Él me lleva la esperanza (al menos un poco)

Me and my most outstanding student.

I do have some hope. Out of hundreds, I have some ambitious students. They are mainly males… I told a student in my ninth grade class that I wanted to speak to his mother. So a couple a weeks ago, after thirty minutes of searching, sweating and asking semi-incompetent students if they knew where his house was, I found him. (Thinking that everyone knew everyone, and everyone was someone’s brother, I was wrong… they didn’t know where he lived/who he was). This student comes from a poor family, the father passed away, the mother struggles to find an income- it is difficult to send her kids to school. (There are five.) In Cameroon you have to pay to go to high school (public high school!), a result of major corruption that starts at top and trickles down. So, I spoke in Fulfulde. I had help from my counter-part… to summarize: “I teach your son at the high school. I am proud to be his teacher. He is an exemplary student, and never ceases to amaze me. I wish him luck in everything.” I was shaking, sweating, and nervous to start; the words did not come out. Really! I believe it is important to recognize excellence, or even good effort.


This kid (he’s 18… here in Africa students are older than your normal school age kids in the states), was top of his class, always had excellent grades, and was very quiet to the point I would wonder if he didn’t get what I was teaching. He’s a needle in the haystack. Phenomenal. During the summer he searches for fire word and sells it to have an income… Poverty is not hard to come by. School fees are about forty dollars... going to university is about $300 a year.  The mother wants me to visit more often now. At the end of the visit, they gave me bananas (too many for one person) I tried to refuse. “Madame, no, they are for you.” Before we trekked off to see the other boys play football I wanted to see my students play) he said, “Madame you remember where my house it now, right?” :-)

Ole. Hasta luego.