Thursday, February 18, 2010

Back in Ouagadougou!

 
 
 
Bad pictures of my special friend and a picture showing to the whole world that my site has a functional cell tower and I can actually be reached 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with 5 full bars!! So, I am succumbing and getting the USB key. This will let me assist in managing our ICT committee's website. Officially launched in December of 2009. Please check it out. The Volunteer side is similar to GoogleDocs and a powerful tool for institutional memory and is powered by Alfresco. Check out our website at http://burkina.ath.cx!

More pictures are now available in the Picasa album for the library construction. I forgot to take pictures yesterday before leaving my village.
Posted by Picasa

Friday, February 5, 2010

Library & Local Realities

Dear Donors, Friends and My Wonderful Family,

Library

Thanks for your financial support. Our construction finally started on February 1, 2010 at 10:00 AM as you can see in the new photos posted on Picasa.

Part of the delay was due in part to a change in the administration of the PTA (APE). For the first time in approximately a decade, the PTA board has been replaced. Convincing everyone of the merits of the project was easy. The difficult part was the old PTA board transferring power officially to the new PTA board. This finally took place at the beginning of December. Right before Christmas, a general assembly was called to discuss how the PTA would fund their part of the project (local materials). Would they bring it in themselves, or would the children bring it in? Alternatively, would they hire someone to haul all of the materials to the work site. Finally, they decided on monetary contributions per student enrolled.

We waited for their money and the materials to show up during the month of January. Finally, all was ready and we had a groundbreaking ceremony. The vice principal (intendant) and I laid the first couple of bricks during the ceremony. Though they aren't in the spot where the library is actually being built. On February 2, the real work started. Will hopefully have more pictures soon.

Thanks again for all of your wonderful generosity! For those of you who are worried about the financial management. I am personally in charge of all of the funds that you have donated. At the end of the project, I do have to do a report with receipts for both the funds that you have donated and the funds or actual work that the local community did to complete the project.

Harsh Realities

So, recently one of the phone companies started offering a USB key that allows you to access wireless internet from your computer. The key is about $90. With the equivalent amount of money, I can feed 30 of my students for a month. That is not a typographical error, my readers. Yes, one (1) student can really eat for just three dollars ($3) a month at our school's "cafeteria" (cantine thanks to subsidies from the school and the government. Many of my students come by bicycle or on foot through the bush from as much as 15 km away (10 miles). They wake up as early as 4 AM to get ready for school and don't leave school until 5 PM, getting back as late as 7 PM. On top of all that, they don't usually have the financial or physical means to go home at lunch time, eat, and come back to school every day.

One of the hardest things in my day is seeing how determined my students are to come to school each day and work hard (162 out of 241 of my sixth graders are passing the trimester as of right now) despite their lack of means to eat more than once a day. I do try to encourage them as much as possible with small gifts that I've gotten from you and other local donors such as candy, pens, pencils, stickers, pictures and notebooks and lunch days for the best students. Unfortunately, physical goods have a limit. Of course, I try my best to teach them well, too. Negative numbers, fractions, exponents, order of operations, geometry, general information about the world at large, civic education, and general life skills like financial and family planning. It's the only thing I can give them that will last for the rest of their lives (as long as a I do a good job of teaching it that is and as long as they review from time to time).

Classroom management is tough when you have a minimum of 90 teen-aged students in a classroom. Life isn't easy being a Peace Corps Volunteer because you're not like everyone else. But, I wouldn't trade a single one of my frustrating days of service as a PCV for anything else right now in my life.

Then again, I might be a little bit masochistic. After all, I did get through Tech.

Tomorrow I am taking the GRE. I will be back near good internet in about 2 weeks.