September 11, 2007- Morning: No School = Career Day

 

I made it through the night without using the toilet, but this morning I woke up with a stuffed up head and a bit of a fever.  Edem appeared, dropped off a few massive bags of rice and beans, examined my head while looking very concerned, explained the symptoms of malaria, and then disappeared.  I think it’s just a cold.  That’s what I get for touching all these adorable little noses.  I couldn’t even taste my fried eggs and sugar bread.

Mauwli getting the kids ready to try to go to school.

The kids were supposed to start school yesterday.  Well, they were supposed to have school Monday but it was postponed.  Again.  I understand that since all of our kids are new to the school they still have to enroll, and that takes a few days to sort out.  I don’t understand why school starting for everyone kept getting postponed.  No one else seems concerned, though.  I suppose it must be normal.  Edem wasn’t here, so the troop of kids left with Mauwli to try to sort things out.  Sonjelle followed after breakfast to meet with the head master to participate in a strange formality where we basically pay a “fee” per kid and thank him profusely for “letting” the kids go to his free public school, which the children are required by law to attend.  The junior high (they call it JSS) students were sent home because they are required to bring their own desk and chair.  The set costs about $15 a piece, which is astronomical and a reason many families can’t send their children to school.  Other school supplies include brooms and bush knives, which families also must provide.  You can actually be sent home from school if you don’t bring your bush knife.  Kids are responsible for maintaining the grounds, so they mow the lawns with the knives and sweep around the school.  This year both Elikplim and Justice are in JSS.

The kids returned before Sonjelle- apparently they have to take an aptitude test tomorrow to be placed, so they were sent home.  It was unclear why the students with paperwork from their previous school couldn’t start today in the grade they are suppose to be in.  It was unclear why they couldn’t take the test now or later today since they have the tests at the school.  As Sonjelle explained all this, she threw her hands up in the air, shrugged a little and said “small small,” meaning things take time around here and you can’t rush it.  I’m glad she’s in charge of this mess.  I’d be strangling someone by now.  I don’t know what we’ll do when she leaves.

While Sonjelle and John went to Hohoe, the next town, to change John’s dollars into cedis (our town doesn’t do that, apparently), I took the kids to the library.  I figured if they couldn’t be in school, they could at least be doing something academic. 

At the library I asked the librarian to speak to the kids about what it’s like having his job.  John, Sonjelle, and I had talked earlier about how it would be nice to have “career day” type presentations from locals to help motivate the kids in school and get them thinking about their futures.  Unfortunately for me, the librarian spoke in Ewe, and I got the feeling that he merely told them about the library, not his education and why he likes his job.  I’m also afraid that he doesn’t have much of a formal education or training in being a librarian considering the state of the library itself, and that he likes his job because he can sleep under a fan all day.  Regardless, the kids politely pretended to listen while they stared at the floor with their hands in their laps and he spoke very formally, and at length, at them and paced back and forth, pointing a finger to the sky and shaking it now and then.  I thanked him when it was finally over, not mentioning that I was almost sorry we’d ever come up with this idea.

While the kids read, I snuck away for a few minutes to go across the street and picked up my dress.  It fits fine, and is a happily ridiculous pattern.  I’m not sure I will ever wear it.  Afterward, I stopped next door to see Obey the Tailor.  I told him about our “career day” plan, and he was interested.  He even suggested he teach interested kids to sew and maybe take an apprentice because he doesn’t want to tailor for longer than five more years.  This seems like a better idea than yakking at a group of half-asleep kids.  We volunteers had discussed asking him if he’d do that, so I was very pleased that he came up with the idea on his own.  I told him that I’d like to run it by Edem and the other volunteers and we’d talk again to set something up.  Fingers crossed.

Lunch, and I’m exhausted.  My cold, the heat, residual jetlag, culture shock, and 14 children.  Apparently it tires you out.