Monday, July 30, 2012

Teaching


To teachers of foreign languages the world over, I would like to express a new found appreciation for the difficulty of your task. For the past two weeks, I’ve been engaged in the practicum portion of my pre-service training, and it’s been an eye-opening experience to say the least.

The practicum took place during our weekday afternoons at one of Huruta’s primary schools. Since it’s summer break and school is out, we taught classes of students who had volunteered (or been volun-told) to give up two weeks of their summers. We taught grades 2-5, and each class had between 35 and 50 students, depending on the class and the day. For the first week, we taught in pairs, although I taught in a trio, because we had an odd number. The second week we taught individually, one 45 minute class per day.  Each class was observed by a mix of our fellow trainees, current/veteran Education PCVs, and our own language teachers (we call them LCFs – Language and Culture Facilitators), and we would receive feedback from them after we finished.

The challenge is the same for any teacher of a foreign language, although perhaps compounded for us. The students are at varying stages of just beginning to learn English, because it is taught as a subject here in Ethiopia until the students get to 9th grade (much as French, German, or Spanish is taught in the U.S.). At the second grade level, they don’t even know instruction words, such as “listen,” “write,” “read,” or “repeat.” Where the problem gets compounded is that we are at the beginning stages of learning their languages, and we don’t even know those words in Amharic or Oromiffa. Then there’s the problem of our accents. We pronounce things differently, so even if they know a word, they might not recognize it when we speak. How did we manage to teach a class? Yep, you guessed it – charades.

The wonderful aspect of the experience was the students themselves. They are incredibly eager. They raise their hands to be called on before I’ve even finished explaining (miming) the instructions, and they listen and watch intently, as long as it’s not too long into the lesson. They are children, after all. It was a joy to work with them, despite the obvious roadblocks. I taught “Prepositions of Location” the second week, which is a fancy term for words like near, far, in, out, on, under, behind, and in front of. I had a blast with the younger two grades, playing a form of Simon Says to get them to associate the word with a physical action: “Teacher says put your hands under the desk; Teacher says put your hand near your face; Teacher says put your hands on your shoulders.” Luckily, a fellow trainee had taught body parts the week before!

A side effect of the practicum is that now roughly 130 kids in Huruta know my name. It is such a nice improvement to walk through town and hear my name called by the kids, as they come running up to shake my hand, instead of hearing, “Ferenje! Ferenje!” (Foreigner! Foreigner!) I can take that knowledge with me to Fincha, to help with integrating.  

The best aspect of the practicum though is the self-confidence it gave me. I have had some experience with varying levels of teaching before, but never with teaching English on my own to more than 40 children. I had my doubts, about whether I could keep control of the classroom, develop lesson plans that actually taught the kids what I wanted them to learn, and whether I could stand in front of the classroom without simply panicking and freezing. But, lo and behold, I could do all of those things! I was even praised for my slow and clear instructions, for developing activities that both engaged and taught the students, and for my general composure (once I told them I was super nervous). Thus, even though those two weeks completely stressed me out and exhausted me, I’m very glad the Peace Corps added it to our training.

The next two weeks we’re back to the usual schedule. Monday through Wednesday of both weeks, we’ll be in Assella for big group training sessions on health, safety/security, and techniques and theories behind teaching English in Ethiopia. Then Thursday and Friday of both weeks will be 8-5 of Afan Oromo language class. After the next two weeks, we begin reviewing and studying for our big language exam, and that Wednesday we travel back to Addis to finish up training and make the transition to becoming real Volunteers. It’s hard to believe that I’ve both already and only been here for 7 weeks, and that we’re entering the final leg of training. 

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Exploding Expectations (Site Announcement and Visit)


7/12/12 

When a person enters the Peace Corps, there is very little that she actually knows. As a result, the training program sometimes feels like a series of veils are being lifted, one by one, from the view of the big picture. Two Saturdays ago, June 30, was one of those days: Site Announcement Day - the day that each of us 70 trainees found out which town would be our permanent site for the next two years.

The Peace Corps did a great job of making the day seem as important as it was. First, they gave us a 2 hour lecture on safety and security that no one wanted to hear at that particular time, which served perfectly in building up our impatience. Then we had a ½ hour coffee break, during which we were all able to talk about our impatience (very constructive conversation, as you can imagine). Finally, they began to announce our site placements…one by one by one. It was agonizing! They would call out the name of a town, show you where it was on the map, and then announce who would be sent there. I was about the 50th out of 70 to be announced, so by the time they got to me, my stomach was in knots and I could barely sit still in my chair. Oh, the anticipation!

The result: my site is a town called Fincha (or Fincha’a), and it is in the region of Oromia, where Afan Oromo/Oromiffa is the regional language.

With my announcement, I was given an envelope with some basic information about Fincha. For instance, it is 1,200 meters above sea level, it was created after the construction of a hydroelectric dam on Lake Fincha in the 70s, and I will be paired with Fincha Primary School, which has about 1,600 students. The packet also said that the population of the town was 45,000 people as of 2005. Based on that information, I began to form certain expectations of my future life. I assumed that with that many people, I would have a hard time integrating and have to deal with more verbal harassment than I would in a small town. I also figured that meant certain helpful commodities would be available to me, such as fruit, good juice, and other food stuffs.

Well, this past Saturday, July 7, I traveled to FIncha for my official Site Visit, which is another of those landmark veil-liftings. The site visit is a 5 day trip to our future towns, so that we can meet important people and get a feel for what life will be like there. To get to Fincha from Addis, I took one large bus directly there, and I was accompanied by my counterpart and another trainee and his counterpart, who will be living just 50 kilometers away in Shambu.
(In the Peace Corps across the globe, a counterpart is a host country national who agrees to be paired with the Volunteer. The counterpart initially helps with introducing the Volunteer to key people in the town and helping him or her get around town, and later is a partner with the Volunteer’s projects.)
The trip took 8 hours, and when I arrived, I was surprised to see a town that sent out a vibe of calm and welcome. I asked, and was told that the town has a population of less than 10,000 people.

Less than 10,000 people. Thus, we arrive at the meaning behind the title of this entry. They say that one of the key characteristics of a successful volunteer is flexibility, and this was my first big dose of why that’s important. Essentially, the opposite of my first expectations are now my current expectations, after being in Fincha for 4 days: that it will be easier to integrate into and feel at home in this town, that the level of verbal (or otherwise) harassment I will have to handle will be low in comparison to what other volunteers deal with, and that certain food items and other commodities will not be readily available.

Guess what, though? I will happily take that trade-off! Living without a good fruit variety and without juice bets can be easily done, especially with the help of certain loving people who may or may not be sending me packages. Living in a small community where everyone knows me will come with its challenges, I’m sure, but it’s what I first envisioned when I joined Peace Corps. Already I feel welcomed and safe, and it’s only been four days! So, the lesson learned is to never to get too attached to my expectations, and to let them shift as needed.

As a conclusion to this entry, it turns out that some pretty delicious food can in fact be put together here in Fincha. One of the greatest upsides to this story is that I will have a site mate here in Fincha – she’s a health PCV, and she’s been an incredible help to me already. Last night for dinner she cooked a cabbage stir fry, flavored with onions, garlic, soy sauce, and peanut butter, and we ate it over rice. Everything in that dish, except the soy sauce, which was purchased in Addis, is available here in Fincha. It sounds terribly weird, I know, but it was scrumptious!

The upcoming month will consist of the remainder of my pre-service training, including Afan Oromo language training, teaching practicum, and more technical training. Bring it on, Peace Corps, I’m ready to go back to FIncha!

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Celebrating


It happens once every year: time marches on, and I get to add another year to my age, and have a day of celebration. Usually I bake a chocolate cake with my family, we go out for a nice meal, and I get something small but meaningful for a birthday gift. Since I’m a summer baby, these celebrations are always with my family. All you summer babies out there can relate – you love your families and celebrating with them, but you also secretly wish you could celebrate with your friends…just once, please!

Well, this year was that once. It was the birthday to top all birthdays! It was my first in Ethiopia, and I was first in our group. My fellow trainees and I planned to meet up after language class finished for the day, and go out for juice for a small celebration. It’s what we usually do anyway, but I was happy with that, because the juice here is so dang delicious. We all met up at one of our houses, and then a birthday cake with a candle in it appeared, and suddenly they were all singing to me! They had secretly planned a surprise party for me, and I never guessed at all!

One of the trainees had baked me a cookie-cake herself, filled with crumbled bourbon cookies (they’re called that, but they’re actually chocolate), and covered in peanut butter frosting. It was delicious! Another trainee had told his host family about my birthday, and they made me the traditional Ethiopian birthday bread, flavored with orange soda (not sure if that part’s traditional…). It was good eatin’ all around. There were gifts, too! My cake-baking trainee also made me a friendship bracelet, out of my favorite colors, and my language teacher gave me a silver bracelet. After we finished our cake, we played one of my favorite games – bowls/three-round charades. It was pretty hilarious. I was totally surprised, and completely floored. It was my first surprise party, and it made me feel much loved.

Me and my delicious cake!


(Most of) our group of trainees, after my birthday celebration. They're the best!

The traditional Ethiopian birthday bread, and the empty plate where the cookie-cake used to be. Yum!

My two bracelet-gifts!