Adventures in Literacy

In June I hit the road to close all the literacy classes until January. Sometimes the roads I hit are interesting like this one. By the way, this wasn't the worst one by any means. It looks terrible, but at least there's a "bridge". More fun are those places with no bridge. The same day that I crossed here, I also crossed at a place where they are building a bridge, but since it's not finished you have to drive around the bridge through the muck. We haven't had much rain yet, so the roads are still in good shape.






As the two literacy supervisors and I arrive in the villages, the class participants start to gather. We make some speeches about education and thanking the teacher, the students, the village chief etc. Then we hand back their exams along with certificates and prizes. Everyone who took the exam (even if they only scored 1%) received a cassette with 4 lessons from the Bible in Wolof. Those who were first or second in the class received bigger prizes like a bowl or machete or watch. Then we have more speeches as the class members thank us for bringing the class to their village etc.

Living in Africa though is sometime like being in a musical. You just never know when people might break out singing and dancing! In one village an older lady got up and started singing a song praising their teacher etc and the whole class chimed in echoing her words. The clapping and drumming on the yellow jerrycan quickly followed as various class members jumped up to dance.

You just never know what might set off a round of singing and dancing! You'll be happy to know that although I was invited to participate, I refrained ; )