Hold tough

In my second year at my school, the most controversial thing I’ve proposed since starting continues to be my girls club. What other teacher and students say, though, doesn’t stop me. What I fear is that it will stop the girls.

I’ve started to dread 4 p.m. on Wednesdays, an hour after we start our meetings. All of the 5eme students show up around that time for their PE class, the teacher of which tends to be especially not understanding about the point of a girls club. During weeks when we’re having discussions, it means that I have to chase some students away from eavesdropping. During weeks when the girls play soccer, it means fielding constant demands from boys to let them play, a gathering of hecklers on the sidelines and the occasional degrading comment from the professor himself.

This week, the girls were in the second half of their scrimmage when the PE teacher called for the 5eme students to assemble under the cashew trees. He told them to line up and start running the perimeter of the field where the girls were playing. The game was soon interrupted by 86 5eme students walking two-by-two through the middle of the game to the other side of the field.

I was pissed at this interruption, but didn’t feel like starting an argument. All the girls got out of the way, except one.

Esther, who was goaltending on the far side planting herself in the middle of the goal and forced the two lines to fork around all four feet of her.

When another student caught me laughing at the situation, I’m pretty sure he thought I was laughing at the absurdness of Esther’s actions. I wasn’t.

I was laughing with joy to watch her stand her ground.

I have this student, part 3

I do not remember the last time Sabine spoke in class. She’s one of the youngest and smallest in my 5eme class and tends to stick with the people she knows. I accidentally make her cry once last year when a rearrangement of her 6eme class put her in the back where she couldn’t see the board and I couldn’t see her. 

But, on the soccer field, she comes alive.

Wherever the ball is, she isn’t far off.  When there’s a skirmish, she’s in the middle of it. She’s responsible for two of the four goals that have ever been scored during our scrimmages.

Turns out, to get her to talk, all you have to do is put a soccer ball at her feet. 

In which the reliably unreliable nature of this culture helps me out again

Last week, I decided I wanted to start my girls club for this year. I followed all the appropriate channels: found a time every class was free, asked the director if it was ok and wrote a formal letter declaring my intentions to start the club today at 3 p.m.

Then, last Monday at the flag ceremony the vice principal had something to say. The school grounds were not proper, yet. Every student was expected to be at school that Wednesday at 3 p.m. with a hoe and a machete to weed, chop and sweep the grounds into shape.

This was not the first time I’d been in a situation such as this. The hardest part of starting a club is actually starting the club, establishing a specific time on a specific day as your club. I had already pushed back starting the girls club this year two weeks because a class was having a make-up class during the time. I did not want to push the start date back once more.

So, I showed up at school anyway this afternoon. And at 3 p.m., I rounded up the girls that I saw, and I had my club. And we talked about what we wanted to do this year, when we would elect a president and we colored until 4:15 p.m.

The vice principal never showed.