Third Time's the Charm

With the school year two weeks old, I finally had my first full classes during the third week. This means classes ranging from 45 to 80+. It’s not as bad as I thought it would be due to the fact that all the kids are squeezed into such a small classroom, no one is really that far away from me to be able to get away with being a bad student. I’m still working on establishing the discipline in my classroom but constant threats to leave if they don’t stop talking is doing pretty good. Also if there is ever a real problem with just one student I don’t even have to be the bad guy. They have a guy on staff whose sole responsibility is to punish the bad kids.



Yes! I managed a photo!!!!



Our school actually just got a new one of these guys too. He shows up one day on his moto wearing gray slacks, a white dress shirt, an overly-large American flag tie and brown-tinted Aviator sized glasses. He looked more “American” than I’ve ever looked in my life. This outfit, which I assumed was his best, was quickly out shown by his appearance the next morning. I arrive at school to find him in the middle of yelling at some students. I have to laugh because I can’t believe what he’s wearing and that amazingly the students are able to take him seriously from behind his porn star glasses which are accessory to his metallic silver suit! He glimmered in the morning sun like a newly polished Mustang corvette. I shook his hand to say good morning with a genuine smile of my face. I walked to my class shaking my head wondering, one, how could I get a picture of him in that, and two, why do I work with the Silver Surfer.

He is just one of many characters I see on a daily basis. It’s hell trying to memorize the students names because it’s pretty often they have the same first name and 80% of the students have one of four last names (Bangoura, Soumah, Sylla, Camara). This results in many doubles and so in one class I have four Bangaly Camara’s and each is numbered one to four. I have thus settled on giving as many nicknames as possible, even if it’s just for me. There’s the look-a-likes: Tina Turner, Seal and Wanda Sykes. There’s the pop-culture references: Ninja-Turtle, Rizzo (from the movie Grease), and Captain Guinea (like Captain America). The nicknames keep coming and I would love to be able to provide photo evidence of each but I’m not sure how professional that would be.

Sadly, no big plans this weekend. Saturday is now laundry time, yes I need the whole day for it. Go home and appreciate your washing machine, do it for me.

Dante