely amazing to finally be able to sleep in late, 8 a.m.! Tim and I have made it a goal to go out into the community every day. That sounds like it wouldn't be too difficult, but when you don't know anyone in the city and you aren't comfortable speaking the language, it is very difficult. We have survived a couple of marché days now. There are so many people packed into a flee market setting, it is almost surreal then we both remember TIA. The vendors here seem to be rather honest which is a huge surprise! We really don't haggle too much over the prices here since the people are so honest. Usually if they are inflating the price because we are white, it isn't by a whole lot. I will admit that I do miss getting to make the vendors really mad with my stellar negotiation skills over prices. It seems so alien to leave a boutique and not have the vendor absolutely furious at me for getting a reasonable price, instead of the nasaara price, which is at least double if not triple the real price!
The people of Boulsa seem pretty nice. It is a little difficult to get a real feel for the city since so many people are intimidated by us and don't really want to talk to us a whole lot. I guess that is to be expected in a town that isn't used to having white people here. One of my favorite reactions when we greet people is their mouth pretty much hitting the floor. There are times that I have to ask Tim if I said the correct thing to the Burkinabé because I get absolutely no response and they just stare at me. Talk about breaking your confidence in a hurry. I am now rather hesitant to even say hello to people. I really can't explain what this feels like... So Tim and I pretty much live in a fishbowl here. Everyone is watching us because we are new to the town and we are also white. Add to that the fact that kids just come over to your house to stare at you because you are different. Then you also have everyone astounded that you can even greet them in French or Mooré and boy does that make a fantastic mixture. I've never had a problem being the center of attention before, but this is so unnerving. Tim isn't as creeped out by it as I am. However, he does find it hilarious when I try to attract as little attention to myself as possible and it just attracts more attention :(
Our house was, well for the OCD people out there like me, a disaster. I swept the floors three times in one day and was still getting piles of dirt. Not to mention the lovely color my snot turned. Have you every seen reddish brown snot before? Its weird! Let me tell you it did not benefit my cold or our allergies. Tim and I have done a lot of work to the courtyard. We are trying to get the trees to grow straighter, but it is difficult with all the wind that comes in right before a storm. Most of the trees have a slight tilt in the northernly direction.
The kids here are not all fluffy bunnies and rainbows. Thus far, the kids are constantly coming into the courtyard and demanding money, candy, toys, Tim's shoes, our bikes, basically anything that they see we have or can think of. Oh!!! They have even asked us for the keys to the school... Why they think we have those keys... Don't know.
STORY TIME:
Authored by Tim
This afternoon was going along pretty much as normal. I was taking a nap through the afternoon heat and Becky was reading a book to pass the time. Apparently a couple of kids had come into the courtyard without distracting Becky from her book. All I hear is Becky scream and turn to see two kids running from the back door. I get up and go outside to see where they are and what is going on. On the porch there is a pair of flip flops and at the front gate there are two kids one of which is asking if she can have her shoes back. Just to let you know running through our courtyard barefoot would have to suck a lot. There are enough thorns that it would stop the penguin army. Of course I was laughing my ass off as Becky denied the existence of any shoes in our courtyard. So Becky has officially scared a kid straight out of her shoes. :) She didn't even use the LOOK. I don't want to see her use the LOOK on some poor unfortunate soul. They will never be able to recover, and Becky will be admin sepped for child abuse without ever having touched them.
Fun Times in Ouaga
August 25, 2009
Sunday morning, we all piled onto the STMB bus that came to ECLA to pick us up. We were all relieved that the bus came to pick us up first before going to the bus station. At least this way, we all got a seat on the bus and there was no half the people going at 8 and the other half going at a different time. I noticed that the bus company had oversold the tickets for the bus. There were several people that had to wait for the next bus to Ouaga. A couple of the PCVFs made everyone frozen coffee! It was absolutely delicious :) I slept for most of the bus ride, and Tim watched the countryside as we road to Ouaga. After the bus dropped everyone else off at the station, the bus drove all the PCT to the hotel. From there people broke off into groups for lunch. Most of the people went to either a Lebanese place, a Chinese restaurant, or to the Four Seasons. Tim, Steph and I decided to find somewhere different and give it a go. We stumbled across this yummy little sandwich shop. I got the very special hamburger, which was a huge cheeseburger with a fried egg on top. Sounds gross, but it was amazing. Tim and Steph both got the schwarma.
After lunch, Tim and I crashed for an two hour nap in our air conditioned room! Lets just say, it was heaven... After that, we went down to the lobby to see what was going on that night. A group of 10 of decided to go to the Four Seasons for pizza for dinner. Tim and I each ordered a pizza, gosh it was so yummy. 5 of the group left after eating and the rest of us just hung out for a while and they ordered drinks while I got a banana split!
Monday morning and part of the afternoon were spent in classes. We had a class with Doug, our CD first. Then a class with Sylvie, our PCMO. We did manage to sneak over to the ice cream shop in between the first and second session :) Tim and I went to lunch at a Chinese restaurant. The food there was so good. I ordered the sweet and sour chicken. It was nothing like what I expected, but that wasn't entirely a bad thing. The sauce was super sweet, but very good. Tim ordered a beef dish that was amazingly wonderful. It reminded me of beef stroganoff. After lunch, we had our final session with Jeff. After this session, Tim and I went to the most wonderful place in Ouaga, Marina Marché. This store is amazing! It has wonderful European products for sale. Tim says it is the equivalent to a European Supermarket. I want to cry when I first walked into the store. Directly off to my left was a lovely chiller full of confectionery delights. You can also buy Lindorfer chocolate there, but not the yummy truffles. Tim and I decided that our first trip to the store was just to look around a little and not buy a whole lot, so we ended up spending 60,000 CFA there. Our next trip to the store, we spent another 60,000 CFA too. Yes I know we are horrible, but being denied yummy food for three months, you are going to go a little wild.
We got to take a tour of the embassy here in Burkina. That was pretty cool. The embassy here is rather small with only 30 people from the US working there and about 150 Burkinabé. We got to meet the person who is running the embassy now since we are waiting for the replacement to arrive in October. The speech that he gave about what the embassy does and how to become a member of the State Department. There was also a guy that had been in the Peace Corps. He gave us some advice on not looking to far into the future and that the Peace Corps wasn't really a career track because you can only be in for 5 years then you have to be out for 5 years. After the tour we went to the rec center and had a pretty good lunch with milkshakes, chili, and onion rings. The chili and milkshakes were awesome but the onion rings were a bit of a let down.
Tuesday afternoon was a busy time for both Tim and I. Tim went to this nice little store that sells all sorts of amazing things. You could buy nice European cookware and utensils, some really good cleaning products and shampoo. I spent my afternoon trying to get to the bureau to talk with Sylvie about my nasty little cold. I left the hotel a half hour before my appointment. I walked from the hotel to the round point. I jumped onto the Rue de Fada and went to talk to a taxi man. I asked him how much it was going to cost to drive me down the street to a specific intersection. He told me 3,000 CFA, I laughed and said no. I told him that I would give him 500 CFA and he told me it was a long distance. I shook my head and just started walking. I hate having to deal with the taxi people. They assume that since you are white, they can rape you with charges. I walk for until 5 minutes before my appointment then hailed a cab. I told him the intersection that I wanted and that I would pay him 300 CFA. He agreed to the price, so I hopped in. Well as we were driving, I noticed that I was only 3 blocks away from the street that you go down to get to the transit house. This meant that I was almost to the bureau. The driver kept on going and I wasn't 100% sure how far down the road I wanted was. When the driver started getting toward the outer edge of where I had seen before I got really nervous. I asked the driver where the intersection was. He told me it was up further, I told him no it wasn't and to stop the taxi. The driver wouldn't stop the taxi after I told him several times to stop, so I just opened the door. He stopped after I did that. I jumped out of the cab and started walking back the other way down Rue de Fada. I ended up texting the PCMO phone that I was going to be late because the taxi got lost. This was answered by a phonecall from Sylvie. After walking for another 5 minutes, I hailed another cab told him to take me to the Red Cross. I finally got to the bureau and my appointment 45 minutes late. Then again, being 45 minutes late in West Africa is being on time :) Sylvie scored myself and two other PCTs a ride back to the hotel that way we would have time to get ready for our swearing in ceremony.
The Swearing-in Ceremony was a lot of fun. We all got dressed up and headed over in our finest Burkinabé fashion. The food was pretty good and the cake was great. Becky kept going and getting two pieces using the excuse one for her and one for me. The speeches were kept short for the most part. Five of the trainees gave speeches in French and in local languages. The temporary ambassador gave a really good speech and had pretty good French as well. After the ceremony, we got to hang out for a bit and talk to all the other volunteers who had come. We talked with the guy that we are replacing and to our closest PC neighbor. The party ended around 8 o'clock and we headed back to the hotel for the post party around the pool. Becky and I headed to bed early cause we were getting taken to Boulsa the next morning at 7 in the morning.
Sunday morning, we all piled onto the STMB bus that came to ECLA to pick us up. We were all relieved that the bus came to pick us up first before going to the bus station. At least this way, we all got a seat on the bus and there was no half the people going at 8 and the other half going at a different time. I noticed that the bus company had oversold the tickets for the bus. There were several people that had to wait for the next bus to Ouaga. A couple of the PCVFs made everyone frozen coffee! It was absolutely delicious :) I slept for most of the bus ride, and Tim watched the countryside as we road to Ouaga. After the bus dropped everyone else off at the station, the bus drove all the PCT to the hotel. From there people broke off into groups for lunch. Most of the people went to either a Lebanese place, a Chinese restaurant, or to the Four Seasons. Tim, Steph and I decided to find somewhere different and give it a go. We stumbled across this yummy little sandwich shop. I got the very special hamburger, which was a huge cheeseburger with a fried egg on top. Sounds gross, but it was amazing. Tim and Steph both got the schwarma.
After lunch, Tim and I crashed for an two hour nap in our air conditioned room! Lets just say, it was heaven... After that, we went down to the lobby to see what was going on that night. A group of 10 of decided to go to the Four Seasons for pizza for dinner. Tim and I each ordered a pizza, gosh it was so yummy. 5 of the group left after eating and the rest of us just hung out for a while and they ordered drinks while I got a banana split!
Monday morning and part of the afternoon were spent in classes. We had a class with Doug, our CD first. Then a class with Sylvie, our PCMO. We did manage to sneak over to the ice cream shop in between the first and second session :) Tim and I went to lunch at a Chinese restaurant. The food there was so good. I ordered the sweet and sour chicken. It was nothing like what I expected, but that wasn't entirely a bad thing. The sauce was super sweet, but very good. Tim ordered a beef dish that was amazingly wonderful. It reminded me of beef stroganoff. After lunch, we had our final session with Jeff. After this session, Tim and I went to the most wonderful place in Ouaga, Marina Marché. This store is amazing! It has wonderful European products for sale. Tim says it is the equivalent to a European Supermarket. I want to cry when I first walked into the store. Directly off to my left was a lovely chiller full of confectionery delights. You can also buy Lindorfer chocolate there, but not the yummy truffles. Tim and I decided that our first trip to the store was just to look around a little and not buy a whole lot, so we ended up spending 60,000 CFA there. Our next trip to the store, we spent another 60,000 CFA too. Yes I know we are horrible, but being denied yummy food for three months, you are going to go a little wild.
We got to take a tour of the embassy here in Burkina. That was pretty cool. The embassy here is rather small with only 30 people from the US working there and about 150 Burkinabé. We got to meet the person who is running the embassy now since we are waiting for the replacement to arrive in October. The speech that he gave about what the embassy does and how to become a member of the State Department. There was also a guy that had been in the Peace Corps. He gave us some advice on not looking to far into the future and that the Peace Corps wasn't really a career track because you can only be in for 5 years then you have to be out for 5 years. After the tour we went to the rec center and had a pretty good lunch with milkshakes, chili, and onion rings. The chili and milkshakes were awesome but the onion rings were a bit of a let down.
Tuesday afternoon was a busy time for both Tim and I. Tim went to this nice little store that sells all sorts of amazing things. You could buy nice European cookware and utensils, some really good cleaning products and shampoo. I spent my afternoon trying to get to the bureau to talk with Sylvie about my nasty little cold. I left the hotel a half hour before my appointment. I walked from the hotel to the round point. I jumped onto the Rue de Fada and went to talk to a taxi man. I asked him how much it was going to cost to drive me down the street to a specific intersection. He told me 3,000 CFA, I laughed and said no. I told him that I would give him 500 CFA and he told me it was a long distance. I shook my head and just started walking. I hate having to deal with the taxi people. They assume that since you are white, they can rape you with charges. I walk for until 5 minutes before my appointment then hailed a cab. I told him the intersection that I wanted and that I would pay him 300 CFA. He agreed to the price, so I hopped in. Well as we were driving, I noticed that I was only 3 blocks away from the street that you go down to get to the transit house. This meant that I was almost to the bureau. The driver kept on going and I wasn't 100% sure how far down the road I wanted was. When the driver started getting toward the outer edge of where I had seen before I got really nervous. I asked the driver where the intersection was. He told me it was up further, I told him no it wasn't and to stop the taxi. The driver wouldn't stop the taxi after I told him several times to stop, so I just opened the door. He stopped after I did that. I jumped out of the cab and started walking back the other way down Rue de Fada. I ended up texting the PCMO phone that I was going to be late because the taxi got lost. This was answered by a phonecall from Sylvie. After walking for another 5 minutes, I hailed another cab told him to take me to the Red Cross. I finally got to the bureau and my appointment 45 minutes late. Then again, being 45 minutes late in West Africa is being on time :) Sylvie scored myself and two other PCTs a ride back to the hotel that way we would have time to get ready for our swearing in ceremony.
The Swearing-in Ceremony was a lot of fun. We all got dressed up and headed over in our finest Burkinabé fashion. The food was pretty good and the cake was great. Becky kept going and getting two pieces using the excuse one for her and one for me. The speeches were kept short for the most part. Five of the trainees gave speeches in French and in local languages. The temporary ambassador gave a really good speech and had pretty good French as well. After the ceremony, we got to hang out for a bit and talk to all the other volunteers who had come. We talked with the guy that we are replacing and to our closest PC neighbor. The party ended around 8 o'clock and we headed back to the hotel for the post party around the pool. Becky and I headed to bed early cause we were getting taken to Boulsa the next morning at 7 in the morning.
Almost There!!!
August 22, 2009
Hi everyone
Well a lot of things have been going on with stage coming to an end. Our last couple of weeks have been absolutely crazy! With model school coming to an end, everyone is getting extremely antsy. By the way, after teaching algebra for the first two weeks and then switching over to geometry for the last two weeks, I can honestly say I am most assuredly an algebra kind of girl. So in my six days of teaching geometry I had to teach the students about perpendicular lines, parallel lines, rectangles, squares, and rhombuses. The kids had no trouble drawling perpendicular lines, but a lot of trouble with parallel lines. Then the fun really began to happen as I started teaching the students about the properties of geometric figures. They were absolutely stellar with the rectangle. They understood that one right away. Then I introduced the square to them. That went perfectly well until I ask then the question is a square a rectangle? They all of course said no. When I told them that a square was actually a rectangle, well let me just say that was 20 minutes of my life I will never get back ;) The kids really would not believe me that a square is a special type of rectangle. They finally said okay after I wrote the properties of a rectangle up on the board next to the properties of a square. Oh gosh the next day was even more chaos as I introduced the rhombus. They understood the properties of the rhombus and they could draw them very well. BUT when I asked the question is a square a rhomus? They said no, I said yes it actually is... Well there went another 30 minutes of my life arguing with sixth graders. Geeze you would think they could put a little faith in a teacher. When I wrote the properties of the square and rhombus up next to one another, they still would not believe me that a square is a special type of rhombus. The Burkinabé really do not like when one thing can be classified as multiple things. I can hardly wait to teach these two lessons again in October.
Oh I have a fun story about test day! So I ended up giving a joint test with Ryan another PCT for the 6em math class. We divided the test equally 10 pts for algebra and 10 pts for geometry. During the test Ryan and I were watching the students, ok me more than him, but I despise cheating. I ended up catching two different pairs of students cheating. One boy wrote on a piece of paper “Can you do this for me?” It was a division problem I think 75/8 was the problem. Then I caught two girls passing a piece of paper between them on the bench for a multiplication problem. I had all four students write down their names on a piece of paper. I deducted 5 pts from each test since I was responsible for 10 pts of the test. It was really brutal to their grades. None of them got anything higher than a 9 on the 20 point test (10 pts is passing here in BF). One student got a zero on the test after the 5 pt deduction. Ouch!
Well Tim has been having a lot of fun teaching computers. During his last week of teaching, he showed the kids the importance of the Internet and solitaire. What is sad is that he says teaching solitaire was one of the toughest things he taught to them these past four weeks.
We had a lot of closing ceremonies this week. One for the closure of model school and one for the host families. The one for model school was extremely hot and long. The one for the host families was really nice. There were lots of snack foods and pop. The host families got a certificate for hosting PCT and they got an invitation to go our swear in ceremony. Our host dad went to the ceremony. Our host parents got us a couple of gifts this past week. They got both Tim and I matching little purses, and they got me a really nice magnetic necklace. They also had a photographer come our last night with them and take pictures of everyone. They gave us a copy of the pictures :)
Tonight, we ate at a Lebanese hotel. The food was fantastic and a wonderful surprise for our taste buds!
Hi everyone
Well a lot of things have been going on with stage coming to an end. Our last couple of weeks have been absolutely crazy! With model school coming to an end, everyone is getting extremely antsy. By the way, after teaching algebra for the first two weeks and then switching over to geometry for the last two weeks, I can honestly say I am most assuredly an algebra kind of girl. So in my six days of teaching geometry I had to teach the students about perpendicular lines, parallel lines, rectangles, squares, and rhombuses. The kids had no trouble drawling perpendicular lines, but a lot of trouble with parallel lines. Then the fun really began to happen as I started teaching the students about the properties of geometric figures. They were absolutely stellar with the rectangle. They understood that one right away. Then I introduced the square to them. That went perfectly well until I ask then the question is a square a rectangle? They all of course said no. When I told them that a square was actually a rectangle, well let me just say that was 20 minutes of my life I will never get back ;) The kids really would not believe me that a square is a special type of rectangle. They finally said okay after I wrote the properties of a rectangle up on the board next to the properties of a square. Oh gosh the next day was even more chaos as I introduced the rhombus. They understood the properties of the rhombus and they could draw them very well. BUT when I asked the question is a square a rhomus? They said no, I said yes it actually is... Well there went another 30 minutes of my life arguing with sixth graders. Geeze you would think they could put a little faith in a teacher. When I wrote the properties of the square and rhombus up next to one another, they still would not believe me that a square is a special type of rhombus. The Burkinabé really do not like when one thing can be classified as multiple things. I can hardly wait to teach these two lessons again in October.
Oh I have a fun story about test day! So I ended up giving a joint test with Ryan another PCT for the 6em math class. We divided the test equally 10 pts for algebra and 10 pts for geometry. During the test Ryan and I were watching the students, ok me more than him, but I despise cheating. I ended up catching two different pairs of students cheating. One boy wrote on a piece of paper “Can you do this for me?” It was a division problem I think 75/8 was the problem. Then I caught two girls passing a piece of paper between them on the bench for a multiplication problem. I had all four students write down their names on a piece of paper. I deducted 5 pts from each test since I was responsible for 10 pts of the test. It was really brutal to their grades. None of them got anything higher than a 9 on the 20 point test (10 pts is passing here in BF). One student got a zero on the test after the 5 pt deduction. Ouch!
Well Tim has been having a lot of fun teaching computers. During his last week of teaching, he showed the kids the importance of the Internet and solitaire. What is sad is that he says teaching solitaire was one of the toughest things he taught to them these past four weeks.
We had a lot of closing ceremonies this week. One for the closure of model school and one for the host families. The one for model school was extremely hot and long. The one for the host families was really nice. There were lots of snack foods and pop. The host families got a certificate for hosting PCT and they got an invitation to go our swear in ceremony. Our host dad went to the ceremony. Our host parents got us a couple of gifts this past week. They got both Tim and I matching little purses, and they got me a really nice magnetic necklace. They also had a photographer come our last night with them and take pictures of everyone. They gave us a copy of the pictures :)
Tonight, we ate at a Lebanese hotel. The food was fantastic and a wonderful surprise for our taste buds!
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