Et Le Navire Va: Intermediate High

Saturday, October 20, 2012 – Intermediate High

Well after the slight melodrama and self-pity of my last post, I thought that I should post another to lighten the mood. Yesterday we got our language levels back; I didn’t even want to look at mine. When I finally did, I ended up getting Intermediate High! Looking back I did talk for quite a while about education in Cameroon, so maybe that put me over. All I know is that I feel great.

It doesn’t mean that my French ability great or even to where I want it to be when I go to post. What it does mean is that at least I will definitely be able to go to a French-speaking area and that I won’t have to take anymore language tests. If anything it means that I will be working harder on learning the language. One of our PCV trainers was talking about how when she first got to post she sat down and had a meeting with the principal of her local school, all in French. I think I could probably do that now, but I would feel like an idiot the whole time. I want to get to a point within the next month before leaving to post where I can have a meeting like that at least semi-comfortably.

In language class we had independent study time yesterday, so I cracked open Rosetta Stone for the first time in a couple of months. I forgot how useful it was; I think I am going to start trying to at least a lesson or two a day on it. I figure, between using that, my regular language classes, and talking to my host-family, I should keep progressing fairly quickly.

We went on another school observation earlier this week, this time to observe afterschool clubs. Instead of an English-speaking primary school, I went to a French-speaking high school, which was quite a bit different. I was able to observe three different clubs – UNESCO Club, Art and Culture Club, and Gender and Culture Club.

The first thing I noticed was how much more formal the clubs were; protocol seemed to be all-important. Each club strictly followed the agenda before them in a very formulaic way, with members raising their hand, waiting to be called on, and then standing up when they have something to say. Clubs are only in their first couple of weeks, so we went when they were having elections, which were also very procedural. Each club has at least 5 posts, such as President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, and Censor (to make sure the club doesn’t offend anyone), with possibly more than that.

The UNESCO Club didn’t even have a teacher in the room, yet everything was running like a well-oiled machine. It’s amazing how much discipline these kids have, and how many were interested in being in clubs. Each one had a minimum of 16 people, with the Art club having more than 50. However, I suppose since there are 1,800 people in the school and about half a dozen clubs, that may still not be that many.

The two PCV trainers we had for YD just left yesterday and we will be getting three new ones next week. I’m kind of bummed; we all really liked the two we had, but I’m also excited to get the perspective of other people. My group is only the second round of trainees for YD, so it’s a really new program. I’m interested to hear about the problems that these trainers have encountered with youth development in Cameroon and the difficulties of helping to create a new program. It sounds like a few of them had a lot of influence on our training too, which I think is quite a bit better than what they had. I think I am going to apply to help design training next year, I love the idea of having an opportunity to help design the YD program in Cameroon.

Well, I think I am supposed to be in language class right now, so I should probably take off. Luckily, on Saturdays we only have training in the morning, so it should be a pretty light day. My host-parents are both out of town for a funeral, I’m interested to see the different dynamic of the house with only my host-grandmother and the two kids there.