Bilingualism Week

This week was Bilingualism Week, which culminated in a large celebration at the lycee this afternoon. It was a really fun celebration. The English club prepared a bunch of skits, mostly about people getting confused, losing their jobs etc. because they didn’t understand English well enough. For example a secretary got “sacked” for not being bilingual, and ended up bringing a “sac” (bag) in to her boss because she didn’t understand what was happening. So, they were pretty cute. There was also this one student who did these spot on imitations of the principal and the vice principal… they were seriously so good… and then he did me! The principal took it in good stride but apparently the vice principal was a little bit deranged by the whole thing. I thought it was pretty funny to hear him imitating my French voice. I didn’t take it too critically since everybody told me I had spoken well after I delivered the opening speech in French. (The principal delivered the same speech in English – bilingualism). I helped the girls’ club prepare “Still I Rise,” which they read aloud. There were also songs, quiz questions, English news, etc. The ceremony ended a little bit early since the power went out and it was difficult to hear without the microphone, but we had pretty much gotten through everything.

Inexplicably, they sent all the English teachers to a training session in another town the day before this program. Finding out about this at the last minute complicated planning the celebration which was primarily organized by the English department. And I was further frustrated when I discovered how disorganized the whole training session actually was. Let’s just say that at about 3 hours after we should have had a break for lunch and hadn’t, I found myself making tally marks for every time this one teacher used the word “bamboozled,” as in “Don’t do this, it will bamboozle your students,” in completely casual conversation. This was the high point of the day.

Next week is Youth Week which I think will have activities all week culminating in a large parade through town on Friday. I think this will be a much bigger deal!