English class

Written Friday, 28 September 2007

 

 

I taught my first English class yesterday.   Like just about everything here, it didn't go quite as planned.  When I got back from Thies and decided I was ready to start the class, I talked to my counterpart and he picked the date and time for the first class – yesterday at 3 pm.  So after that I went around and told everyone who had told me they wanted to learn English that the first class would be on the 27^th at 3 pm.

 

But yesterday morning my counterpart showed up and said 3 pm is no good, he'll be too tired from fasting all day and some of the men go out to work in the fields around then.   So we should do it at 10 am (it was 9:30 when we were having this conversation).  I was a little annoyed with him – after all, he had picked the original time and he had had two weeks to change his mind about it.   I suspect that he wanted to change the time so that the women wouldn't be able to come to the class – in the morning they are all busy doing chores.

 

But in the end I decided it wasn't worth arguing about, so I taught the class at 10:00, just to my counterpart and one other guy who lives in his compound, since it was too short notice to round everyone else up.  But I am still hoping to teach some of the women (in a separate class now), and hopefully more men will be able to come for the next men's class.