First day of class

I did not teach today. The only English I spoke were the random words the kids wanted translated from French after they found out I was an English teacher.

Here, where classrooms only have two walls and a roof, where buildings are surrounded by forest, manioc fields and grasses taller than me, where the line between school yard and bush is a little fuzzy, the first day of school is spent tearing out the grasses and plants that reclaimed the land over the summer break.

Instead of notebooks and pens, the students came to school today with reed brooms and hoes with knotty wooden handles. For seven hours, not including the three-hour lunch break, the students ripped weeds from the ground, swept the plants into a pile and then carried the debris to the edge of the forest behind the school. This was not without many reprimands from the teachers and the headmaster for trying to sneak breaks in the shade of the school building.

This was my 18^th first day of school. It was my first first day of school that involved machetes.