5/5/05

Livana comes to visit me this afternoon, a normal part of almost every day. I hear hands clapping outside my hangar, the Chadian version of a doorbell, followed a second later by a sing-song-y "Salut!", his standard greeting. Sometimes he'll stop by simply to chat, once a week he picks up my laundry, and other times he needs to borrow something: a screwdriver, lantern, red pen, or of the other random things floating around my house. When we talk, he tells me often of his desire to learn English, and how difficult it is in school. Every time it comes up, I remind him that he has the only native English speaker in an 85km radius living not 20 meters from his front door, and that all he needs to do is ask.

Today, he's come to get my clothes to wash, part of the regular Thursday routine. I'm absorbed in "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," enjoying a cool, breezy day in the hangar. As he walks toward my front door to get the laundry bag he mentions, almost as though he's trying to get away with not saying it, that he has a test this afternoon at 3:00. It's 1:30.

"What subject?" I ask, expecting him to say Biology, Physics, Math, or History, standard subjects in Quatrieme, equivalent to 8th grade.

"Anglais," he answers. English.

"Liva," (what everybody calls him) "put down the laundry," I say. He looks puzzled- maybe he thinks I'm going to fire him. "Leave it for tomorrow," I tell him, "and go get your English notebook. We're going to review for your test." He's apparently been too timid to come to me with questions until now, so I decide to force the issue.

A few minutes, a hand clap, and a "Salut!" later, Liva's back, with his Cahier D'Anglais, and we get started. The first thing he turns to is a passage from Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I Have A Dream" speech.

"Oh, this was a famous speech," I tell him, and try to explain the American Civil Rights movement in two sentences in limited French, which translates into, "There are both black and white people in America, and they weren't equal. Martin Luther King fought for black rights." I wish I had the time and vocabulary to explain more, but it's already going on 2:00, and Liva has his Devoir (for some reason Chadians always say "Devoir," the verb "must" in English (or 'homework'), instead of the obvious French word, "Teste.") in an hour. Another time, I tell myself.

"Do you understand the text Liva?" I ask.

"I know a few words, but not really," he replies. "But the test will be on everything we've done so far."

Damn. We have less than an hour to review a semester's worth of material- Dr. King will definitely need to wait for another day. I begin to flip through the notebook, trying to decide what I can possibly do in 45 minutes to help Liva prepare. I pass another text.

"Stop," he says. "I think we might be doing texts as well."

"OK, what are you going to do with it?" I look at the text, "Kaboi and His Wives." I have an idea of what Liva's English level is, and I'm almost certain he has no idea what the text says.

"Can you explain it to me?" Liva asks.

"Haven't you done this in your class?" I reply.

"I can read it, but I don't know what it means," he tells me. "Our teacher never explains anything, he just says 'Good Morning, Class,' and then copies onto the blackboard for two hours."

I try briefly to explain the story of Kaboi to Liva. He had two wives, and he thought he'd be better off when famine came as a result. When it actually arrives, both wives give what little food they have to their children, and eventually Kaboi starves to death. A charming Sahelian African fairy-tale. As I explain it to Liva, I feel my frustration growing with his English teacher, or perhaps more accurately, the Chadian education system as a whole. From what I've observed, students do little but copy reams of text, with everything being force-fed, and no opportunity for any actual learning. The only measure of success is if a student can stand up and repeat verbatim exactly what was copied down, never mind if they've even considered what it might mean– as long as it can be repeated back on command, that's all that matters. Not that my high school History, Biology and French classes were the most exciting things, but we at least discussed things– in Chad, original thought in the classroom may as well be illegal.

As an English teacher here, I see my Chadian colleagues following this method, which frustrates me to no end. The students never actually get a chance to try and speak English, unless they're parroting back what the teacher has had them copy. Furthermore, virtually the only thing most Chadian English teachers seem to do in their classes are grammar drills, meaning that the average student can tell me anything I want to hear about the subjunctive mood, the preterit, or modal auxiliaries, but can't get past, "How are you?" in a conversation. I remember speaking to Enoch, another English teacher at the school recently, and mentioning that grammar isn't the only thing that should be taught. His response? A blank stare.

Looking through Liva's English notebook as we review, I see that his teacher is no exception- there are whole lessons on the Perfect and Progressive tenses, conjugations, the Conditional, Past Participles, and common irregular verbs, but no way to use any of it. Considering that, is it any surprise that virtually no Chadians are even so much as functional in English, despite studying it for six years in middle and high school.

Slowly, Liva and I work our way through conjugating the verbs "To Be," and "To Have."

"I.... Are," says Liva.

"No, but close," I say.

"I.......... Am!" He exclaims. It comes out sounding like "I Yam," which I tell him in French is 'I Sweet Potato," but the meaning is clear enough. And so it goes, through I, You, He/She, We, and They, for both verbs, each time coaxing Liva to find the answer for himself, rather than giving up. We're finishing up, and Liva says, "Wow, when you help me it's really easy." I thank him, resisting the urge to ask, "Why the hell haven't you been coming to me for help all semester? I've offered." He heads off to take his devoir, and I get back to Dr. Jekyll.
Later the same evening I'm sitting in the dark over tea with Hanam, another one of my neighbors, and a student in Premiere (equivalent to 11th grade). It's just about the end of the school year, and he's busy with final exams, sometimes two or three tests each day.

"Well, we had History, Biology and Math today," he tells me. "Tomorrow, we have English and Physics."

"Why haven't you asked me for help?" I ask him. I've made the same offer to him as I have to Liva, multiple times. "I've been living next to you the whole semester, I'm an English teacher, and you've never asked me for help?" I continue.

"I've been scared to bother you," he says. I shoot him an incredulous look.

"Why would you be bothering me?" I ask. "I told you to come ask me for help whenever you had questions."

"I know, but you're a teacher," he replies, as if that explains it.

"Exactly, I'm a teacher, not the Pope, or something," I say. "I'm a person, just like you."

" I know," he says, "but here in Africa, it's different– you don't disturb a teacher at home."

"Well, yes, that's good, but I'm also your neighbor," I tell him.

"I know, but our system is different."

Indeed it is– teachers follow the model here originally passed down from the French colonial authorities 100 years ago, where the teacher is considered all-wise and all-knowing, and the students are supposed to feel lucky to be in the presence of a 'Master.' It continues today, outside the classroom as well- on most formal letters here, you'll usually find the phrase, "Je suis venu au pres de votre haute personalite, pour vous demander." 'I've come to the side of your high presence to ask you..." As a result, teachers are treated with much more respect than we're accustomed to back home, and there's a level of fear, it seems, which makes progress difficult.

Eventually Hanam runs out of justifications for not having taken advantage of the opportunity, and we get to work. We review personal pronoun complements for almost an hour; just like with Liva, I have to pry the answers out of Hanam- he's used to simply memorizing and regurgitating, and being asked to think independently is a major challenge. We're moving along, but slowly. Suddenly, "Hanam! Baya!" (Come Here!), rings out- dinner's ready, boule (like every other night), and a sauce that, all joking aside, smells like old, sweaty socks. There's a saying I heard not too long ago- "Go to West Africa for the food and the music. Go to East Africa for the people and the animals. Go to Central Africa for war, corruption, poverty, and beer." Clearly, don't come to Chad for the food. Whether it's good or not, Hanam runs off- when everyone shares the same meal (and plate), showing up late means that you forfeit your chance to eat.

Just before the dinner yell goes out, I hear footsteps approaching my hangar, and with a quick handclap and a "Bonsoir", Amos, who's in Terminale (12th grade) walks in. He's carrying a piece of paper in his hand, and as he approaches, I can see it's an English text.

"I need some help with this," he says. Yet again, I resist the urge to ask what's prevented him from coming to me all semester. I have a feeling I'd get the same excuses as I did from Hanam anyway.

"I don't know how to translate this," he says.

I look at the sentence he's pointing out- "I had had a dream." I translate it in my head, "J'avais eu un reve," and ask, "What do you think?" This question doesn't exist in the Chadian educational system, and I can see Amos struggling .

"I have," he says nervously.

"But what's that in the past?" I ask him.

"I.... had," he answers.

"And?" I prod.

"I.... had.... had," he eventually gets out. "But the last word, I don't know."

I decide to try and encourage some critical thought.

"When you're sleeping, what do you do?" I ask.

"Snore?" He says. I stifle a laugh. "OK, but what else? Do you think?"

"Reflect?" He asks.

"No, but close," I tell him.

Several seconds pass.... "Dream?" He finally ventures.

"Yes!" I say, snapping my fingers. "See, that wasn't so hard." At the moment, the call for fresh boule rings out, and with a quick, "merci beaucoup," Amos disappears, along with Hanam. I sit for a few minutes after they leave, pondering- how much more advanced would Chadian students be in English (and every subject, for that matter) if they weren't taught from CP1 (equivalent to Kindergarten) that original thought is not something that belongs in the classroom. You would think that their teachers would realize this, but then, they're products of the same system. I can try to encourage critical thinking in my own classes, but if I'm the only who does it, how much of a difference can it possibly make?

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