The School Year has come to an End

The school year has officially ended.  It's awfully bitter/sweet.  The final semester was cut short by a month.  Grades were officially due the 6th of May, therefore by the second week in May, my 7th and 9th graders had stopped coming to school.  I was left with my 10th graders, we were able to finish the curriculum as well as practice questions for the national exam the 27th of May. (Le Brevet)  I spent most of my time at the Library were various members of my village came to read then in the evening, it was filled up with my 10th graders working on the chalk board explaining the questions and answers to each other where I corrected any mistakes.  The week before the test was a stressful one, not only for my students, but also for me, I was so nervous for them!  On the Sunday before the test, my students and I biked over to the next village where the test was to be given.  I stayed with the other volunteer there, while my students mixed in with various cousins and friends.  We all met up at the school we I gave the students their identity cards, none had been officially stamped or signed by our principal, therefore I spent most of the time fixing the cards and information sheets.

Before the test

Opening the question

The next morning, Monday, I arrived at the school at 8:00am, the test was to start at 9:00am where I found my students had arrived and were picking up trash in the school yard.  My students looked so nervous, but I tried to keep their minds off of the test, and took some pictures and gave pep talks.  At 9:00am they started and any teacher not supervising had to leave.  Stacey, the volunteer from that village and I went to the missionaries house were they had asked us if we wanted to do any baking to help them use up various baking goods.  We of course could not refuse, therefore I made chocolate chip cookies and she made brownies.  By the time the goodies had made it out of the oven, we were already to sick from eating the dough and batter!  But delicious!  That night we were suppose to have revision classes with our students but her principal had forgotten to send the keys to us with a student, so we stood there waiting with 40 students until it finally started to rain and we all gave up hope on the idea of being able to do revision.

On Tuesday, I went again to the school, just to make sure my students were ready and didn't need anything.  After, Stacey and I again went to the missionaries but this time it was to learn how to make bread from scratch.  I made an onion, garlic braid and Stacey made a poppy seed pretzel wrap.  Both were delicious and surprisingly not too difficult to make.  That night as well as Wednesday night, we went to the school and did revision classes with our students.  On Thursday, however we both had to leave, to bike to our Close of Service Conference.  Another volunteer met us, and we traveled 18k to my site, then 35 k to the next volunteers’ site, where we spent the night and had a mango eating contest.  I lost in both senses, I ate 4 huge grafted mangos, dry heaved at the end, and still had to bike 35 k up a mountain to make it to Dalaba the city were we were having our conference!

In Dalaba, the weather is known to be cold and pine trees surround the city limits which had been planted by the French back when the country was colonized.  At the conference we talked about our close of service and were given our date of departure, AUGUST 16TH!!!!!!  We also went on excursions, but unfortunately for the first two I had a ridiculous temperature and was bound in bed, bundled under 3 comforters.  The last excursion, I thought I was feeling up to it, but we climbed up and down to a waterfall, and my fever came back.  On the way home to the hotel, I puked out of the window of the SUV more than 5 times with all the poor other volunteers in the car.  I also thought the driver was going to kill me, but he just kept saying, "Have courage!"  The next day, I went to the capital to get tested for my fever and thankfully I didn't have anything antibiotics couldn't fix.

Stacey and Sarah

Juliette

After a few days of relaxing and waiting to feel better I left with Aboubacar to visit my host family.  It was so nice to arrive at their house where all the neighbors knew my name and felt like I was home.  Aboubacar had a volleyball tournament and after, there was a party.  I spent Saturday cooking with my host mom, taking walks with my host brother, and just relaxing.  There are only two more months remaining until I make it back, so these last months will be a lot of spending time with friends I've made here as well as saying goodbyes!