Lundi 27.11.06 en retard
It’s back to real work again this week. The bus seems to be acting up. The 6,20 hasn’t come by 6,40 and I start to get a bit panicky; every minute counts in this early morning rush. I decide to stick my thumb out at respectable looking souls but even at that they don’t slow down. I’m considering calling in sick or calling Charles or Arlette when a white pick-up truck pulls up. A man and a woman are in the front and they ask me where I’m going. Fort-de-France? Right answer. I hop in the back of the cab and settle in for our 50 minute, 5km drive.
The couple are friendly and reasonably chatty. The woman has a thick Créole accent which I find hard to decipher but the man takes his time and looks in the review mirror as he talks to me. The traffic is so slow that I have enough time to give them a geographically lesson on Ireland. The lady works in town while the man works in a Lycée Professionnel in François, about 30km away.
I only get the bus to Chateaubouef at 7,45 and so I’m late for school. Of course it’s the one day that Madame la Directrice, Madame Do, is standing outside. I flash a smile as I move in for the kissy-kissy greeting. She exchanges my gay greeting by tapping her watch and muttering something about 10 minutes. My single word answer silences her. Embouteillages. Traffic-jams. I wouldn’t mind but Mr Duval’s class are still lined-up outside and some student stragglers are following me into this Bovine Castle, plus I’m at least 20 minutes if not half an hour early every other day.
Madame Caruge’s class are waiting for me. I apologise for my tardiness but they seem unconcerned; they’re just happy that I’m there. They really are a nice bunch; attentive, inquisitive and bearably competitive. Some of the other classes would tear their team-mates apart if they didn’t get an answer right or were too slow off the mark. Mr Duval’s class always have P.E first thing on a Monday morning which must suck as come rain, hail or shine they’re out in it training for the semi-marathon. It’s also sucks the life out of most of them. If it’s raining they’re tired and if it’s hot they’re just lethargic. This weariness means that there’s hardly a peep out of them but that isn’t any use when I want them to repeat what I teach.
To get them moving I start off with parts of the body…head, face, eyes, ears, mouth, nose, neck, shoulders, arms, hands, fingers, thumbs, legs, knees, feet, toes… It’s a hands-on activity and there’s lots of action on my part; my hair becomes tousled: my skirt is hitched up to reveal my knobbly knees: I toss off a shoe to grab my toes to the astonished ohhs and ahhs of the class. And once they’re feed up to the teeth with pointing, touching, nodding, opening, closing, smelling, hearing, looking, talking, chewing, knelling, wiggling, shaking, bending and kicking around the room I use flash cards for a listen and touch game and another variation where I remove a flashcard and make them tell me which one is missing. After that I get them going with Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes. I already did this with the younger classes as part of my Irish dancing workout but not surprisingly some of these older students already know it too. The girls then come up to the front and perform in as girly as manner as possible, while the boys follow taking on manly movements. Since toes is the last word of the song I pickup on that and ask what we purposes our feet have. Predictably someone mentions football. Gud oul fitba; international by name and by nature. From here I can pickup on nationalities and professions; David Beckham, Victoria Beckham, Beyoncé, Fifty Cent, Thierry Henri, Aimée Cesaire and his best friend, yours truly, as well as our foreign friends from last week are thrown into the mix:
This is David Beckham. This is Beyoncé.
His name is David. Her name is Beyoncé.
He comes from England. She comes from America.
He is English. She is American.
He is a footballer. She is a singer.
I try to demonstrate the difference between his/her and he/she with furtive pointing and patting of heads. Some things just have to be written but that will follow.
I add my own spiel:
I’m Ruth.
My name is Ruth.
I come from Ireland.
I am Irish.
I am a teacher.
Likewise they’re instructed:
We come from Martinique.
We are Martiniquan. We are French.
We are students.
I am from Martinique.
I am Martiniquan. I am French.
I am a student.
Aimée Cesaire clears up the Martiniquan/French identity crisis and so we stick with Martiniquan as the children’s chosen nationality. I show them a photocopy of my passport with IRELAND and IRISH highlighted though they’re more interested in my name and previous hairstyle.
To end the class I produce cut outs of different professions and play figures; nurse, builder, farmer, policeman, Indian, Queen. One kid is so shocked at knowing the word Queen before I’ve even said it! I distribute them among the younger classes and as I point to my own blutacked images and call out the word they hold up the corresponding image. Some of the pupils are very good at correcting oneanother – even if they do shoot each other down a bit too much. Madame Thaly’s class are blazing today while Madame Acina’s (which now seems to be taken over by the trainee teacher, Alwin) are more chatty and more concerned about sticking the figures to their heads than being correct. For some reason I left Madame Acina’s class 15 minutes early and so I spent an hour with Madame Thaly’s class – much to her relief I dare say as the poor woman looked a bit harassed today. I wind up each class by asking the children to think of what profession they would like to have in the future – the future being next week! Quand je serai grand, je serai ________. When I’m older I want to be a _________.
I get the bus into town with Monique, a CP1 teacher with children aged 7-8. She’s down-to-earth and flashes me a big smile as she gets off at her stop.
Back home the clouds are acting up. There’s a strange cloud formation on the horizon. It looks like a solid pillar of cloud in the middle of the bay. If it’s a tidal wave we’re screwed. Better to be screwed in bed, than swept away on the terrace, says I and so I hop off to the leaba for forty winks. I blame that Welsh dude for my vulgar language of late. Not Gethin but Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting and my current read, the aptly named, Filth. There are no waves crashing down on me but tiredness washes over and I’m halfway there until I hear some rustling outside. It’s Charles dropping off some post - another letter from Crèdit Mutuel. They want me to call into the bank regarding some business with my account. I can’t help but think that some yobo in there just got hold of my address and wants to lure me in for a quick rendez-roo. It’s Martinique after all; there are bound to be more dodgy withdrawals and Western Union advances here than in the Cayman Islands. I put away the letter and decide to sleep on it.
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