Nigeria Journal: June 26th

My second full day of teaching started out hot and sticky. I was served a fantastic breakfast of plantains, watermelon, and pineapple—along with my obligatory cup of green tea. The pineapple was so sweet and juicy that I nearly ate half of the entire fruit. I realized that this might be a problem, when I began to feel extremely sick from it. The next hour had me fighting off the urge to faint and throw-up. After drinking my green tea, and knowing that it came from the water here at the school, I began to worry that I was infected by some kind of water-borne illness. Luckily, in a few hours, I felt completely fine and therefore chalked up my sudden disease to eating-too-much-pineapple-at-7-in-the-morning disorder. The children are all preparing for the upcoming graduation, which is in exactly four weeks. So for the first two hours of school, nearly up until lunch time, all of the children were outside playing or preparing for the ceremony. All of the older students—grades 2^nd-5^th—are charged with dancing and playing drums during the occasion. And they were practicing in front of the school this morning. All of them were lined up in three neat rows, dressed in their school uniform blue, moving side-to-side, swaying their hips, and shaking their right leg to the primal rhythm of the drums playing in the back ground. Of course they beckoned me to join, which I did. But not for too long. I’m not one to make a complete fool of myself trying to keep up. I never felt like “the white man” more than when they forced me to bend my knees away from each other in some kind of squat position, and then, as if that wasn’t enough, aske me to shake my butt. I thought it was a joke. But no. it’s not. The children do it all the time. Ugh. Naturally, all of the children got a good laugh out of me dancing, but I think the other teachers enjoyed it even more.

 Dr. Korieh informed me that in the past month, the 4^th grade teacher and English instructor left the school to start a new job working for the Nigerian federal government. So guess who is going to be teaching this class until the end of July?! You guessed it! Me! I’m pretty excited about it, as the students in 4^th grade are really endearing and very intelligent. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to challenge them throughout the month and be there for their graduation. My teaching style here is very different than what they are used to. Most of the time, many of the teacher simply make the children repeat the information that is being told to them. Almost as if they are ramming the information into their memories. The way I teach, however, is much more interactive and at times, maybe more chaotic? I use a lot of props in my class and I’m moving the students throughout the room. Today, I heard two of the teachers talking to each other, observing my method. At first they were incredulous that my idea would work. And then, when it did, they both said, “wow! That was good. Can you do this tomorrow?” I knew I had them won over. I think this is the exact thing that Dr. Korieh wants to have happen by inviting American teachers over. He wants to introduce more creative ways of education to Nigerian teachers, who, for the most part, are not as educated as their American counterparts. Not to say that they are bad at their jobs. In fact, many of them are excellent. It’s just American teachers are usually more in tune with pedagogical style and learning behaviors. 

One of the more unusual things about education here is that students are still regularly “flogged.” Many of the boys were asking me if we “flog” in America. After an initial burst of confusion at the question, I quickly answered, “no we do not flog in the United States.” They subsequently looked at me with sad eyes and said, “Well, I wish that was the case here.’ Sure enough, after this conversation, I saw two boys get really smacked in the arm from a teacher wielding a switch. It got them to pay attention, but it was completely shocking to me.

Each day is shaping up to run the same way: I get up  later than the kids. I play with them and stand with them as they sing their songs. I then eat my breakfast, go into my room, and plan for some lessons. I teach after lunch until 3:30 and then I head to town with Dr. Korieh, where we proceed to get stuck in the most godforsaken traffic you could every imagine. Just today I witnessed a crash. Both of the drivers got out, in the middle of the road, and began arguing with each other about who was to blame. This, of course, attracted an even greater crowd. I asked. Dr. Korieh what happens in the event of an accident. And he just smiled and said, “Nothing. You argue until you fight or one quits.” Wow, oh Nigeria…

This evening I had the pleasure of visiting Imo State University, the local university of the Southeast Igbo region. It is a school of about 40,000 thousand students and sits on the outskirts of downtown Owerri. The campus itself is very run down and shabby. There are huge mounds of trash strewn about the campus and all of the roads and sidewalks look as if two-ton bombs hit every few feet. The buildings are sagging under the weight of years of humid heat and water. All of the concrete is darkened by mold, and the inside of each building is full of lizards, dirt, and crumbling plaster. I have to admit that I was very shocked to see a university in such condition. Even though the school has a pretty good reputation, one would be excused for thinking it was closed and had become the den of homeless vagabonds and prostitutes. We were at Imo State to visit two of Dr. Korieh’s friends, fine arts professors and experts in Igbo folk art and history. We meander around the campus and asked about 50 students where the fine arts department was at. None of them knew. We were totally lost. Finally, we turned a corner and saw Dr. Francis Chukwu smiling at us and beckoning us to turn into the parking lot. We gave our greetings and then immediately went into his office and perused some Igbo art. What is most fascinating about the art made at Imo State University is that it is very traditional in style and technique. Students there learn how to make the holy sculptures of Igbos polytheistic past, and they excel at the art of door carving—a beautiful, time consuming tradition. I saw students working over archaic looms, producing fine cloths and weaves. There were sculptures, masks, and recycled-trash art (in the fame of Jamie!). It was really magnificent. To the Igbo people, god is called Chukwu, and beside him are groups of gods—the god of thunder, of success, of fertility, etc—and many holy animals, like the python, the spider, and the goat. It’s fascinating to learn about this early Igbo culture, because colonialism did such an excellent job of Christianizing the area. Nevertheless, in pockets, one can still see the old, communal mbaris, where Igbo villages would worship their ancestors and tell their own history through a series of sculptures arranged on a prominent mound. I was lucky enough to see two of them, which is rare nowadays, due to the fact that Christians have done an excellent job of burning many of them, claiming they are ‘false gods and idols.” Anyways, there is much more to write on this, and I’ll do so at a later time.

Igbo words learned: Isi – Head, Imi- nose, enyje – eye, ono-mouth