Well, it’s finished, if you can believe
that. Construction on the Faraony Resource Center started on November 11th
and finished December 18th in what I think may be one of the fastest
jobs ever completed in the history of Madagascar. This is particularly amazing
considering the fact that the last week and a half worked slowed to a pace that
I was originally expecting. This past Monday (which was supposed to be the last
day) the workers didn’t even show up. I later found out they went and got drunk
for the day. Then yesterday the gendarmerie and police showed up at the library
on behalf of some workers who are building a new set of classrooms right next
to my library (those classrooms are being built by a French man in town. They
started about four months before the library started and are still nowhere near
finishing. Now, everyone in town is saying that Americans work better than the
French. It’s pretty amusing). They said one of the guys working on the library
borrowed a piece of equipment and never gave it back. Bottom line is now 4
workers are apparently being held in jail and the big boss (my buddy who is
like the contractor for the job) has to go and get them out. The worker apparently
already offered to reimburse the money for the piece of equipment (40,000Ar or
about $18) but the workers for the new classrooms wanted the piece of equipment
back, not money. This is the kind of crap that happens on a day-to-day basis
here.
Back to the whole timeline thing…
On my proposal for this project, I wrote
that the construction would start in mid January, assuming it was going to take
longer than 3 and a half weeks to raise $6,000. However, thanks to all of you,
I was able to start incredible early and finish even earlier (the proposal asks
us to map out how long each aspect of the project will take. I estimated 2.5
months for the build. It took just more than 5 weeks). You may be thinking,
‘what kind of piece of crap can anyone build with $6,000+ and 5 weeks?’ Well,
actually you can make a pretty nice 6x4 meter structure out of it. It’s no
library by American standards, but it's no closet either. Have a look!
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| You can kind of see the new classrooms that the french guy is building just to the right. |
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| Notice how the classrooms to the right still look pretty much the same as my first picture. AMERICA! |
So, now begins the real work – unpacking 42
boxes of books, sorting and categorizing them, training the librarian and
turning this thing into a legit learning opportunity for the thousands of
people in my region who may be illiterate or never finished high school. I am
hopefully going to have the help of at least the two PCVs who live near me, so
what might normally be a lot of tedious work (organizing and cataloging books)
will hopefully be a good time. Plus, we just built a library. How can you not
have a huge grin on your face after that? Before I get to that part of the
project, I am headed for a small vacation in Diego, a town in the most northern
part of Madagascar. But before I close the book on the library, I want to say
another big thank you to everyone who chipped in to help with this. I think I
speak for the thousands of people whose lives you have just changed when I say
your kindness and generosity is greatly appreciated.
The first trimester of my second, and
possibly final, year in Peace Corps has come to an end. Wow, it was so much
better than the first year. First and foremost, it is just so much easier when
you can speak their language. Make no mistake about it; I could not speak this
language well enough at this time last year to teach effectively. But in
addition to that, I feel comfortable standing in front of a class of 70+
students and teaching for a full 2 hours. I’m not saying I want to teach for
the rest of my life, but I feel like I understand the English language well
enough (you all would be surprised to find out how much you don’t know about
English. We can speak it, right? So who really cares what the name of the tense
is and what the rules are for its usage?) to teach it and have it make sense
(for the most part) to Malagasy students. Questions too. Last year if kids had
a question I would ask them always to ask it in English. I told myself I was
trying to get them to speak in the target language more (which is true), but it
was really just a front to disguise my inability to speak and understand
Malagasy. Quite frankly, it was a despicable thing to do, but what choice did I
have? If I screwed up understanding their question or botched my answer I would
have lost all credibility in an instant. Likewise, if my high school French
teacher had told us to ask our questions in French, I probably would have had a
mild tirade and told myself ‘Fuck that’ and never spoken in class ever, thus
making the entire language learning process completely useless (unfortunately
it was pretty useless anyway considering I don’t speak much French). The bottom
line is I don’t do that anymore and I haven’t had a problem yet. If I do trip
over my Malagasy while trying to explain something, I usually can have a good
laugh with the rest of the class and then move on. What is really exciting
though is that kids actually speak up now – they are raising their lands and
asking questions – something that didn’t really happen last year and never
happens in a Malagasy classroom. Malagasy teachers stick to a strictly
lecture-based teaching method and students are taught from a young age that the
teacher is the boss and you do not question him or her. Such an act would be
like not eating rice for lunch – blasphemous (gotta get that rice joke in there
somewhere). So, students go through their education like drones – taking orders
and copying everything down that is written on the board without ever actually
learning anything. Honestly, I think if most of my students pulled out their
notebooks from their classes last year they would be surprised to find that the
material is fairly similar, they just never actually really learned it. I’m not
saying I’m better or even that I’m a good teacher because I am definitely not
(that’s a fact, not modesty). However, I do think the way in which we, as
Americans, take education for granted – a more interactive learning system,
especially with a language – has helped some of these kids out a lot. There are
several students who could barely say, “Hello. How are you?” last year who are
now having full, albeit very broken, conversations with me. It’s a pretty cool
feeling and one that you have to remember when things are not going your way.
On the other hand, I still have my fair share of students who either don’t care
or just don’t get it and never improve on their exams. That feeling never
ceases to suck the life and energy right out of you.
Speaking of tests (and I think this is a
cultural thing, but I cant stand it nonetheless), kids do not study or cram
before tests ever! We just had our first trimester finals last week and
unfortunately there was a little problem with one test…
Quick back-story on how we give tests…
For some stupid reason, the Proviseur goes
to the big city near us (72km away) to print out all the finals for each
subject to give to each student when they are taking the exam. To you and me,
that obviously sounds completely normal. Well, here we usually do things a
little differently and just write the exam on the blackboard and the students
copy. Making several hundred copies is expensive and teachers just don’t have
the money. But again, for some reason, the finals are different. The problem
with this is that the Proviseur is a pretty cheap dude and tries to format all
the tests so that he can get 3 or 4 tests on one page thus saving paper and a
bunch of money in copies. That’s great up until it’s time to give the test out
to the students and the teachers notice that he has either changed or deleted
half the test in order to save money. Next thing you know, the teachers are all
working to correct these pages and wasting the first 20-30 minutes of test time.
It’s a total disaster, but after several times of me saying don’t do this, they
keep doing it.
Back to the final that had the problem…
So, naturally, this same problem happened
last week so students were left sitting around for a half hour before the test
started. None of them were looking in their notebooks or studying anything. It
blows my mind every time. In the states, when I had a test on a particular day,
I remember waking up early to review notes, brining my books to lunch and then
having my book open on my desk right up until the point my professor put the
exam in front of me. Granted, not all students were as neurotic as I was, but
we can’t all be Will Hunting. Back to Madagascar – no one was reviewing
anything in the 30-minute delay before the test. I mean literally 0 out of the
350+ students at the lycee were trying to cram in one last piece of
information. It is like this every test and I think its crazy. But then again,
that just seems to be how education goes around here.
Back to the whole bit about me possibly having taught my last first
trimester here in Madagascar. I am in Manakara now because I am looking around
at possible third year extension opportunities. I think the only way I extend
is if I find something I want to do in this city. I really love it here and I
definitely wouldn’t want to leave the PCV family I have here in the southeast.
I have until the beginning of May to find a job, find a good work partner
through this job, and make a decision. I think the part that freaks me out the
most is the actual decision part – definitely more than my decision to join
Peace Corp in the first place. It’s another year of my life, I will actually
know what I am going to be doing for that year (could be a good or bad thing),
and I will also have to watch basically every other PCV that I currently know
in this country leave before me. Just another mind fuck that you can chalk up
to the Peace Corps experience. So, I have a little more than 4 months to make a
decision. If I don’t extend though, I will be leaving this country as early as
9 months from now. Crazy!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to
All!!!! See you in 2014.
