The Strike Ends?

(Photo: Adoum, Abdraman, Malumah, Me, Khadidja Petit, and Khadidja Grande in my room in Moussoro)

I see a man I know from around town in the street. He's a French teacher at the middle school and he used to come to my English class. We go through our usual routine of greetings, and I ask him the usual question, "Any news on the strike?" The usual reply is a half smile and a shake of the head, followed by a short speech about how he hasn't been paid in five months, how this happens every year, how the Chadian government doesn't have its priorities straight and what it means for the future of Chad....But this time he nods his head and says softly, "The salaries have arrived. School will begin tomorrow, or maybe the next day." And I think excitedly, "Here we go."
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I show up at the lycee on what is meant to be the first day of school. I'm not completely sure, seeing as I was told a man would walk through town beating a tom-tom, announcing that school would resume; and I never did hear that tom-tom. But still, I had heard from fairly reliable sources that school was going to begin. Looking around, I am doubtful. There are not other teachers to be seen and only a handful of students (who are looking quite skeptical themselves). The classrooms however are opened so I step into one. The room is trashed, bench desks turned on their sides, papers littering the floor, the chalkboard covered in rambling grafitti. Every room is the same. I step back out into the sand courtyard to wait and see if anybody else shows up; I think disappointedly, "This was meant to be the first day of school."

The proviseur (principal) of Lycee de L'unite calls a meeting for all teachers. He gets to his point rather quickly.... "There are meant to be 29 teachers at the lycee but at the present time there are only 9. This means a couple of changes will need to be made. Most notably classes will need to be condensed. Instead of having three separate sixieme (6th grade) classes, there will be just one. Instead of two separate cinqieme, just one. Instead of.....This way all students will be taught and teachers will still have a normal amount of hours. It will only be like this temporarily.....we will change back when we can find some more teachers."

With the new schedule I have two different grade levels. A sixieme class (roughly 6th grade) with about 95 students, and a cinqieme class (roughly 7th grade) with about 65 students. Each grade will have 3 hours of English a week, so I will be teaching a total of 6 hours a week.
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My sixieme class is big, 95 students are too many for one room. The back four rows of bench-desks (benches that are welded to skinny desktops, and seat a squished four students across) go straight across the room and cut out any hope of an aisle to walk in. Students climb over the desks to get to their seats....for me, they're simply inaccessible. Definite fire hazard.

The first day of school I get the entire class to sing the ABC song. Although they were probably only about 65 strong at the time, that's still a pretty powerful choir. The ABC's resound throughout the land.....the Proviseur later tells me, it sounds like my class is going very well. I smile and think, "We'll see...."

My sixieme class on Saturday is from 7:30 to 8:30 (students have classes scheduled Monday through Saturday). One Saturday I show up at 7:30 to find 5 students waiting. By 7:45 there are about 25, and by 7:55 there are about 45. That's when I do my best to 'shut the doors' (except that the doors don't stay shut unless they're padlocked). As the other half of the class gradually straggles in I try to be firm in telling them, "Sorry, next time please come before the class is half over." For some, this is sufficient. For others, a better answer is to climb in through the windows, to make breaks for empty benches when my back is turned, and to heckle me from the oper door. I bite down, shout the sentence written on the board, ALI IS THE BROTHER OF MOUSSA, while simultaneously grabbing a late student's notebook and flinging it outside into the sand. Students are shouting at me in French.....students are shouting at each other in Arabic.....and in English I think to myself, "How am I ever going to teach this class anything?"
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Class has been under way for about a month. Some students seem to really take to English. Grades on the first test were really high (attributed to a mix of studying and top-notch cheating), and English on the street has really picked up. Everywhere I go I hear kids yelling, "Teacher, how are you?" Quickly followed by, "I am fine" or the popular variation of, "I am five", whether prompted or not. And I think to myself, "Maybe they're learning something...."

School's been under way for about a month and the Proviseur calls a meeting. Everybody knows what's up and he gets right to the point: "The salaries have failed to 'come through' once again, and something must be done." The teachers come to a consensus; they'll wait two weeks and if the money's not there, they're going on strike. I think in frustration, "This country is on the road to nowhere."
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And so goes my first month of teaching English at the high school in Moussoro. Conditions are not good, and students are not wholly receptive....but some students seem to learn something, and that will have to be good enough.

To a certain extent students don't take school seriously, and why should they be expected to when their national government doesn't take it seriously either. Teaching strikes are an annual occurence, and this school year has been no exception. It looks almost inevitable that another strike will set in shortly, meaning that this past school year the students had about 4 months of class in all.

This is just the beginning for me.....there will be more to tell.