Chaotic End of School Year

Where to begin? The third term is primarily for the final exam, and is only one month long.  Not much happens, except for exams, and it is difficult to teach even review classes without a hundred interruptions and distractions and disturbances.  Students are literally climbing the walls outside of the classroom.  The last week of school the teachers are finalizing their marks and having meetings and discussing who gets promoted and who doesn't. Meanwhile, the students are straining against their chains, yearning for the freedom of the long holiday, becoming bolder by the hour, and getting exponentially antsier each day.

The way the marking works is that each class has a "Class Master," whose job it is to compile the marks for one class, and calculate averages, totals, etc. It is a tedious job, especially when done on a spreadsheet. By hand. When the final marks are calculated, they are recorded in individual report card books. I am the "Form II Middle" class master and in charge of recording all their marks on the Master Sheet, though their chemistry, biology, physics, geography, French, English literature, English language, history, computer, religion, food and nutrition, calligraphy, integrity, and labor teachers all have to record their own marks in the report card books.

After all that was (mostly) complete , the marks were discussed at a meeting called the "Class Council. " During Class Council, the staff eventually decided to promote practically every student regardless of performance, because bringing in school fees through enrollment is a concern and if a student is asked to repeat, the parents will take their school fees elsewhere, at a school that will place their child in the next level.

The teachers were then set to the task of finishing filling out the report cards and preparing them for distribution. This requires a perfect storm of conditions, and if one condition isn't met, it causes a cascade of delays and disturbances. So, if the office printer is on the fritz and the computer lab key is with another teacher that has gone off campus, well, you'll just have to wait to get something printed and copied. Or, if the principle is not around because he's at a funeral for another priest, even if you're all finished with your tedious recorded-by-hand marks, you still have to wait for him and his pen, so he can sign all the report cards before they are removed from the books.

We ended up working late into the night attaching letters to report cards and removing report cards from the stacks when the student owed fees or library books. It was a fun time, laughing and working and spending time with the die-hards, but an exhausting time. Really it was the calm before the storm of the total chaos of the following day.

The whole next morning was a flurry of students running around and lugging trunks, teachers running around looking for more staples and calling for specific students, vendors selling snacks for the road, buses and taxis coming and going, teachers surrounded by throngs of grabbing hands as they try to orderly distribute report cards.

Then the panic set in. So-and-so didn't get her report card because she didn't turn in a library book, and she returned all her books, so it must be a mistake, and the bus for Yaounde is leaving and she needs to get on, and where is the library madam, because it is surely an error? Or, the bursar says I have not paid my fees, but I gave my money to Mr. So-and-so. Or, I paid for space for my trunk on the bus, but the list does not indicate my trunk. 

Six hundred students had a thousand complaints and crises, and they were handled all at the same time in a throng of students eager to make payments or clear up misunderstandings in the bursary. There were many students who discovered that returning SOME but not all library books is not truly sufficient to cancel a debt, nor is returning OTHER library books that they did not sign out (but thanks for returning them!) Other students discovered that Mr. So-and-so did indeed recieve the money, but it was never passed on to the bursar. He had to be tracked down, and the money discovered tucked away and safely forgotten. Some students were victims of mistaken identity, whereby "Clinton" owed money, but was it Fomonyuy Clinton, or Tamnjong Clinton? There is another Mohammed in another class, was he the one who signed for these Library books? All the while students pushed and jostled in front of each other trying to be the next one served, with no semblance of a line.

One poor boy discovered he had no debt to the bursary or library, and his class master did not have his report card. It was just swallowed up by the Chaos. At one point, after the hubbub had finally died down, one student came to the bursary to see what fees he owed. My wife was the only teacher there for the moment as the bursar had stepped out. Logan dutifully searched for his report card, with the boy grabbing and being pushy the whole time. When she showed him the fees owed written on the back of the report card, he snatched it and ran. He stole his own report card! The guards had to be sent to track him down.

At the end of the day, students either got their report cards or they didn't, they either passed on or they didn't, and we said goodbye and see you next year and have a long, happy, holiday.

Missing in this account is every chaotic thing that happened in our house and at the school, including the twice-burnt beans, the football match sing-along, the very welcome visitors, the sticker distribution, the white-out snatching, the calculator switching, the gossipy snitching, the sibling rivalry, our lack of food because we didn't have time and/or forgot to go shopping during the press of the crazy week, or anything else that added to the chaos.

But now it is over, and except for the GCE exams we must "invigilate" next week we are through for the school year. Praise God! What are the best three things about being a teacher?  June, July, and August.

We will enjoy the holiday, but we don't plan on being idle.  Stay tuned.

-Eric

Mourning By Celebrating

A friend of mine recently invited me to attend a special event. Vitalian's father was a member of a traditional singing/dancing/drinking group...  and I'll be darned if I can remember the word for that kind of group. This is what you get for not writing things down right away, I guess. The group may be attached to a Juju, I'm not sure. There were costumed warriors, in the least.

In any case, Vitalian's father died twelve years ago, and since then the group has not paid proper respects with a mourning celebration. Until now. The remaining members of the group, and family members, and friends, and whoever else is around in the neighborhood, all gathered at the deceased's compound to sing and dance and drink and feast. All day long. The singing is a kind of repetitive, rhythmic affair. It continued for most of the time I was there. I could hear it coming up from the valley as I walked down the bishop's hill to meet Vitalian, and I could hear it as I journeyed home. Instrumentation consisted of a drum or two, half a hundred voices, and twice as many swords.

As I entered the compound, which had gone to ruin since Vitalian's father's death, I noticed a common ceremonial greeting that I have seen before: the participants draw their swords (or cutlasses, they are called) and clanged them together twice, in a methodical way that is reminiscent of warfare but far from it. When I asked about the meaning of it, all I got as an answer was, "it is our tradition."  It seems the meaning of the tradition is lost to most, because I asked a handful of people and never got a deeper meaning than "tradition." It might be a secret, but I highly doubt it. I think that people just don't know anymore.

Man with cutlass

I sat and watched the singing, until someone invited me into the ruined house, which was nothing but newly made benches fashioned crudely over the remains of crumbled mud brick walls. I was given a horn brimming with palm wine, a sword to greet others properly, and then I watched. At SAC and other places almost everyone speaks English very well, but here it was all Lamnso' and pidgin. I mostly just stood still, greeted with my limited vocabulary, and took in the sights.

It was fascinating!  I watched a whole goat roasted over an open flame. The same goat had been alive and was led around the compound when I arrived.  The crowd numbered around 100 or so at one time, but people came and went constantly. There were mostly men and boys. Only a third of the people there could have possibly known the father as a friend, given their ages. 

Vitalian leading goat

Goat being roasted

Everyone wore traditional dress, at the very least a traditional cap. I had to wear a cap to even attend. I have learned that people here often don't like to be photographed but I was encouraged to take my camera and snap as many photos as I wanted.

Man in traditional dress

After an hour of dancing and sword clanging and drumming and singing, everyone gathered and sat in a circle, while men constantly made rounds serving palm wine from calabashes. (It is bad luck to serve yourself.) Men who knew the Father gave speeches in his honor (there are always speeches!), and mimed battles, and told jokes. At least, that is what I think was happening, it was all in Lamnso' at this point. The boys were even served palm wine into their outstretched cupped hands, slurping it up before it drained out. I think they got more on the dirt than in their mouths. Then, the drumming and singing and dancing started, and after a bit I left with Vitalian to his brother's house, where I was served food,  It was fufu and njama-njama, of course. It's always fufu. People eat fufu nine meals out of ten.

Mourners dancing

While I was there, the singing-dancing-warring-juju group sent some costumed men to beg/demand/collect something to drink, And Vitalian was ready with little packets of whisky and rum to give to them.

All told, there were several goats and many fowl consumed, along with 200 liters of palm wine... by the time I left.  There were still hours left to go, and the mourners would continue until it was time to go, which was whatever time they needed to leave to walk back to their houses in the dark. 

It was all very fascinating to see, and I loved how the people celebrated the life of this man dead over a decade. It was especially uplifting to see people who probably never knew or barely knew the man celebrate him. I was frustrated that people could not tell me more about the traditions. It seems that oftentimes there are traditions that people have here that are either lost or waning. We've heard tell it used to be that every so often people would gather in a square or junction or large compound and have a huge bonfire, and they would tell stories and sing and dance and pass on the tradition that way. Now, the young people have no interest in what their grandparents have to say and sing, and prefer to spend time on their phones, and even the internet for some. Some technological and cultural advances come at a cost.

-Eric

Birthdays/Update

Yes, we're still alive. As proof, three of us are one year older!

We celebrated with a weekend full of cake. Cake for Logan, cake for Max and Isabelle... nobody complained. It was a nice treat, and we were happy to celebrate together.

Now, things are down to the wire with the school year at SAC. We are busy grading papers (or procrastinating...) and setting exam questions, and helping the secretary type the exams. 10-14 subjects per grade, multiplied by 7 grade levels... that's a lot of typing!

Things can still be pretty frustrating in the classroom... recently there have been a rash of fee drives. When the students haven't paid their school fees, they are literally driven from class. So, instead of being in class, they are out roaming the campus, disturbing the other classes. Other students decide they shouldn't be in class either, and so they dash out. The result is fewer children in class, during a crucial period where we are reviewing for the exam. I will say that I am much better now at "going with the flow," as compared to the beginning of the school year.

I am looking forward to next year, when I can go about things with a better idea of what topics to cover, and when to cover them, a better idea of what to expect from my students, etc.

At least, so long as they give me the same subjects again...

Things have been otherwise pretty quiet on the home front. We've had a few minor emergencies, such as the kitchen sink overflowing and flooding the kitchen. Twice. At those times, I was glad for our cement floors. All we had to do was sweep the water out the door and into the gutter. Somehow, our cat got into the space between the ceiling and our roof. A stomach virus here, a cold there... but we remain healthy for the most part, so that's good. We've also been able to attend some interesting cultural events, an ordination and a final profession of vows.

But the words on our lips right now are "Long Holiday," which is what you call Summer vacation when you have two seasons, rainy and dry, instead of four.

 

-Eric