So I survived my first week of teaching in Cameroon. There were tears, and there was laughter.....j/k i didn't actually cry although it was one of the hardest weeks of my life. For 6 out of the 8 hours I taught I had Quatrieme, which is the equivalent of eight grade although the ages of the students vary greatly because they don't always start school on time or pass the grades. There were ups and there were downs. Sometimes they would surprise me by getting all 5 of the true/false questions on the reading correct, and sometimes they did not do their homework because I gave them an assignment which was way too advanced for them. The biggest struggle is that there are about 5 kids who actually know what I'm saying and the rest are lost. They also constantly talk in class, which isn't surprising because they don't see the value of learning English in eight grade. There is also the fact that the classrooms here are all like separate buildings or rows of classrooms. They do not have electricity or windows or anything, just holes cut in the walls for ventilation. The only thing in the classrooms are wooden desks which consist of a bench for sitting and a bench for putting your books on. The teacher's desk is a little table built into the wall. The only other thing in the classrooms is a small chalkboard. Students cannot afford books here, so we as teachers get a copy of the book that we can hopefully photocopy or get other materials from the internet. The only resources provided are brown butcher paper and markers to write out exercises or readings before class instead of taking the time to write them on the chalkboard. The classrooms are literally falling apart. They are made of cement but they are crumbling and full of holes and cracks.There are 3 latrines for the students to use, but most of the time they just do their business in the field out back. The school is one of the only places that has garbage cans. The students that come late spend their first hour at school picking up garbage and putting it in the garbage pile by the field, which they burn periodically. The boys also cut the grass with machetes as punishment. Many students are late because they have work to do in the morning, like fetching water, cooking, cleaning, or selling beignets in the market. At lunchtime some mommies from the community sell goodies like fish pockets, spaghetti and avocado sandwiches (my favorite) or omelets. Sellers also come around carrying boiled eggs, peanuts and other things on their head.

So I had two stories that should probably be shared....one was wednesday when I went to school wearing one of the african shirts I had made. Well, the zipper in the back decided to break during class so my whole back was exposed to the class when I was writing on the board. A group of girls in my class came over to try to help me but it was no use. So I had to wear my backpack to cover myself and I went home to change over the lunch break.

Another good one was when I taught premiere, which is equivalent to junior year, so they know english pretty well. The topic was science so I found an article on yahoo about the position of peoples belly buttons explaining why black people are good at running and whites at swimming. Then after we read the article the first question they asked was what is a belly button. And the second and third questions were whats an innie and whats an outtie---I'm teaching the future of Cameroon here!

I hope this gives you a little glimpse into what a Cameroonian school day is like and where I will be working for the next two years.