Me: “I’m always late in the mornings.”
Merineau: “No, you’re just always on American time.”
Three trainees early terminated and went home last week. What a strange and sad experience that was. It’s been just a few weeks now, but we’ve become a sort of family, and to see three people go all at once was saddening. One of the guys I knew was thinking about leaving early on in arrival to Bangante, and it seemed that his parents pushed him into this. When he mentioned leaving in a phone call, the parents told him that he would be a complete failure if he were to quit. A group of us were thinking that it would be a good idea for him to unplug all the electricity and water when he got home, just to give them a taste of this life. In any case, what it came down to was that this was not what they wanted for themselves, and early terminating after two weeks, in a way, sparked a thought process… This is a really hard thing that not everyone can do. Is this really what I want to do? There was never a question for me. I would not want to be doing anything else… even on a day like today.
Today the Education group did 30 minute lessons for a mock group of students, who are actually very intelligent trainers. I taught possessive pronouns, and somewhere in the middle of critique, the whole world was put on my shoulders. Like I have to be a million different things, and that’s just to survive in the classrooms here. It will be only me, the chalkboard and my students, and I have to make do with that. I’m very much afraid of failing at this at the moment. “You’re not boring”, a friend told me in regard to my lecture afterward. At least I have my enthusiasm going for me. Now I just have to better learn English! The P.C. is starting a model school here in two weeks, which we will get to teach at and observe others teach at.
There are three posts in the Littoral province, where I am going to request. It is near Douala, close to the coast, close to an airport and other transportation. I think that they speak Pidgin English there, which is a language I hope to learn in the next couple of months. Interviews for requested posts will take place tomorrow.
