Assemblee Generale

Every year, we begin the annee scolaire with an assemblee generale, or general meeting. This is basically the first staff meeting of the year, an opportunity for all the teachers to introduce themselves, and to go over some basic policies and the schedule for the year. These meetings can run anywhere from one hour to six hours, depending on how much your principal likes to talk and whether your school runs on real time or Cameroonian time (which is usually at least an hour or two behind). At last year's assemblee generale, I found myself in a dusty room with fifteen strangers (and several lizards). I was the only woman, the only white person, the only one who couldn't speak French, and pretty clearly the youngest person in the room. I have never felt more overwhelmed or out of place in my life. I sat through three hours of introductions and statistics and policies (of which I maybe understood 10%) and spent the entire time trying to keep myself alternately from falling asleep or bursting into tears. I bolted at the first opportunity, claiming I had a Peace Corps meeting in Maroua (which was kind of true...except that the “meeting” was at a bar).

This year, I showed up ten minutes late (still well before the meeting started) and greeted several friends before sitting down. We now had tables in our teacher's lounge (as opposed to the beginning of last year, when there was just a sad handful of plastic lawn chairs) and we pulled them into a circle and sat behind them, with my principal at the head table, the new vice principal and discipline master on either side. The principal wore a beautiful, spotless white boubou (traditional menswear consisting of a long flowing dress-like garment with matching pants underneath; or, as an American friend of mine calls it, “wizard's robes”). The vice principal next to him wore a jean suit (yup, jacket and pants. Cameroonians love their Texas Tuxedos), while the discipline master opted for the middle ground of Western-style dress pants and a button down shirt. When we started – only about 45 minutes later than the time written on the board – there were about twenty of us in the room, including six (!) other women (last year at a Peace Corps training with my principal, I complained about the difficulty of being the only woman on staff; the principal was shocked and immediately set about hiring as many women as possible for this school year).

We opened with introductions, giving only the essentials: our names, the subjects we taught, and our marital status (I said I was engaged; other responses included “Single...but looking” and “Single”, followed by another teacher shouting “Yeah but how many kids do you have?” and everybody laughing). Then the principal began the meeting in earnest. To keep myself entertained, I took notes (in English...or, well, in Franglais). Here are some of the highlights from the principal's speech:

-Neither the principal or Americans like wasting time, so our school will run efficiently
-Computer technology will be mandatory this year...so we should probably get some computers...or at least get the school's electricity turned on...
-We have well-behaved students. They do not attack their teachers.
-It's good to have a mixed staff. Especially if the women are single (this part was added by our gym teacher...).
-The principal is not a sorceror. He will not know your problems unless you tell him.
-It's a good idea to plan your classes before you go to teach them. Also, it's not a good idea to teach your entire class with your back to your students.
-Our quatriemes (8th graders) suck, but everyone else is pretty okay.
-Be nice to your students, but not too nice.
-Please fill out the class logbooks (which say what you did in class that day). Please do not steal them.
-Don't wear your gym clothes to school unless you are a gym teacher.
-Please don't be an alcoholic. You can drink as much wine as you want, just as long as the students can't tell. Also, please don't share your bil-bil (traditional millet beer) with the students. And don't accept alcohol in return for doing favors for your students.
-Don't put your butts on the table. It's not hygienic. (this is a direct quote, by the way...)
-Our school doesn't have any money. Oh, but we will find a way to pay you...

Aside from the things that made me laugh, the principal also said a lot of things that reminded me how lucky I am to have such a smart, progressive, non-corrupt counterpart, and to work at a school with such wonderful students. 75% of our 6th graders continued on to 7th grade (which is VERY high – for more on these great kids, see my “Ode to 6eme” blog entry from last year), and almost 50% of our 3emes (9th graders) and 1eres (Juniors) passed their incredibly difficult national exams. The year before it was more like 20%. And it's true – our students are incredibly well-behaved. Not only have I never been attacked (I did not actually realize this was a possibility...) but I have very few kids who even talk out of turn or fight amongst themselves during class, and only a handful of cheaters (all in the lower grades).

The principal also pointed out that because we are a smaller school and we have much smaller classes than most places (25 in Terminale, 60-some in Premiere...a friend of mine 10 kilometers away has 180 in her premiere class), we can have more interesting classes. We can do experiments and play games rather than just lecturing. This is an incredibly progressive idea here, as most teachers were taught by copying notes off the board with little explanation or practice, and expect their students to do the same. With all the women on staff this year, the principal is also making Girl's Club mandatory (for female staff members and students), which is an awesome opportunity for girls from the village to get some role models (the number of educated, independent women in their lives is extremely limited).

I was surprised at how often the principal brought me into the conversation (every third sentence seemed to end with “Eh, Rose?” or “N'est-ce pas, Rose?” -- another incentive to pay attention). At first I thought he was teasing me. Then I thought he was just showing off his foreigner to the new staff members. Then I realized that I was actually one of the senior staff members in the room, and one of the only people who was there last year who saw the things he was talking about, and he might actually be calling on me as a professional because he wanted others to hear my opinions and experiences. How strange! (In reality, it was probably some combination of the three...)

Anyways, it was a good start to the school year, and another nice reminder of how much has changed since last year. Not that everything is perfect – last Thursday, for example, immediately after I finished exam review in all my classes (for exams that were supposed to start the coming Monday), I was informed that we would have normal classes instead next week, as the new vice principal had been put in charge of organizing and typing up all the exams, and it turns out he doesn't know how to use a computer...Oh Cameroon.

It's been a funny couple of weeks here...the election was last weekend, so we were told by Peace Corps not to leave our villages, and to pack an emergency bag with ID and a change of clothes and to keep a low profile (which is super easy here when you're white...), etc. Basically I was expecting at any minute to have a motorcycle pull up at my door with a note from Peace Corps telling me to grab what I could carry and get whisked away to Morocco. In reality, I had a quiet Sunday at home with my cat. It's been quite interesting to observe the politics here, and while I'm not sure how much I can really say on the subject right now while I'm still in country, I will say that I am definitely appreciative of being a citizen of a country where you're allowed to say what you think about the political situation and vote in elections that are free and fair. There were a couple of riots down south before the elections, but since then, everything has been quiet here, and is likely to be until the results come in (probably later this month). You never know what will happen, and with all that has gone on in other African countries in the past couple years people are on edge, but the general attitude I get here is that people are dissatisfied but apathetic. A striking example of this came to me a few days ago, when I was sitting with a friend in village who was going on about a certain politician visiting a nearby city “to tell his lies”...meanwhile this same friend was wearing a t-shirt supporting said politician's political party. Anyways, for now, it's business as usual and I'm keeping busy in village teaching and grading and trying to come up with an explanation for my students as to why Americans say “I don't have a pen” rather than “I haven't a pen”, but would say “I haven't been to New York.”