The End of an Era

Sorry in advance if I repeated stuff from my other entries, it's hard to keep track of what I write...

I'm writing this from my house on May 20th and school will officially be over for me tomorrow. Phew! Tomorrow is the last final exam and then I'm heading to Conakry on Friday, when I will post this entry. I love having Cam's (extra) computer.

So what's been going on in Timbi? Well, I spent all last week reviewing with my classes and was a little disappointed to realize yesterday and today how much they didn't get. There's really nothing more I could have done. I had 2 extra review sessions and gave them a practice exam EXACTLY like the real one but just changed the verbs and sentences. Seriously, I practically spoon-fed them the answers. And less than half of each class received a 50%, which is a passing grade. I thank my lucky stars that all my motivated students pulled through with good grades or I would have been seriously depressed. That being said, my grades are pretty normal compared to the other teachers. Seems like there's 2-4 great students, 7 or so decent students and a bunch of bad students for every group of 20.

The end of the year has been interesting – finals always bring out the best and the worst in people!

First, one of my better students was leaving the exam today and I took both the exam and the scratch paper he'd used, like I did with all the kids. He didn't want to give it to me and I basically ripped it out of his hand. Turns out he had last week's practice exam stuffed inside. He got an automatic zero and a public “I am disappointed in you, get out of my class.” With the paper he would have gotten about a 14/20. Without it I'm sure he could have pulled off an 11 and now he will fail the class. Over the weekend he stopped by my house with his 3 homeworks (I've given 6 and he only did half, even though he's good at English) to try and tell me that the 3 he had were the 3 he was missing. Then he preceded to lie to me, telling me he had ripped the other ones up. Like I was going to believe he happened to rip up the 3 that I happened to forget to record in my notebook!! I was so frustrated – I've made a serious effort to undo the 20-odd years of cheating that the kids have been able to do and most seem to get it, at least a little bit, at least in my class. But I clearly didn't make an impact on him.

A note on cheating – the kids literally cannot stop themselves. Guinea is ranked as one of the most corrupt countries on earth and I think it starts in the schools. Apparently it's possible to get your grade changed if your parents are important, if you have money or if you are a girl willing to sleep with the teachers. I don't know that any of this happens for sure at my school, but it would be naïve for me to say that it doesn't. Luckily for me I don't know whose parents are important, already have enough money and really don't care to sleep with any of the students! I can only hope that when my students have important jobs and the opportunity to be corrupt that they remember me and the expectations I set for them in my class. If they hesitate to do something bad even for a minute I'll feel that my time here was worthwhile.

Okay, on to the good things that happened. First, here is the world's cutest text message:

Hello, Mrs Dawn i'm very so Glad to you because I never had teacher like you.Plase I need your picture. As soon as you can able to do it. From the Boubacar Barry Bye and have a good time. That's God Bless you!

The grammatical errors aside, isn't that so sweet? He has the second highest grade in his class and is lucky because next year he'll do Terminale with my replacement before he takes his high school exit exam.

The other thing is that one of the other kids from Boubacar's class showed up at my house today to find out his grade (a 16, which is very good here). He was clearly pleased with himself and I was so happy for him because I know he studied really hard for the test. After I gave him his grade he got all embarrassed looking and finally told me that he really wished I would be his teacher again next year and that he was really satisfied with English class and my teaching.

Boy, I'm really tooting my own horn, aren't I? I'll stop before it gets too obnoxious, unless it already is, in which case I apologize!

In other news – today it hailed. It was the wildest thing, I was taking a nap when the rain started and all of a sudden I thought I heard hail. How on earth does that happen when it's so warm? I wish I had regular internet access so I could look that kind of stuff up. Anyway, it was really crazy and I tried to take pictures but they didn't turn out. I might post one of them just so you can see the rain. The insane rainstorms are something I will definitely miss.

Cam's stepmom arrives June 4th. We are so excited!! We'll spend a day in Conakry, then head to Boke, to Timbi and some waterfalls and then spend a night on the Islands before she leaves. At which point we'll be frantically finishing our Girls Conference planning...she leaves the 18th and it starts the 22nd...

Which brings me to exciting news – we have all the money for the conference!! I'm not sure if any of you contributed to that, but if you did I really cannot thank you enough. It's going to be a great experience for the girls and the volunteers and a lovely way to wrap things up here in Guinea. We are hoping that next year the organizers will get in touch with a local NGO and really get the Guinean community more involved. We'll have a panel of professional women and take the girls to town to see their places of employment, but it would be even better to have more involvement. As the conference evolves I think it could eventually become Guinean-run and funded (ah, the elusive goal of sustainability!!) We will use your money wisely and honestly – not ALL of Guinea is corrupt! - and I will be sure to put up the post-conference report so you can see how much your donations helped the 40 girls and 10 professional women who are taking part in the conferences!