getting ma hair did and other events of the weeekend

I feel like a lot has happened since I last wrote but I guess ive been kind of busy. Tomorrow though is a muslim holiday so theres no school. That means that there was no school today…and there will be no school on Wednesday…and the sisters doubt that people will go to school on Thursday and Friday. So another week of school quasi in-session.

Thursday is one of the days where I do English class at the literacy center for the people learning how to use computers. Usually it’s in a normal classroom but on Thursday we were in a room where everyone was on a computer. We were comparing Word in French to Word in English and I was thinking we would just go through it real quick and they could make a list of vocab words. I completely took for granted knowing how to use a computer. Sr Marguerite is in charge of the literacy center and was explaining to the students what we were going to be doing. She had to explain how to open Word, make a new document, how to name it, how to minimize a window, how to close a window…all that. Then I wanted to go through and look at the words in French and English but I realized that if they typed the list, it would take about 8 hours because they’re just learning how to type. They didn’t know how to make a question mark or anything. Afterwards I realized that that was really clueless to think they would be able to do all that, but the age range is like 18-45 years old so I just figured everyone knew how to use Word.

The same thing happens at the boarding school with the VCR and DVD player. Sr Vicky starts the movie and then leaves. At the end when its finished none of the girls know how to stop it or turn the machine off. I feel really tech savvy as I rewind VHS tapes.

On Friday sr Vicky unleashed her idea that someone should braid my hair and add ‘mesh’ ie fake hair ie I should have a weave. No joke. I was like ‘ohh I don’t know about that. I think everyone would laugh’ but she says ‘no the opposite. They’ll like it because youre doing something that they do.’ Still the idea of buying hair at the market and then having someone tug at my scalp for hours was a little much. The next day though when she brought it up again and I was like ok whatever who cares about braiding it, but I draw the line there. So Saturday afternoon one of the girls braided my hair. She kind of like divided it into squares and then braided those pieces so there were a bunch of little braids. I looked like an idiot but she girls seemed to like it or think it was funny or both. Later I put the braided pieces into a bun and sr Yvette told me it looked like wedding hair. She then suggested a rather elaborate prank which involved finding a wedding gown, a ‘young monsieur’, and then taking pictures to send to my mom telling her I got married. That was more effort than I was willing to make for a prank but I loved that she suggested it.

On Sunday sr Vicky and I went with one of the priests to another village. It was tiny, but closer to Duekoue than the other one. After mass they wanted to give ‘the foreigners’ lunch so we ate…but only with the men of the village. The women brought the food to the men and literally genuflected as they put the food on the ground. Hell no. I hate to be judgy since it’s not my culture and I don’t really understand it but come on. At the end they gave us pineapples and a live chicken. Generous and the chicken was a quiet and agreeable passenger in the car on the way home.

On a somewhat related note, the other day some of the girls were asking me about my family and telling me they wanted to marry my brothers, and inviting me to their village where I would marry one of their brothers…the usual. So I was asking them how many siblings they have and of course they all have at least 5 but Djenebou won the prize for having 15 siblings. Then she explained that her dad has 4 wives. She said it in such an offhand way and the other girls seemed to think nothing of it so I made some generic comment like ‘its fun to have siblings’.

Well that’s all for now! Since theres no school today or tomorrow or maybe all week sr Vicky told me it’s a good time to do some extra English with the girls. Some of them like English and others really try to avoid it at all costs. Sr Vicky says the problem is ‘theyre lazy’ which always makes me laugh since the girls get up at 530 every morning, make all their own meals and do a lot of cleaning. If she thinks thats lazy I would hate to have her see me every Saturday during college where I slept until noon, never made my own food and cleaned rarely. But I keep that information to myself. So now its time to go find some lazy girls to study English. Thanks for reading!