Friday, October 19, 2012

This past week...


I was eating omakaka that one of my colleagues shared with me – traditional spinach/pap, and she added fish, it was so tasty! Some of my absolute favorite learners were sitting with me during this break, so excited that I was eating one of their traditional dishes and enjoying it. One of them then tells me that she once ate a mouse. The others joined in immediately. One other had also eaten mice, and several were disgusted by this suggestion. Then some started talking about having eaten dog before in the north. The first girl then told me that if I was given a plate of different meats, I wouldn’t know if I was eating dog or mouse, because they both taste nice and I wouldn’t be able to tell. I told her it must have been a fat mouse for there to have been enough of it to eat. 

Two rod/pipe things that are used to beat kids have showed up in my classroom... I LOVE the shocked reaction of the kids as they watch me throw them away. Cue my inevitable weekly speech about how they need to stand up for themselves when they get beaten to help stop the chain of violence in their community.

One of my prouder teaching moments when learners, instead of insulting each other through their standard Afrikaans swear words [seriously the number of f-bombs dropped in my classroom are out of control], started using “AUGUSTUS GLOOP!” as well as Veruca Salt and Violet Beauregarde as insults. The first few times this happened I couldn’t help but laugh, thereby egging on the offenders to continue calling the person they were fighting with Augustus over and over, provoking a couple nice little fights. Worth it.    

I was leaving the school at the same time as two of my Grade 6 boys. One of these boys, despite being pretty smart, can’t bring himself to actually work because he is just too obsessed with being in a gang and becoming Lil Wayne, living the LA life, whatever that is [read: writes essays about smoking weed, stealing to get by, and killing. Thanks American rappers. And yes, this learner is also 11 years old]. The other boy, I swear, has made it his personal mission to either drive me insane or make me quit and go back to America. In my classroom he is so horribly rude and disrespectful to me and I have to stop class at least 3 times each day to deal with his antics. Anyway, as we’re walking through the location I’m playing music from my phone, namstyle – as in no earphones, everyone gets to hear my awesome music. Last thing I expected to hear from lilwayne wanna-be: Miss N, play “Call Me Maybe.” My jaw almost dropped as I started playing this classic hit, and got to listen to these two gangster 11 year-olds sing some Carly Rae Jepsen. BEST AFTERNOON EVER.

Also, I was recently told about this hilarious website, guess some Peace Corps experiences are common no matter where in the world you are. http://whatshouldpcvscallme.tumblr.com/

1 comment:

  1. I found that website too... definitely true that there are such commonalities around the world! Loved your teaching moments... When some of your worst-behaved students do stuff like that and surprise you, it's hilarious. The song that's spreading like wildfire here at the moment is "Move it like Bernie"... I'm not entirely sure what caused the sudden resurgence of a song inspired by a 1980's or 90's movie... but there you have it. Everyone's dancing that way too. Who knows.

    Love from your PCV coloc in Panama!

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