C, F, L, R

Forgot to mention: gaunt, but attractive (in a tragic way).

Yesterday was finals at model school. I’ve been grading them. 5e was kind of haphazard; the last question, worth 3 points (out of 20) was "All the keys are coming out in capital; why, and how do you fix it?" Almost nobody got it. I gave partial credit generously, particularly to those who confused caps lock with the shift key. (Shift is called "la touche majuscule", "the capital key", and caps lock is "verouille majuscule", "capital lock".) Those who said that it was necessary to push the "lower-case key" to get keys in lower case did not get credit.

Going through 3e now. It’s really shocking how wide the variance is between the best students in the class and the worst. Highest grade so far: 16.5 out of 20. (Or, in French: 16,5 over 20.) Lowest: 1 out of 20. I know I’m a shitty teacher and only briefly mentioned some things that I ended up testing on, but even so. All of us Informatique teachers are struggling with this problem to a greater or lesser extent. We don’t want to lose the kids who are already way ahead of this stuff. The system is grade-based rather than subject-based, so classes can’t be split by ability. So we get to try to teach a high level to those who are obviously interested, and a low level to those who can’t be bothered.

Speaking of which: group photo!

Today was also the course, or "run", put on by the running club at the model school. I obviously thought it was interesting enough to name this entry after it, but there isn’t really much to say. My host brother Hyacenthe got first place. Prizes were pineapples with hand-drawn paper ribbons on them, and also Starburst. It was cool to watch the race and the runners; it’s always kind of inspiring to see an organized event, makes you feel like something good is happening.

A picture being worth a thousand blurry words, please find yourself subject to another:

(Third place. One of Julia’s students, with whom Julia was very impressed.)

Now playing: Swashbuckling Swantoon, "Final Strike". Discovered this band due to Theo, who grabbed a bunch of random tracks packaged as a collection called "lynn loev 8bit".

French class is tiring. Did I mention that, because I failed it last time, I needed to take 20 more hours of language class, ideally by the end of this week, so I can take the test again some time "soon", probably Monday? That means on average 4 hours of language class a day. Hard to construct a sentence in any language after that point.

Language class with Hilarion isn’t so bad. I get the opportunity to crack wise, and we chat. Today we spent a lot of time talking about informatique, about the Internet, about whether it’s good or bad and why. I explained to him (successfully on the first try) that I only like things that nobody else likes, and he described me as an "être marginal", a "marginal being", which I like a lot. He meant in the sense of "always on the margins", but naturally I prefer to take it in terms of "a flaky person".

We were talking about animals and which ones I would save if I were in charge during a catastrophe and could only choose five. He remarked that I didn’t choose any animals that symbolized beauty, only animals that were useful (cows, chickens, dogs, bees, and earthworms). We went down the list, trying to find animals that symbolized beauty, and suggested the papillon, the butterfly, because it’s delicate and vulnerable. I suggested that to me the parrot was a better symbol of beauty, because not only is it as colorful, but it is also jealous and can bite you, and beauty is nothing if not dangerous. (This was one of those conversational turns that just sort of happens to you and you decide to run with it.) He seemed to appreciate the humor in that.

If we don’t pass this next language test, we get to take a "conditional swearing-in", which means we become full Volunteers with a capital V, but only on the condition that we stick around this crummy little town for another couple of weeks and finally get our language level. I told myself that if I again didn’t get the grade I needed, I’d give up and go home, but even as I said it I could feel something in my heart that was too proud to let go.

Saw myself by accident in a mirror today, for the first time in a few weeks. I look gaunt, greasy, worn. I know I’m being melodramatic. Then again, lots of volunteers say that stage was the worst part of their service.

Last day of model school today. Still need to learn how to handle 5e, and in general, the lower levels. I sent a student out today and she started crying, saying she was only asking her friend for her pen back. Hard to know what to do with that, but the good news is I wasn’t even really teaching anything, having already given up on them. Even the students who are well-behaved aren’t interested in learning anything, and at this point ("formatting of text") I can’t say I blame them. Oh well. Hopefully I’ll have more motivated classes at post (ha ha).

Got a "du courage" email from Gus. Thanks for that. Twenty-five months left. But who’s counting?

Cockroaches and lizards are not encouraged as pets, nor are lice or scabies. However, the Health Unit staff will not be too surprised if some of these critters take up residence in your home!

From the medical manual. Thanks, guys!

Got my new language test result back. It’s Intermediate Mid, whereas I need to be Intermediate High to go to post. It’s not fair to say I "bombed" it, but I sure did "fail" it. People here say echouer, "to fail, to fall through".

Earlier today I was so furious I lost my temper at Gaston (language coordinator). He was saying something along the lines of "Oh, it’ll be fine, you’ll be able to pass the test in no time," to which I said something like "No, I was ALREADY able to!" Which shut him up for a minute. I think he was astonished that I successfully constructed a sentence that actually expressed my emotions, but on the other hand he could have been thinking better of correcting my grammar.

I know that if you didn’t know better you could get the impression that stagiaires are indifferent-to-hostile about learning French, but that’s not the fucking case. I speak French chaque fucking jour. I teach two hours a day in the goddamned language. The goal is to be able to communicate and by goddamn, I am fucking communicating. Sure, I mangle the fucking language. But I’m a damn sight better than many of the other stagiaires with higher fucking language levels.

There was a long list of reasons why this is bogus here, but the pertinent part is this: I’ve been thinking about flunking out again today, probably for about three or four hours. It seems like an increasingly good idea:

• I am fucking tired of French classes.
• I am fucking tired of the other stagiaires.
• I am fucking tired of sweating all the goddamned time.
• I am tired of trying to make things clean using dirty water.
• I am tired of everything being a fucking ordeal (épreuve).
• I am not a good teacher. I have no desire to become a good teacher. I have no desire to remain a bad teacher.
• I do not see how I can make a difference here. I do not see how this program can make a difference here.

In the meantime I have been motivated to study a little bit some useful vocabulary. "Waste of time", une perte de temps. "To waste my time", perdre mon temps. "To prove", prouver. "The proof", la preuve. "Ordeal", as noted above.

So, yeah, another Saturday with predictable consequences. I think I alienated a lot of stagiaires tonight, just because I called them cockbags or condescended to them. Oh well.

We got to see the nightclub here in Bafia. They hadn’t officially opened, but Jenny and I went in to take a look. It looks.. pretty much like a cool concert scene would look in NYC. Entrance fee is generally 3500 CFA per person ($7). That’s a lot of lunches, so I guess it’s pretty expensive. Instead we mostly hung out at a bar nearby, "chez Martin".

I worry about Jessica W., who is in that state where "everyone is loved except for me". Not an awesome place to be. I mean, she says she likes dark-colored skin, so more power to her. But I don’t want her to accept some random local’s marriage proposal just because. I would like to trust her, because she seems like she has some inner strength, but I worry nevertheless. I think this is part of why I am condescending.

At one point I wanted to be outside and just sulk a bit about how I miss Gus and how the music isn’t right and how there’s no point in dancing to Beyonce. The lights from the nightclub were really pretty somehow, and there are oh-so-many stars. Jenny came out and we talked about how screwed up it is that we’re here, and whether we’re gonna fail out. Why are we here again? For Jenny I think it’s about a challenge, about proving to yourself that you can do it. And me I’m here because I wanted to work on something once in my life that had an impact beyond myself, and I thought this was my best option. But if you hate kids, if you don’t wanna be a teacher?… In those moments when it was quiet I searched for a song to quote, something that evoked happy times, but I came up blank. Do Gus and I have "a song"?

Claude has been macking hardcore on one of the Lindsays. They were even holding hands tonight as we weaved our ways back home, first dropping off Timothy and Jenny, and finally myself, while Claude went to make sure Lindsay made her way home. I’m proud of them, somehow. I think this is another reason I’m condescending. I wanted to make the same shocked-face-with-finger-mime-fucking gesture that Marian made to me when Gus pulled me into a dance that first time, but nobody would get it.

It’s not that I’m whimpering, exactly. I don’t hate it here. It’s true that there’s a lot to do, and that I miss everyone back home, but I was preparing myself every time I sang to myself this song:

Why can’t we just stay where the ocean is warm all year?

Fruit hangs from the trees, do just what you please,

And nothing is the same

The sun rolls down the beach

Sand gets in your eyes

Lean in for the kiss, our tans astound the crown

And nothing is the same

— World of Science, "cancun ’89"

And, after all, why can’t we just stay where the ocean is warm all year? I still don’t really know. Maybe I’ll put that on the exam for 3e.

Today was the "final" language exam. If you haven’t yet achieved your language proficiency level, well, better hunker down, asshole. I feel pretty comfortable in French, so I’d like to be able to stop going to French classes, and maybe learn something else.

Additionally, we have to start preparing our own exams for administration this Friday. 3e is pretty straightforward; there’s a lot of binary/hex stuff and some basic Excel usage stuff. 5e will require a little bit more work. Naturally I’m not working on either. Instead I’m rearranging files on my computer and hanging out.

One thing that is useful to know in case the trainers come to you looking for help with their virus-addled USB drives. A fairly common thing these viruses do is mark the directories as hidden and then create files with identical names. It wouldn’t be a big deal except the computers that are locked down administratively aren’t allowed to show hidden files, so you have to use your own laptop. Naturally Linux completely ignores the "hidden" attribute on files, but you can use mtools to change the attributes, even on a USB drive, by creating a mtoolsrc file like this or, I think, directly using mattrib -i /dev/sdb1 or whatever. To remove system and hidden on everything, which is probably what you want to do: mattrib -S -H -/ S:/. [Edit: you can also use mattrib -i /dev/sdb1 -S -H -/ ::/, but you’ll still need the mtools_skip_check thing.]

Another thing that I am currently thinking about: why do I have 67 different dotfiles/directories here? Some highlights: .slocdata, which is basically a glorified temp directory; .ido.last, which by rights ought to go in .emacs.d; .recently-used and .recently-used.xbel, which, just, why do we need two of them? Why aren’t they in .config? Do the letters XDG mean nothing to you?? Grr.

I gave the quizzes back in 5e and 3e. 3e listened very attentively that lecture. I think they got the memo, that they’ll really need to get their act in gear by next Friday. 5e I’m not sure about.

Karen joked that she really liked giving exams. "It’s extra work for me so it’s annoying," she said, "But it’s just so satisfying, plus the things they write are really funny."

Whereas our language exams are a bit more irregular. We chat for a while, then we are presented with a role-play session and we do the best we can. I was utterly conscious that I needed to use the future tense, but wasn’t able to because I just kept constructing sentences like "Well, I could change, things could be different". G.I. Jake, who is a real American hero, told me he thinks he’ll need to pull it together over the next couple weeks, but every other stagiaire I’ve been talking to has been of the school of "Gosh, I hope I made my level." And with a bit of luck, we will.

I am thinking right now of a person who, when I was younger, gave me shit for studying French. She was studying Spanish, and there are no shortage of opportunities to use Spanish in NYC, but to use French you have to go to Montreal or France. "When are you ever gonna use that?" she asked. Well, guess who’s laughing now?

Gave a quiz in each of 5e and 3e today. I ran off the copies on the laser printer here, which may not be feasible at post. I also drew up two slightly different tests with slightly different questions, to try to head off cheating a little bit. I also put the first question, question 1, as follows: "Check the checkbox." It’s worth one point. Not every student did so. It wasn’t even a trick, I didn’t put it above the name or buried in the instructions or anything.

One pair of students asked me during the test why their exams were different. I think this demonstrates both the prevalence of cheating which we’ve all heard about here in Cameroon, and also the lack of critical thinking I was writing about earlier.

Another student tried to cheat with a notebook, which she dropped when I noticed she had it. I put a red star on her paper just so I remembered who it was. She didn’t do very well even with the assistance. If you’re going to cheat, at least cheat well!

I have to grade the papers, preferrably tonight, so I can start reviewing stuff tomorrow and next week. I’m pretty far behind on the scheme of work, which is the list of topics I should be covering. My 3e students are stuck in numeric-base-land; I’d like to cover base 16 a little bit differently from base 2, which should be straightforward. After that I’ll talk briefly about ASCII and then I’ll call it a term. 5e still hasn’t grasped the idea of a cursor and it’s hard to get their attention; I’m thinking I’ll try to hammer the point home tomorrow when handing back the exams, and after that, whatever I manage to cover on the subject of Microsoft Word will have to do. And of course there’s the larger lesson, which is that there’s the final next week, so wake up, and any questions you have, now’s the time to ask.

Got a package from Gus today! I received: shoelaces, a collapsible spork, baking soda, a map of the US, ziplock bags, and even chocolate. Good times.

(N.B.: Quitter ("kee-tay") is one of the many French verbs for "get out".)

Camtel is in the process of selling me another key. It cost 45,000 CFA ($90 USD), plus another 1,000 for a blank SIM card. I will be picking it up today. This is most of them money I have "saved" to date. I will have to wait until the next paycheck before buying the next month of Internet access, or else forego eating.

Today was the best day I’ve had as an educator. My 5e class was completely and utterly disruptive; accordingly, I sent about 20 students to the discipline master. It was actually pretty interesting. You can really see the lack of critical thinking here:

1. Student A is braiding Student B’s hair. This isn’t really allowed in class.
2. Other students bring to my attention that Student A is braiding Student B’s hair. I glare at Student A.
3. Student A meets my eyes. Then, as I continue to watch her, she moves to continue braiding Student B’s hair, but then changes her mind. Then she changes her mind again. In this fashion she eventually finds herself with her hands on Student B’s hair.
4. I notify both students A and B that they are now entitled to visit the discipline master.

When I first got to class, three students were in the middle of having a fight — full-on physicality, including a headlock. Not my problem. See the discipline master.

But despite all of this, I came out of it smiling and cheerful. Why? No idea — possibly the fascinating ways the students behaved, possibly the fun of saying "You: bye!". Either way, I got to lunch feeling, as Timothy said, like a million CFA (approx. $2,000 USD).

In the clear light of day I think there must have been something I could have done differently. I started my lesson with a review of the lab class some of them had yesterday, but apparently not all of them had, because the teacher who was supposed to be there during one of the periods (was it me? I don’t think so, but who knows?) was completely missing. I would have thought those of the students who were so intent on asking me how to make corrections yesterday would want to know how to make them today, but not so.

At the end of the lesson I had about 30 students, which was much more managable, and they were pretty quiet, especially when I mentioned there was a test Thursday. Oops, should have done that at the beginning of class. Not like I know what I’m gonna put on the test anyhow.

3e by contrast was completely baffling. I gave them this assignment.

1. Create a column of numbers from 1 to 100, as follows: put 1 in the first cell. Select all the cells. Select Edit->Fill->Series. Activate the "Progression" checkbox and then OK.
2. Install a macro package, as follows: click Tools->Macro packages. Activate "Analytical macros". Click OK.
3. Create a column of numbers which are the binary translations of the numbers in the first column, as follows: put the formula "=DECBIN(A1)" in the first cell. Choose Edit->Copy. Select all the cells. Select Edit->Paste.

Naturally, not a single person followed even one direction. Most of them copied the "sample table" I had on the board, which went from 1 to 6. Some went as far as to hand-fill numbers up to 100. Some even attempted to hand-translate their numbers to binary, getting as far as 12 (which naturaly corresponds to the binary "300"). I told them to erase everything and start over. I had to even demonstrate quickly on one student’s computer what I wanted. It’s not a 60-minute assignment — it’s maybe a 10 minute assignment for someone who has a little experience with Excel. OK, some of this can be chalked up to inexperience, maybe not having seen checkboxes before, stuff like that. But really, there’s only so much illiteracy you can forgive. Grr.

OK. Deep breath. The trainers have mentioned that here there is a "culture of literacy" which we Americans have and the Cameroonians don’t. I thought that was a crock of shit, and to some extent still think it’s a crock of shit. I think what you’re really seeing is a deeply-ingrained respect, I would say fetish, for hierarchy, which puts other people above papers and documents, combined with an information-poor environment, where the only way to learn something is to ask someone else. Naturally people don’t read because something someone else tells you is more important, and anything you read is bullshit anyhow. I am going to have to think thoroughly about how to encourage that to change a bit.

Does this dovetail with the way that nobody will explain me anything, and instead everyone insists on doing it for me? Not sure. Maybe people here just prefer to learn things from watching.

Last meeting we had for model school, Julia asked whether it was OK to have students bringing misbehavior to your attention, disciplining each other, etc. This gradually morphed into a discussion about the peculiar habits bred into the students here: standing when a teacher enters the room, standing up when asking or answering a question, and so on. It’s all to show "respect", but the more I think about it, the more I think there’s such a thing as respect poisoning, and this country has it. I don’t want my students to not look me in the eye and speak too softly to hear. I want them to think! I want them to do things I never would have expected! But then again, I guess that little girl who was braiding hair was doing exactly that, and I threw her out of my class.

Fuck, being a teacher is hard.

Lastly, gave myself a pretty sincere shock plugging something into the wall last night. Sat for a while wondering if I was alive, wondering why I wasn’t in more pain. Answer: rubber-soled slippers? My arm doesn’t hurt, it’s functioning and it’s not numb, so I guess I’m doing well.

The party last night was themed "Middle School Dance Party". Sometime during the night I drunkenly misplaced my Camtel USB modem, which is a pisser but in theory not a crisis. If nobody finds it by Tuesday I’ll buy another one. I can afford it, even if I have to take $50 out of my USD bank account. So now I’m sitting at the "training house" and surfing the ‘net here.

Today is hard for some reason. There’s some anxiety in my heart that I don’t understand. Maybe it’s the neurochemical aftereffects of drinking so much.

We’re having a bumper crop of sick stagiaires lately. Typhoid, worms, and possibly other random crap. (No malaria as far as I know.) Everyone has been treated but some people are feeling better than others. Timothy is still working on getting better.

Decided to take some time to clean up my about page and change the theme for the blog to make the link to the about page a little more prominent. Opinions gratefully solicited.

Randomly happy today, and also yesterday. Some of it comes from talking to Gus online. Some of it was before that. It’s true what they say, that stage is a roller-coaster.

There are lots of things to be legitimately happy about. I am finally understanding a little bit about teaching. Example: today I reordered my lesson on binary, deciding that converting from base 10 to binary would be more useful to understand fractional numbers in binary than the other way around. Last week it wouldn’t have occurred to me that one of the operators I could use is "reorder the lesson you’re giving".

I think the real thing that makes the difference, though, is having a plan. Knowing that I’m going to my post as planned, knowing that I can apply myself to learn how to teach better (the way I have decided to apply brute-force-and-ignorance to learn a million other things here), knowing that I can find and study my weaknesses in French (which are: I tend to fuck up conjugating 3rd person plural; I tend to fuck up gender of nouns; I need to remember to use que and qui when introducing relative clauses); all of this makes me feel like I’m on solid ground, even if there’s lots I have to work on.

But maybe I should stop drinking so much, all the same. 4:30? Time for a drink! PC really does change you..

Oh, or maybe it’s the outfits:

This is the Informatique pagne ("pan-yuh") which has writing on it as follows: "video club", "continuity girl", "je suis le show", "boy", "happy", "kartier show", which my host sister Nadege explains is Camfranglais for a location in the city where there is an impromptu party, with music and a bunch of people hanging out.

I’m also very proud of my 3e class, which contained a student that understood the following problem. Imagine, you’re trying to take the mean of two numbers, 18 and 18. The computer gives you 27.

1. This is a problem, isn’t it? If you said "yes", you are already doing better than some of my 3e students.
2. Why is this happening? The formula you are using is x + y / 2. That’s how you compute means, isn’t it?

It’s an order-of-operations error, naturally, and it’s pretty common when writing code. Someone who understands this is well on their way to becoming a kickass informaticien (wc?) because they understand the difference between what they wanted the computer to do and what they told the computer to do. I’m really goddamned pleased about this, and even more pleased that it was a girl who had the answer.

I just wanted to write once where I wasn’t in a trough, but for once at a peak, so that you know not everything sucks here. I know how to fry plantains! I can actually communicate basic things in French! I still have friends back home! Not everyone here is a tool! I’m not even deranged by the fairly large spider I saw in the bathroom last night! I thought, "I am going to have nightmares about this for sure", especially its sinuous movements, but actually nothing untoward happened. My host brother wants to listen to my MP3 player, so I set him on Bridges and Powerlines! That’ll learn you to borrow my music.

I made a life behind a mask

Just one more night

Then we’ll cross the border

Like a pair of spirits

In disguise

—Bridges and Powerlines, "The Thieves They Are Everywhere"

Aside: I am currently teaching a 5e and a 3e class. These symbols mean: cinqième and troisième, or, translated, fifth and third. Cardinal numbers in French are generally number + superscript e. In this context, they correspond to levels of school. The Francophone system, which is based on the French system, starts at 6e, sixième, or sixth grade, and descends year-by-year until 1er, première, or first, which is the second-to-last year. Afterwards there is terminale. Model school ends after two more weeks, and I have no idea what I will be teaching at post, so..!

Random other things: in French, I have many of the same verbal tics I have in English, including: "I think so", "I’m not sure", "a little bit"; "something like that"; "hey, what’s up? How are you?" as two separate questions. You can say "pendant on y est", "while one is there", which is sort of "by the way".