I needed a prop

2011-12-04T13:56:02-05:00

I don’t have memories of lions, tigers or bears. Actually, I do remember the sound of the herd of stampeding elephants as they swept around my “camion”. Someone later explained to me that they were attempting to get to the other side of the road. Elephants do that.

Those memories pale in comparison to my first day as a Peace Corps teacher in my school in Mbuji-Mayi, (translates as "Goat-Water," a name deriving from the great number of goats in the region) Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa. I arrived, late, on my 50 CC mobylette. The four room, tin roofed, cinder blocked schoolhouse was a mob scene. I was a kid, once, myself…first days of school can be hectic. However, 200 freshman students were trying to crowd into a room with 30 desks. Howls broke out as I entered the schoolyard:”Americaine, Americaine”, my arrival had been anticipated.

The principal introduced himself and quickly got down to business, speaking in a combination of French, English and Tshiluba. Understanding every fifth word, I came to realize that my first assignment was to reduce the number of freshmen to a manageable fifty or so students. The local teachers feared for their lives. The American would be safe they had argued. Angry parents or village elders would think twice before killing a foreigner!

After hyperventilating for a time I struggled to find the words for what I needed… a prop. Needless to say, language classes hadn’t been a priority during my three months of Peace Corps training on the shores of a mountain lake, living and partying with 300 young volunteers… in a country renowned for its very good and very cheap beer.

Eventually I walked into the overcrowded freshman classroom to cheers in a cacophony of languages, and climbed up onto the teacher’s desk. I stood up, stretching my five foot, seven inch frame to the max, silently scanning the mob scene, waiting for the din to die down. Then I reached for my prop, raised it high in the air, turned it slowly, and doused myself with a full bucket of cold water.

Well, I soon learned that a lesson combining a compound sentence with pronouns, salutations and adjectives…”Hello, my name is Jack, and Jack, your teacher, is very wet”… is much too ambitious for a single foreign language class.

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I needed a prop