Life in Libreville, A Brief Re-Hashing

The school’s director is in Bangkok for a recruitment fair, and he made a last minute decision to stay for an extra few days, because apparently he couldn’t generate much interest from teachers looking for new jobs in exotic locales. The substitute the school had hired to fill in couldn’t stay additional days, and so I had to give up doing E.S.L. for the afternoon, and teach Jr. High Science.

I have to tell you that I am not much of a science guy. In high school, my experiments often did not work, my glass tube would not bend when heated, and I don’t like wearing goggles unless I’m machine gunning from the back of a World War II airplane. I do, however, try to be a team player, so at 1:00, I headed up to the third floor.

“Ok,” I said scanning the notes that had been left for me, while the class sat quietly, with the occasional titter. “Ok…” There were two sets of instructions, both in equally terrible hand-writing, and with conflicting instructions. I saw that the old sub was supposed to have started Unit Seven, but for some reason she had gone AWOL, and started making up her own lesson plans, lingering on Six, and adding a test, from what I could tell. She had crossed out the original lesson plans I was supposed to have started, and switched them with her old ones.

“Everyone turn to page 156,” I said, opening the teacher’s manual. More giggles ensued, and I said, “Funny funny today,” right as I opened up to Unit Seven, and two pictures, side by side: The Male and Female Reproductive organs, in all their terrible glory. I froze. Carefully I turned the page. “The Menstrual Cycle,” in bold letters at the top of the page. I tried not to react, and with my head down, I glanced up, and the class exploded with laughter. I was unprepared for this situation. “Stop,” I snapped, “Everyone quiet down.”

The reason for the old sub’s lesson plan insubordination was abundantly clear. She had been a coward, although a resourceful one. She had doctored the lesson plans so I had no idea what I was walking into. All I had seen on the plans were phrases like, “Class may work on science fair projects,” “Worksheets 51-54,” “Class reads aloud 7.1.” Nothing along the lines of, “You’re the new sex-ed teacher, don’t be too surprised.” Let me also add that the class is comprised of eight, seventh and eighth grade girls, and one seventh grade boy. Not in this lifetime, mon amie. Not in any.

“Ok,” I repeated for the third or fourth time. “Let’s be mature about this. I want you to read 7.1 silently, and then I have some worksheets for you to do.” I paused, and then added, “And if you have any questions, talk to your parents tonight when you get home, or ask Dr. Moras when he gets backs.” More giggles started to bubble up, and I held up one hand.

“But Mr. Strickland,” one of them whined, “That’s almost ten pages.”

“It’s won’t take you that long,” I told her, “Anyway, a lot of it is diagrams and pictures.” I winced as the class, once more, began laughing uncontrollably.

I don’t have much to say about Christmas Break, and the month or so we haven’t updated. We had a fantastic time, and did a lot of new things, and on December 30^th, Angela and I broke the first year of marriage barrier. Also, two days ago I saw (and poked multiple times) an eel trapped in a tidepool, and a dead African Boomslang, which was very cool.

Here are a few pictures from break. Enjoy.

This is a church we went to down in Bongolo. After church, the first people stop and greet whoever is coming out, and once you get greeted, you join the line and greet those behind you. Pretty soon the line becomes a circle (A circle of life, dare I say?), with everyone clapping and greeting people. It was fun to be included in.

Angela and I, nominees for biggest Dorks of 2007.