Classy

Believe it or not, I do actually go to school here. Homework doesn't happen that often and teachers can sometime be half an hour late to class or go half an hour over the alotted 1 hour 45 minute time slot. Morals of the story: On time is early here. Senegalese love to talk.

I'm taking Economic Development (in French) and that's been discussing how Africa has been/is being developed, why it's not working so well, and what it should look like instead. Super interesting material, and so far my lack of experience in econ hasn't been a strike against me.

French class is a trip because our teacher is this short but punchy little man, very animated... we were doing an exercise in class and I asked for clarification on a vocab word, what "raproche" means. As soon as I asked, he got right up in my face and started insulting me and telling me I'm a bad person. I just stared at him totally bewildered and kind of hurt--and then I realized. Raproche: to confront, insult someone. Great teach-by-example moment.

Fatou teaches our Wolof class and she's the sweetest woman, so patient, and the cutest little smile. There are only 6 of us in the class and we do a lot of practicing Wolof by saying sentences about where we're from, who is in our family, etc... so we've all gotten to know each other really well through that! Lots of laughs in that class as we stumble through learning the language. But it must be working because I've gotten to the point where I can sometimes recognize what people say to me in passing on the street, but the translation doesn't fully register til I'm about 15 feet away--too late to respond. It's coming.

We have a Senegalese Culture class which is sometimes interesting. The other day we took a field trip to an artist's village and got to see a whole bunch of different Senegalese artists and talk to them/see their work in own their creation spaces--LOVED, of course.

I'm also taking a seminar that meets once a week that focuses on living and learning in a different culture. It's basically a structured setting to process all we're experiencing here. One of our long-term assignments is to have a "langugage/culture partner" (mine is my 17-year old sister) and we are periodically assigned interview questions or conversation topics to discuss with them, then later reflect on in writing. Recently we talked about words of advice our parents gave us growing up and what/who we were named after, what significance that holds--so cool! It's great having a structure for those kind of encounters because it's something I want to have, but don't know that I would necessarily do on my own. Really cool class.

Last is my internship class. We meet once a week to discuss current events in Senegal and gain an understanding of how society works here. Then we have all day Friday (since regular classes are Monday - Thursday) to go to our internships. I'm working at L'Ecole Bilingue (the bilingual school, french-english--though there are many others with different languages in Dakar).

Friday was my first day and I was placed in the Special Needs class (HA I just proofread and laughed out loud! To clarify: as a teacher, not a student). There's a teacher and another assistant besides me, plus seven students ages 6-9 years. I would characterize the kids in the class more as quirky than learning disabled (though I suppose that's how all "special needs" kids ought to be characterized). Some have been abused, others were born prematurely so their brains just work a little slower--as the principal said, they all have their own story.

The goal of this class is to create a safe, supportive learning environment where these kids can go at their own pace and learn social rules, what's acceptable behavior... and eventually get reintegrated into regular classrooms. In fact, the one girl in the class just got news on Friday that she will be transferring back to a regular classroom because she's shown so much improvement. Her look of excitement and total pride was the dearest thing, so cool to see.

We all sit in chairs in a circle and have class that way. We speak French, but a couple students occassionally like to try out their English on me, too. The environment is incredibly encouraging, very uplifting with lots of affirmations all the time. Kids are so the same all around the world though--they just love poking each other and fidgeting and just being total twerps. So at the same time, it's a pretty funny contrast because the students have behavioral issues they need to straighten out, so at the end of the lesson, the teacher goes through and lists what everyone did wrong during the lesson and why it was unacceptable. I can tell already the teacher is fabulous though, really great with kids, so that will be so neat to work with and learn from.

As it happened, Friday was Madagascar Day (no, not the movie). Within the elementary school there are 33 different nationalities (so cool!) so once a month the school dedicates a day to celebrating one of those countries (again, so cool!). Everyone wore the colors of Madagascar's flag and the students from Madagascar came to school in their traditional dress and toured around the different classrooms, sharing about their food, outfits, and culture. We all got to sample some local food (fried banana something--delish!) and saw an exhibit with some of their language, handmade crafts for sale (yes, I purchased), and pictures of the landscape, animals and people. The entire school has such a bright, positive feel to it--I'm really excited for the time I'll get to spend there!

Not sure if you can tell, but I absolutely LOVE it here. Study abroad is the neatest experience, what a wonderful opportunity. Big, big fan.