9 /23/05

I start teaching at the private girls school at the Catholic mission, by far the most expensive in town, at $15 a year for elementary school, and $50 for middle. It's clear that the girls here come from well-off (or at least better off) families– many wear clean frilly dresses with matching headscarves, and carry new sets of notebooks emblazoned le kangarou, l'oryx, and l'éléphant. These are the daughters of the officials and functionnaires, and it's encouraging to see that there are actually people here committed to girl's education. The biggest difference is that most of the teachers are nuns or professionals, and as the school is private, the strikes that cripple the education system here for one, two, three or more months every year don't happen, leading to an interesting situation with girls better educated in a totally male-dominated society.

It's still Chadian though, and far from perfect. My 'classroom' is a hangar made of seiko and wooden poles, with a single dilapidated chalkboard leaning crookedly in the dirt on two forked poles. The 25 girls in sixieme still gape at me with the same open-mouthed stare most Chadians get when a white face appears as I walk in for the first time. The age range is broad, from a girl that I'm guessing must be close to 16, to a girl who looks no more than 10, and barely comes up to my waist. I struggle through the first few minutes, fighting their shock at seeing a white guy standing in front of them, of the first lesson, "What is your name?" and "Good Morning?"

"What is your name?" I ask the shyest girl I can find, who's trying hard not to be noticed. She buries her head in the table, with only a blue headscarf and a bit of what looks to be a nose protruding from her crossed arms on the tabletop. I raise one eyebrow, glance at the class, and squat down so my head is level with hers.

"What is your name?" I ask again. She retreats even deeper into the table. I wait. Her neighbor nudges her with her elbow.

"Tell him your name!" She hisses.

The first girl looks up at me, and whispers something, her hand almost completely covering her mouth.

"If you talk with your hand over your mouth it's going to be very difficult to und...s..nd," I say, covering my own mouth for the last few words and mumbling. They burst out laughing. The ice is broken. We make it through the next two hours, by the end of which I have them shouting, "Good Morning, Teacher!" and the ABC's in English. As I duck out of the hangar, I prompt them–

"Goodbye class..."

I'm nearly thrown from the room with the cry of "Goodbye, Teacher!"

The night before, Marc and I had been talking, and he told me he was worried whether he'd have money to pay for Tanga and Ka-Idi's school registration. I told him that I'd be happy to loan him the money to cover it. Normally I wouldn't offer that sort of thing, but for the moment, at least, I'm a teacher, and I didn't want to see his daughters held back when they could be educated for $8 apiece at the public school in town.

"The quality of teaching is so bad there though," Marc complained. "Tanga went to school last year, and never even learned the alphabet. Plus, they're always striking."

I nodded my head in agreement, not sure what else to do– loaning him the money wasn't an issue, but teaching methods and strikes are something I can't do anything about. I wasn't sure what to do until it literally came to me like a flash of lightning, as I lay in bed at 2:30 AM with a huge storm howling overhead. The thunder had woken me up and I couldn't get back to sleep, so I laid there pondering the problem. Then, I realized– I was teaching at the best girls' school in town, the school wanted to pay me, which Peace Corps rules forbid me from taking. Maybe I could get the school to enroll Tanga and Ka-Idi free, as compensation for my time.

After heading out of the sixieme class, I find the Directeur.

"Mr. Director, I know you'd wanted to give me money, but Peace Corps won't allow me to get a salary," I say. "There is something you can do for me though."

"Yes?" He says.

"My neighbor has two little girls in CP1 and CP2 (roughly Kindergarten and 1st grade). If I continue to teach, can you enroll them for free in exchange?"

"No problem," he tells me.

I head back home, anxious to tell Marc the good news. When I arrive, he's still at work, and I spend the next hour eagerly awaiting the sound of his voice. Around 12:30, he pulls up on his bike, and I can hear him talking with Valaddi. Ertchey chooses that moment to come by.

"Can you get your dad for me?" I ask.

"Sure," he says, and heads out. A few minutes later I hear a clap at my door.

"Avancez!" I yell, and Marc walks in. We go through the usual routine of small talk and stating the obvious– he admires my new cement walkway, I ask how work is, etc. He knows there must be something up– out of respect I'd almost always go over to his house if I needed to ask or tell him something.

"Well," I begin, "I had a conversation with the Director of the girls' school today."

"Yes," he says, looking suddenly interested.

"He wanted to pay me, but I told him that I didn't need a salary. I told him that my neighbor has two girls though, and asked if he could register them for free instead. He told me that was fine."

Marc beams– "That's wonderful– thank you so much, my brother!" He says, grasping my hand and shaking it senseless.

"I told him I wanted to check with you first, to see if it was OK," I say.

"Of course, of course," says Marc.

It sounds cliché, but watching him practically float out of the hangar, and the smiles on Tanga and Ka-Idi's faces when he tells them are worth more than any salary the Community Girls School of Gounou-Gaya can pay me.

Later in the evening, once the electricity comes on, I dig through my box of school supplies, and find two 100-page notebooks, l'oryx and le lion, two red and blue imitation BIC pens, two pencils, and a few sticks of chalk. I rubber band it all together, and go out to chat with Marc. After we talk for a few minutes, I pull out the supplies.

"I found a few things for the girls," I say. Marc beckons to them– "Tanga, Ka-Idi, baya!" Come here! They race over, and he speaks to them quickly in Moussei, showing them the pens, notebooks, pencils and chalk one-by-one.

"Dites merci," he says. Say 'thank you.'

"Merci," Ka-Idi and Tanga each say to me shyly.

Hophyra, Marc's three-year-old, hears what's going on, and crawls out from under the mosquito net. She ambles over, looking like a potbellied, slightly imbalanced two-and-a-half foot high silhouette in the streetlight. She holds on to Marc's leg, watching her older sisters examining the supplies. She says something to Marc, and I hear the words lekolla (school), and habpa, which I don't know. Tanga and Ka-Idi giggle, and Marc howls with laughter.

"She says she wants to go to bouillie school," he manages to get out, before collapsing laughing again. Bouillie, the peanut-milk porridge is Hophyra's favorite.

"Ecole Habpa," he chuckles. So, habpa= bouillie= porridge.

The next morning I walk outside around 6:15; as I glance over at Marc's house I see Tanga and Ka-Idi standing naked in the hangar, Valaddi busily scrubbing them with water from a pot on the fire. 15 minutes later I walk over to say hello to Marc– as I approach, his door opens, and out step Tanga and Ka-Idi, looking better dressed (and cleaner) than I've ever seen them. Tanga is wearing a sea-green and white frilly dress; Ka-Idi has on a blue dress with a stripe of red flowers running along the side. Tanga also has on the long tie-dye headscarf that I bought for her when I was in N'Djamena in July. I run back to my house and get my camera. When I come back, the girls are standing against the wall of Marc's house– Tanga's clutching a black plastic bag with her stuff, while Ka-Idi carries an old backpack with Tweety Bird and 'USA 32,' which I'm guessing originally was part of the US post office's attempt to market Looney Tunes stamps. I quickly snap a few photos, as Marc and Ertchey come out of the house, each wheeling bicycles.

"Ka-Idi, Tanga, baya!" Marc yells. The girls come running, Tanga getting on the back of her dad's back, Ka-Idi climbing on with Ertchey. As they pedal off, I watch them and smile– it may feel like there's no point in my being here at times, but watching moments like this unfold, I can feel like I'm making a positive difference.

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