From last month

I wrote this when I was here for the conference in March, but then never got to post it. It is outdated, but I don't have time to update it:

Well the conference is over now. I'm about to go back with a friend to see her site in Zambezia province. It's known for being really beautiful and has a mountain to hike, and then I'll go back to my site this weekend. The conference went well, but I'm ready for it to be over.

So in the past month at site...

We had the district superintendent come to our school to address some reports of unprofessional behaviour that had been filed. They began by reading the names of the accused teachers along with the behavior: Teacher Joao is accused to bribing a student for 50 mets (the currency unit). Teacher Momade is accused of inviting a female student to his house at night, and then harrassing her in class because she didn't go to his house. etc. Then the teachers responded: "I didn't ask for 50 mets, that student just offered it to me, so I took it." "I invited her over at night for help with school." etc. Then it was emphasized that it is not prohibited for male teachers to date female students, but that they should only impregnate said student if they plan to marry her. (There is only one unmarried male teacher at the school. Multiple marriages are not legal here.) Then we talked about bribery. Is it ok for teachers to accept gifts from students? The teachers agreed there was nothing wrong with it, and that if it was something small not only could they accept it when offered, but they could also ask for it when not offered. I was surprised and impressed that the district superintendent disagreed.

The food options have increased dramatically. I no longer feel the need to come to Nampula City every other week to add some variety to my diet. Which is great, because I really don't like Nampula. We went to a craft market on Sunday, and a friend I was with had her purse slashed, but luckily nothing was stolen. I have learned how to cook with okra, which makes a really good dish to put over rice.

My director has finally said that the teacher who was going to be my roommate will not come this year. I'm thinking about getting a student to live with me. In exchange for food and a place to live, she would do the cooking, cleaning, etc.

The coming month at site...

I'm really hoping to get an English Club up and going. I have surveyed the interest of my students, and they seem really excited about it. Now I just need to find a location. As a somewhat joint project for a smaller group of students, I want to get an English Theater group started too. There is already a network of Volunteers who have English theater groups, and in September there will be an event where we all get our groups together to perform. A smaller group of us volunteers want to start a new program for elementary students with Portuguese theater. Up here in the North, especially at rural sites, there is a big problem with students not speaking/understanding/reading Portuguese well. So we want to start a Portuguese theater for them, and possibly expand it to a sort of film festival, but the logistics for that aren't really logical, so we'll see what happens with that.

The first trimester ends in about a month. Here you need a 50% to pass a class. I have way too many students who are failing. A major problem a lot of us are having (which is a major problem in general here) is lack of motivation and self esteem on the part of the students. The students don't necessarily seem to realize the correlation between studying for a test and getting a good grade, so they don't bother to study because they assume that they will either pass or fail, and that there isn't much they can do to change the outcome. I think part of the problem is lack of study skills/knowing how to study, so in all honesty studying might not help them very much. I'm trying to figure out exactly how to address this, because if I hold a study skills class outside of school, no one will come. But the only way to get students to come is to do it during school, which would mean not teaching English that class. It would be great if they understood enough English to try to teach them in English how to study, but that wouldn't work.