I'm beginning to think I'm getting redundant when I talk about my students but this week has been very frustrating. I observed a couple of classes and I have to say, these students probably cannot even compete with Lagos state public school students. They'll fail. Whoppinly so. I know that's not a real word but I need to emphasise how badly they’re doing.

And the biggest problem, they don't UNDERSTAND the value of their education. Their circumstances are not the best, the teachers aren't the most qualified (I mean I had a teacher asking if I can “taught her class next week”) but I'm beginning to see that some teachers are really trying to the best of their ability but these students are block heads. This being the "promotional" term, they're all supposed to miraculously pass because their government funded education doesn't pay for more than 6 years in secondary school. So basically, these students will most likely be "assisted" during the exam and they'll move to the next class feeling good about themselves when they don't know jack. Afterall, all they need is 40% to pass. If they do fail, they’ll still be promoted through a system called “mass promotion.” Honestly, I don’t even understand the term but the logic is that if most of these students are asked to repeat a class, they usually transfer to a different school where they’ll be promoted anyway so why not just promote them and keep them close to home? That makes perfect sense, huh. I gave my government students a surprise test and of course, they basically all failed even though it was based on content that we just covered. Apparently, I didn’t give them “enough” time to prepare. I’m officially done with their test (which is 30%) and I have students with 1%. How is that even possible? Anyway, everything is left to their exam now which I just finished writing this evening. Looks like their 40% promotional grade is going to be more challenging for them to achieve but hey, who needs to study when you’ll most likely still be promoted?

Add that to the fact that they don't respect authority. They walk out when it suits them, they talk whenever they want, and they cheat in front of me as if it is normal. Basically, anything goes for them. I was so upset with both my JS1 and SS1 classes this week and I gave them a “speech.” The JS1 students now seem better behaved (granted I also had to beat some students) but the SS1, those ones are just hard headed or maybe I should say hardened.

Anyway, so I pride myself in knowing all my students and learning most of their names. Earlier this week, I saw a girl in my social studies class for the first time. She had only been to school one other time this term because she was helping her mother sell her goods. I don't know what she sells but exams start in 2 weeks and she's supposed to do it. She barely has notes, speaks very little English and unfortunately for her, she doesn’t have a desk so she’s always kneeling to write her notes. I’m going to talk to the school administration about her situation but I can already see them not being bothered. After all, I had a couple of students absent for weeks and I was told that they would turn up. There was no need to worry. These villagers really do not understand why their education is important so it is easy for them to take their children when they need them and the children themselves don’t understand so it’s not like they can explain to their parents.

Enough ranting, we had a “surprise” visit by our former LGI and new LGI. It’s a good thing that most of us were around the village at the time because we had to write our names with the new LGI. The new LGI is actually from the same town that I am from, Epe, Lagos. Small small world. He said we’re family but you know Nigerians. He’s a Seriki which my great-grandmother was but that is a very distant relationship. The next day, we had our community development and he spoke to us for about 2 hours, some of which was answering our questions. He encouraged us to basically look for a “side hustle” because NYSC isn’t cutting it for most people. If it’s not for the money, then at least do something else for the experience.

Another random side note, I had a full meal for N230 (approx $1.50). Yes, jollof rice, fried rice, plantains, the whole works. And it was good too. Who knew food could be so cheap? I honestly don't know anywhere in Lagos that'll be so cheap but I’m sure there are places.

I had a video to upload with this post but it isn't working. I'm going to try it again in a separate post. 

Thanks for reading :-)

Hello again. I came back home last week and I have been in Lagos all week. My school had their half term break and Batch B corpers graduated on Thursday. Congratulations to all of them. I did bring back my continuous assessment test to grade while I was home but unfortunately, no one could find my JS1 Social Studies test. I really wonder what happened there. Anyway, I brought my SS1 Government test home and the nonsense that some of them wrote is really quite amazing. I honestly do not understand if some of them were attempting to write English or mid sentence, they switched to Yoruba and were just writing Engruba or Yorulish. Anyway, I was confused and I just had to put photographs up. Even though I have about 40 students in this class, there are like 6 different versions of what to expect. They all copied each other and they copied each other so dumbly that when a lot of them were writing the characteristics of socialism, most wrote, “Labour is not.” Anyone reading that will know that’s not a complete sentence but hey, I guess when you’re too busy copying other students, there is no time to read. My highest score was 9.5/15 and of course, the lowest was 0. Combined with their quiz, I have students that actually have 1/20. I know they can redeem themselves during the exam since it’s 70% of their grade but what is the likelihood of that happening? I think I have to change my teaching style to make the class a lot more fun so that hopefully, they can retain more information that way.

So the last time I was home, I bought sweets for my JS1 students and nothing for the SS1 because I thought they were old enough not to be bothered with sweets. Wrong! My friend, Toyosi told me that they will probably still be happy to receive them and she was right. I distributed the sweets in JS1 first and they were very well behaved. I moved to SS1 and they became a bunch of 5 year olds. I even had a couple of students from another class claiming to be my students so that they can get sweets. I honestly didn’t think it was that serious. I did buy biscuits for my top scorers in the test, hopefully, that will give the other students an incentive to work harder next time.

So this is a shorter post but I thought I should send out a warning. Do not watch Battleship, unless of course you want to waste your time and money. I saw it over the weekend with a friend and we both thought the movie was absolute crap. It builds up, and then builds up a little more to nothing. The preview actually makes the movie look good but trust me when I say that it was nonsense.

On the plus side, my younger brother graduated from secondary school on Friday. His graduation was actually the reason that I came home. Congratulations Rotimi J. The ceremony was really nice and when I looked at the students in his school in comparison to those in Otanile, the differences are really a lot.

Dunni and Rotimi

Rotimi and I at his graduation

Different versions of the test 

Anyway, thanks for reading and have a wonderful day. I got back to Osun today so I should have a new post at the end of the week.

I was in Lagos all of last week and I thought having unlimited internet access will mean I'll update everything but I was so busy.

Lagos was fun, my friend, Toyosi was home for a couple of weeks and we went out for her birthday.

On the downside, there was a plane crash from Abuja to Lagos and all 153 passengers died. I pray their family receive comfort and I also hope that our government does a proper investigation. My friend just told me that she read that the senior managers of Dana airlines have fled the country though. 

So I found a place, it's really small and it's not completely done but I have photographs below. At least I have my bathroom and toilet unlike the conditions I'll have been stuck with in Otanile. The students were very excited I was back which was surprising, they're always talking. I found out that they were having their continuous assessment tests this week and it's 30% of their final grade. I've barely taught my students anything, it's like setting them up to fail. Anyway, I revised with them, hopefully, they'll do well. I did write my test in Lagos, apparently, it was too much for these kids. Anyway, their final exam is 70% of their grade. It's really easy to really pass or really fail.

So I followed Sope to her local government today and I had a pretty interesting conversation with one of her people:

LG man: I cherish your this thing o
Me: You cherish my?
LG man: This your phone. But it looks like it cost.

What kind of conversation is that? Cherish my phone? Honey, wrong choice of words.

Anyway, we decided within our community that we want to start our own community development group and impact our villagers directly. Our LGI termed us as “travellers” that like to take off when it suits us so she teamed us with the CDS group that she is usually present at for basically all their meetings. Granted, it is a 5min drive from our village and it is even more convenient for me because I have to pass this town before I get to our village. But for the other corpers, I understand sitting at the garage and waiting for 6 people (excluding the driver) to fit into a hatch back golf car. Yes, they are usually small. Anyway, we came up with 3 proposals for our LGI. An educational programme working directly with the students. Now this was my idea so of course I’m going to amp it. I thought that we could work on non-academic programmes that will teach our students life lessons and give them a glimpse of life outside their village. Someone else suggested drug abuse and the last suggestion was road safety. Anyway, majority wins the vote and road safety became the topic. If you ask me, road safety? In Otanile? Are you kidding? The entire village is like 800m from one end to another, people hardly drive, most people walk. If there wasn’t an expressway passing through the village, I’m sure one wouldn’t even know it exists. I even joked that we can put a traffic light at the only intersection that this village has (the other intersections do not count) and they took me seriously. Honey, I will be the first person to run that light. There is no way I am stopping if it is red. The place is never EVER busy! They also suggested we fill up the potholes from Otanile to Ilare (another village 5mins away in a different direction from Obokun). Now this sounds great but I am not physically filling in potholes because I said I could not come up with another form of exercise. I will walk in Osogbo, that’s enough for me. If you ask me, I will say that the corpers were looking for the easiest project to do. I really hope none of my fellow corpers read this but hey, this is supposed to be what I think.

Our community development this week was pretty uneventful. The Batch B corpers are graduating next week, lucky ones. But hey, they were once where I am. Also, they’re rotating our LGI (Local Government Inspector) and ALGI (Assistant Local Government Inspector). They’re moving to “they don’t know where” and we’re getting “we don’t know who” as our new inspectors. Apparently, they do rotations pretty often. This LGI was only in Obokun local government for like 6 months. Hopefully, we get someone “mellow.” A Batch B corper wished me luck with that and said he hopes we don’t get an Idi Amin or Adolf Hitler. Thanks mate! I hope not either. But this also meant that we couldn't submit our proposal because there's nothing that our LGI can do about it at this point. We have to wait for the next person.

Anyway, the light situation in Osogbo is getting worse. Plus I just realised that my window is so small so it means that there is hardly any ventilation in my room. And now I think their light fluctuation (the light is never stable) just blew up my fan. This is getting too much. I was told to invest in those "I beta pas my neighbour generator." They're really small, that's why they have that name.I'll have to look into that because Lord knows that this place is hot. Anyway, thanks for reading :)

Toyosi on her birthday :)

My new place, it's not completed yet. I need a bed and a small cupboard so that I'm not living out of my suitcase

Everything is basically on the floor but I bought the "rubber carpet" so I know it's clean.

The kitchen which I share with another tenant. Honestly, this is a space I'll hardly be using. I plan to bring frozen food from Lagos regularly so I'll get a microwave

Shope at her local government

This is what they drink at her local govt, Lolly Kay

The cool rock behind her local govt

That's part of my CDS group during one of our "illicit drug use" rallies. Honestly, I don't know if we taught the villagers anything but it was termed a success. We know that success is subjective.

Here’s my fourth week that should have come up last week. I was in Lagos last week so I was much busier than I expected.

 I have been MIA for a while with my blog and I just uploaded a post that should have gone up a while back. Although I just started teaching, the process is already becoming quite frustrating. It is as if I am barely making progress with the students and the language barrier continues to be a problem. Yoruba is just about the first language of all these students and some of them are not confident communicating in English. I have decided that most words over 2 or 3 syllables are a problem for them. An SS1 student asked what “motive” meant and they have a difficult time pronouncing words like “legitimacy” and “individuals.” I also told my government students that I will be giving them weekly quizzes and I was very disappointed with the scores of the first quiz. My highest score was 4 out of 10. All 10 questions were multiple choice and they’ve learnt everything that I gave them. It’s definitely going to be a lot of work with those students. On the upside, I divided my class into two groups for a debate. One team for socialism and the other team for capitalism. Even though I had the same 5 students talking, I was pretty impressed because those students definitely went out of their comfort zones and explained as best as they could to the class.

I realised that I have never described my school well enough and the photographs might not be as descriptive as I like. As a public village school, there are no toilets for the students or staff. The toilet is the bush behind us which means I can never go when I am in school. Also, I have learnt that this rainy season is not too good for the students. The classes get so wet and there are several leaks from the roof. I saw this first hand when I was teaching JS1 and my poor students had to move their desks to half the space. I do have photographs of that below even though it isn’t very clear. The classrooms have no windows which I found out was broken during a Christian/Muslim conflict some years ago. People, keep your conflicts outside of the schools and have mercy on the students. Damaging their property means that you’re leaving your children in a worse environment to learn. Seeing as the community is poor, they don’t have the money to repair their damages. However, I did find out from a teacher that the government doesn’t even want the community to repair anything because they believe that it’s their responsibility and they’ll handle it. Now, that sounds great on paper but so far, it looks like nothing is happening and the school is going to remain in the same condition. Apparently, Osun state government wants to build 750 new schools so hey, they want to do something. My problem with that is why don’t you focus on revamping the schools that you currently have before building new ones? A school like mine is enough for a village like Otanile, the government should focus on redeveloping such schools.

The wet classroom. Most of these shots are not the best 

My students got distracted when it started raining so they wanted to take photographs

Right outside of the classroom. That's another junior block. The lighting wasn't so great so I couldn't get clear shots and the students kept moving around.

The same students in quieter times

This is random but I have several sets of twins in my classes. In JS1, I only have 2 but in SS1, I actually have 5. I heard that they did research on twins and apparently, Yoruba people somewhere in Osun state have the highest number of twins in the world. And they call all of them Taiwo and Kehinde, they definitely don’t play around with their names. Anyway, I will upload another post soon.

It took me a while to post my third week and now I also have a post about my fourth week.

My students are good kids minus all the noise they love to make. But I'm still disappointed with how little they know in social studies and government. I did a revision with my govt students and  the same 3 people were answering my questions only about 30% of the time. This class has almost 40 students. I also gave them a quiz that had 10 multiple choice questions. My highest scores were 4. I've started punishing the students, I wish I didn't have to but they wouldn't keep quiet. Wall sits are currently a favourite.

My JS1 boys are so cute. All the girls are much bigger, obviously this is the phase where they grow faster. The boys are tiny, there's one that's a little above my waist and that is small cause Lord knows I'm short.

So there's this special woman that works here as a cleaner. Apparently, she was once a student at the school and she was even very smart but one day she just went off and she hasn't been the same. She seems pretty lucid sometimes and you'll have decent conversations with her, other times, she's having one of her phases and she's reading to us in the staff room or staring to the point that it makes you nervous. Oh well, I wish she could get better cause she's actually really nice. A teacher said someone in the village did "voodoo" or what Nigerians will call "juju" for her.

Oh and I got into a little argument with a teacher. I wore a dress and he commented that I look much better. Don't I feel better? Emmmm, no I don't. Anyway, he went on to tell me that female teachers shouldn't wear trousers and apart from that, it made me look loose and wayward. I said maybe in the village but definitely not in a place like Lagos. He told me my location doesn't matter, a typical Yoruba girl shouldn't wear trousers because it's unacceptable in our culture. I wish you would read this but I'll tell you that the only thing constant is change. If Yoruba culture found that unacceptable before, guess what honey? In Lagos, it's 2012 and we don't consider women wayward and loose for wearing trousers. Maybe I should wear my body hugging dresses to school. After all, it's a dress. Also, I hypothetically asked him if a student should emulate a "wayward and loose" teacher in a skirt or the upstanding woman in the trousers. You know what this man said? He responded that any woman that decides to wear trousers already has a little bad character in her but of course, he's not passing judgement on me. He's just telling me the right way to do things. I will tell you this, remain in your small village with your small thinking and of course, your small progress. Ok that sounds childish but I was angry.

But I guess it shows how we sometimes focus on the things that don't matter and ignore the deeper stuff. Because I'm not wearing an A-line knee length skirt with a long sleeved blouse doesn't mean I'm a terrible person. Rather than calling them close minded (even though I know they really are), I'll just say that's their way of life.

Oh and of course, I have to add this. I had a little incident in my government class. I taught SS2 last week because their teacher travelled for a little while. Anyway, I caught a couple of girls sleeping in my class so of course, I had to wake them (a guy accused them of sleeping because they're pregnant which they didn't confirm or deny, not my business). A third girl was kneeling and I thought she was also sleeping so I tried to wake her and this was the beginning of "possessed madness." She fell to the floor so the students rushed her outside and she started crying and telling us she had a confession to make. Now honestly, I didn't know what to make of all this but I knew I wanted a video but another corper stopped me.  Apparently she goes to a cele church and their spirit was "disturbing" her. Anyway, the school administration called her family and they came with their pastor to take her away. I haven't seen her since and I was told she might be out for seven days. Good luck child.

So I have more photographs that go with this post but I have taken forever uploading it and my internet situation isn't the best right now. I will try to upload them tomorrow. Thanks for reading.

A former student's work. 

Her work continued

This is how the female teachers dress and I am expected to follow suit. Sorry darlings, not happening.

So this post is coming right after my 2nd week post but I thought it'll be best to separate both. We have our weekly community development (a time when we're supposed to serve our community or neighboring communities by teaching them stuff about HIV, personal hygiene etc) on Thursdays. There are about 6 or more villages under my local govt that corpers are serving in and they're probably within a 45 min to an hour long drive from one another.

Now our inspector wants all of us to come together every Thursday in one village for our CD. And apparently, she's doing this because many corpers in my local govt travelled over Easter which annoyed her. This is where my rant begins. What sense does it make for corpers who are serving as teachers in such villages to stay behind because of their CD once a week? We're adults and I'm sick and tired of them treating us otherwise. Stop trying to monitor every move we're making and that nonsense of corpers entitled to only a 7 day vacation throughout the year is nonsense cause I'm assuming other govt workers get more time off.

Also, people need to stop telling me that commuting from Osogbo to Otanile is far. Welcome to the real world, honey. 20 mins is not far and people in Lagos do much worse. What about people that live in Ikeja and work in VI? Please! Walking to work is most likely not going to happen if one lives in Lagos and trust me, I did a much longer commute last year when I worked at a bank in Minnesota. I was even told by the principal I'm not allowed to live outside the village and I had to tell him very nicely that wherever I live isn't his business. As long as I show up to school, that's what matters.

I think I'm done ranting for now. I'll keep you posted about the kids.

We went to the Oba's (king) palace in Ibokun for our community development last week

The Oba (king)

An Osogbo supermarket

So I have switched blogs, that's why I uploaded two posts at the same so welcome to my new blog.

Anyway, I officially started teaching last week and it's definitely a miracle. I expected the students to be weeding for another week since they were so lazy about the whole process. We had our first assembly and there were about 200 students. I was surprised at how small the school was but I found out later that there are 600 students and most of them are skipping school until Monday.

I taught JS1 social studies and they were quite well behaved for their ages. They are so small, and I mean, coming from me since I'm 5'3, they really are small.  Unfortunately, they're academically behind and when I tried to revise what they covered last term, most of them didn't remember. Also, I asked them to draw their family tree and explain their relationship with their family members and they didn't understand the aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews or in-laws. Hopefully, they'll get everything soon.

Then I moved to SS1 for government and they were worse. Apparently, the students weren't taught govt in  their 1st term because they had no teacher so they've only taken the subject since 2nd term. Anyway, they could not define govt, the students told me a bicameral legislature has 4, 5 or 6 chambers and they didn't know the difference between socialism and capitalism. I went through their notes before I asked questions and they covered all this last term. There were 15 students in the class (it's supposed to be 40) and they thought it was hilarious not to answer anything.

I did ask the students in both classes what they'll like to be when they grow up and the JS1 students wanted to be bankers, doctors, nurses, one even said a corper...haha. I had to explain that wasn't a permanent job. The SS1 students thought it'll be funny to mess with me and said things like welders, NEPA man (whatever that means because they wouldn't explain but they thought it was really funny), electricians etc. One girl seriously told me she'll like to be a trader and I thought she cannot aspire for more? Cause I know she's probably not thinking of it on a large scale but hey, I might be wrong.

On a more personal note, my friend, Toyosi, reintroduced (yea cause I've met her once before) to her friend, Sope, that's also serving in some village and staying in Osogbo and she's lots of fun so Osogbo isn't looking so bleak. Oh and my mum got me a few dresses so that I don't seem so rebellious as a teacher...lol. Anyway, I'll still be wearing my trousers villagers.

School Assembly

Late students getting punished

The students

So my year of service with the Nigerian govt has officially started and I was posted to Community Grammar School, Otanile. I'll be teaching JS1 Social Studies and SS1 Government. The school is about 20mins outside Osogbo, the capital of Osun state.

My first week of "teaching" was definitely interesting considering that I've taught absolutely nothing. The students have to clean the school by weeding etc before school starts. I wish I had known this  because I could have stayed at home an extra week. Anyway, we (the corpers) had to supervise the students cleaning and they're naughty as hell. I have to carry a cane around and I've been told that hitting them is the only language they understand. I don't plan to use it but talking to them is like talking to rocks. And their English, goodness. In fairness to them, Yoruba is their first language. Another corper told me to dumb down long words. How am I going to dumb down "constitutional" or "sovereignty?" They even need to learn these terms. But after one whole week of doing nothing, I'm going to start teaching tomorrow. Hopefully, it goes well.

I'm staying in Osogbo with my fabulous friend, Toyosi's family and my commute is about 20 mins. I didn't come with a car for the first week because the shock absorber had to be fixed and I've ridden everything from an okada (motorcycle) to a 5 passenger sedan with 7 people in it even to the back of a pick up truck. I'm used to driving myself around in Lagos so this was definitely different.

Anyway, I have the car now and I drove out there today for the first time but again, something had to dampen my day. Supposedly, I ran the light (it was amber) so the police pulled me over. All my documents were good until they asked for my road worthiness. Now what the hell is that? Apparently, only commercial vehicles need to have that in Lagos so of course, I don't have it. Anyway, they wanted to fine me N10k ($62) but of course, with Nigerian police, there's always a way out. I am ashamed to admit that I had to give them N4k ($25) cause they wouldn't accept less.

Also, I learnt that wearing trousers makes me look "wayward." The VP explained the village is so small and all the women are expected to wear skirts and wrappers. Please! No offense but these people need me more than I need them and there's no way I'm changing my wardrobe to fit in with any village values. Anyway, we reached a compromise. I can wear trousers if I wear blouses that cover my butt.

Other news, big brother Africa has started and I believe they're 35 people divided between 2 houses. Looks like it'll be a good season. I'll try to upload my "village lifestyle" pretty often but I'll say my internet isn't the best.

On the way to the village

The Village

School Sign

School library/bookstore

Students cutting Grass

An empty classroom