Literacy Training

I have spent the last three days in a village, teaching 6 men how to teach others to read Fulfulde.  As a teenager I have helped children learn how to read, I still remember my grade 1 buddy when I was in grade 9 and the year we spent together poring over books in the hallway as she struggled to sound out words and her excitement as the words and letters began to make sense.  Since then, literacy work has been a dream of mine - a dream that I thought would need to wait until I retired and I could be a "grandma" helping children in a school learn to read.  It still amazes me how in choosing to follow God around the world to do His work . . . He brings my passions and dreams to the table and I can do both in my obedience to Him.

These six men can all read a bit and it is a joy to see their passion that others of their village and neighbours will learn to read as well.  And it was a fun week watching them learn and tease each other!

I am learning on the fly how to teach to oral learners and changing my lesson plans as I go.  Despite the fact that these men can read, I discovered by the second day that their default learning style is still oral-based and not literate-based,   While I realized this before hand, the degree to which this impacted my teaching plans was beyond my comprehension - I had thought that because they would read, they would still study the manual.  Though practice sessions were planned for these two weeks - times where the students practiced what I taught - by the middle of the second day, these were increased and teaching times between each practice round was shortened.  So they were able to practice small segements of a lesson immediately following my teaching of it, rather than preparing  overnight a whole lesson plan to teach the following day.







                                                                                                                                                                









I also finally printed two books in Fulfulde that I have been working on for the last year - an alphabet book in Fulfulde and a reader with stories that I wrote while in language study - and a few Fulani fables that have been told to me. 

The stories are about village life and range from: Ali visiting his grandparents and seeing monkeys by the river and Aissa learning how to make straw mats - to health stories where Ruwa buys a mosquito net and Gaani learns from a doctor how to use the soap she makes to fight germs and stay healthy.

My favourite story is the first shown in the picture to the right - it reminds me of the "See Spot Run" books I read as a child:  "See Spot Run!  See Spot run fast!  Run Spot run!"  But of course, this is Fulani style: "Aissa sees her dad milk cows.  First he ties the calf.  He milks this cow.  He milks that cow.  He milks cow by cow, until all cows are milked."

It was very exciting to print the books and see something I've done "come to life" . . . these books will be taught next week, but this week I spent an evening doing my school homework while one of the men sat across the millet stalk table reading this little story book - each of us studying by flashlight!

Aside from the teaching times, I had fun living in the village as well, and taking part in some of life there.  Here are some of my experiences:

• pounding millet
• sifting flour
• catching baby goats and sheep in the field each morning (The little ones don't spend the day in the field grazing, but as my cousin pegged me - I volunteered to catch them so I could snuggle them as I carried them in.  The baby sheep and goats are so cute!)
• a little guy named Fala snuggling on my lap and listening to me read stories from the books
• teaching Aissa in the mornings some of the vowels - she wants to learn to read too!

This week, I also had a cold - as do many out there - but, I am sure that I became the entertainment or a cultural lesson because of this.  We often say that our being in the village is their "National Geographic" experience.  Well, this week, I provided a good one.  The Fulani do the "farmer's blow" to blow their nose, but I figure I will just end up getting myself dirty, not being experienced in this art.  So, I used kleenex as usual and stuffed it all in a bag, all the while wondering what they thought of this.

One evening when I got back to the village from the "school" - about 15 of the village kids gathered in a semi-circle around my chair and watched their evening tv show:  "White Lady Blowing her Nose in a Kleenex"!!  Once I was done, I tried to chat with the kids and a few less shy children answered my questions about school and the babies they were holding and then they all drifted back home. 

The next day, one of the men in class wandered over, looked at my stash of travel kleenex packs    (thankfully, I was able to find some for sale in the village marketplace) and asked if he could have one, stating: "I too have a cold"!  As he had been doing the "farmer's blow" outside the classroom for the last two days, I figure that he wanted the cultural experience.  I wonder what he thought!

Oh - and I discovered that the last thing one wants to hear while waiting for supper is the sound of a child throwing up in the "kitchen" and the mother yelling "Don't let him throw up in the sauce!!"
 
Yup, for the first time, I found myself wishing that I did not speak/understand the language!