Halloween / Classes
The last three weeks of classes:
First Week: Freshman orientation was Wednesday in which Kate and I got a ride to Banjul to attend. All of the incoming freshman, along with the instructors, could fit inside this medium-size auditorium. We didn't know that the teachers were up in front and so Kate and I sat in way back and couldn't hear anything that was going on. A boring two hours of nothing.
The next morning was the science orientation for the current students. I showed up and met my counterparts and was invited to sit on the head table while they discuss policy changes and courses. Another two hours of nothing. Except now I couldn't try to fall asleep.
Was told that classes started the next week.
Second Week: On Monday there was suppose to be a physics lab. I didn't know if I had to teach it or not so I showed up anyway. two things were told to me then: 1. Your not teaching the lab. 2. The lab doesn't start for a month or so anyways. Went home.
Tuesday went back to the University and was told that classes don't start until Thursday. Went home again.
Wednesday was sick.
Thursday rolled around. On Thursday I have a math course which I teach with another Professor. We hadn't figured out who was going to teach what and when so I showed up anyways. He was there. We talked for an hour of the structure of the class. He would be teaching the first part, of 1st order Differential Equations, while I will teach the second part of 2nd order and higher. This class also meets on Mondays. Because of this schedule we worked out, for a month or so I will have Mondays and Thursdays off. After that I will have only one class each day, while he has them off.
We waited for the students. None showed up. Went home again.
By Friday I figured it was my last chance. I was the teacher for a introductory physics class from 8-9:30 in the morning. I showed up early and waited until eight. No one showed up. Went back to the office, changed to regular clothes, and told people I just went through a whole week of teaching without teaching a single student. At 8:30 I received a phone call from the Dean of the department asking where I was. I told her that I waited and no one showed up: "Ah. The schedule says eight, but you have to wait until 8:15 to teach. Some are coming from long ways away. Can you come back?"
Switched clothes again, walked back to the University, and taught twenty minutes on the structure of the atom. This was suppose to be an hour-and-a-half class, but you really can't talk that much on the structure of the atom for non-science majors, in which the prerequisite for the class is 12th grade math. I called it day after the twenty minutes.
Went back to the office again, changed clothes again. Went to get the mail from Banjul and waited the rest of the day until my next, and last, class of the week at 6:00-7:30. By five I realized that I never talked to the professor for that class before and so therefore he would most likely be there the first day and I would be like a TA; which I told might be a possibility for this class, since it's a huge class (~40 students) for Introductory to Probability and Statistics for non-science majors.
Called it a week and went home instead. By 5:30 it was a huge thunderstorm and was sure glad I didn't have to be there at the University.
WEEK THREE
Monday: Day off.
Tuesday: Had two classes in the day. The first was the Statistics class which last met on Friday and an hour after that was the Differential Equation class which he wanted me to show up again to meet the students since none showed up beforehand.
At 2:30 went to the Statistics class hoping to meet the Professor and watch him teach a class or two and maybe see how it goes. He never showed up. As class time was about to begin a coworker told me that the Professor put me entirely in charge of the class, without letting me know! I met the guy once at orientation and shook his hand. We never talked about class structure or who's teaching what. I just got "promoted" to head teacher.
Had nothing planned so I just winged it. For many of them this was suppose to be their first class on Statistics and Probability. Wanting to know how much they actually knew I ask:
"Can you name me some terms you use in Probability or Statistics?"
"Mean", "Median", "Mode", "Average" answered immediately
"Any other terms?"
"Standard Deviation", "Variance"
Beginning to feel this class was a bit low in level I asked: "Any others?"
"Binomial Distribution", "Normal Distribution", "Exponential Distribution"
I looked at the class description. How to compute mean, variance, standard deviation; how to draw histograms, and how to use the normal distribution. They knew all the definitions already. Wondering if they actually knew the math behind it I asked
"If there is a 50% of rain today and a 50% chance of rain tomorrow.
What is the probability it will rain any one of the two days?"
Immediately two responses came in: "50%" and "100%"; both wrong.
They knew the definitions of higher level statistics, but not the math of lower level. I explained why the answer was 75%, and then did another problem of changing one of the 50% to a 20% and seeing how the answer changed. After winging it for a half-hour I called it a day for them. Didn't know what else to do.
At six I showed up for the Differential Equation class and the Professor was already teaching. He wanted to start the class at 5:15 from now on. Thanks for letting me know. Anyway, I don't have to show up for the class again for a month or two. But was introduced to the students and watched as he tried to start the lesson. What was frustrating for him is that Differential Equations is usually the 4th Calculus class you take. They didn't know answers to problems that 1st semester students showed know by heart. He couldn't teach anymore until they knew these answers and told them that on Thursday to bring their Integration Tables so they could look up the answers when they don't know them. At six he let the class go. I went home.
Wednesday: Went to Banjul. My counterpart wasn't there, and I forgot my calculator so to waste four hours I just did a complicated math problem by hand. That was that day.
Thursday: Day off.
Friday: Two classes I knew I had to teach today and from now one: From 8:00-9:30 Introduction to Physics, and from 6:00-7:30 Introduction to Statistics. What I'm suppose to teach in the physics is electronics. I don't know a thing about electronics. I e-mailed a friend from back home, talked to Kate here, and looked at the PC library trying to find out how to teach electronics with only 12th grade math and science understanding. Finally found a good book and so on Thursday wrote how what I was going to teach. First had to understand it myself!
By eight o'clock I was explaining current, voltages, watts, and resistance. Doing an analogy of putting a water wheel in a river to generate power I told the class that, and that the water represented the flow of electricity and the water wheel resistance which causes useable work. They were more intrigued with the idea of putting a huge Water Wheel in the river to generate electricity for their villages then the electricity itself. The downside is that the River Gambia doesn't flow fast enough for that to be a practical generator.
Somehow managed to teach 80 minutes out of 90 of something I knew nothing about. Kate's been helping me understand the electronics and equations a few days before I have to teach them. Next week is Ohm's Law.
Went back to the office, changed clothes and went to Banjul to get the weekly mail. When I got back to the office I knew I better figure out what to teach for the Statistics class that just about knew everything. I had to go off the course description though. Today they were going to learn about how to make a bar chart. Something I knew they already knew.
Showed up at 5:30 hoping to write stuff on the board before it gets dark so they could just copy it. There's no electricity so no lights. By six I explained that I'll go until it gets dark and then we'll see about next week.
Trying to making it interesting I had them take out a Dalasi coin and flip them four times and count the number of heads. This is what will make the tables and charts out of. Going down the rows they were telling me how many heads they had, as I'm tallying them on the board:
"One", "Zero", "Four", "Three", "One", "Five"
"FIVE?"
"Magic Coin!"
"If you have magic coin, you get magic grade!"
By 6:30 it was getting dark, so I called it a day. Was suppose to go until 7:30. After talking with them we decided to start at 5:30 from now on. Went back to the office, changed clothes again and went home for the weekend.
For the first three weeks of class I taught three classes for a total of about two hours.
Class Schedule
Monday: DAY OFF
Tuesday: Statistics, afternoon.
Wednesday: DAY OFF [Go to Banjul]
Thursday: DAY OFF
Friday: Physics, morning; Statistics, afternoon.
The odd thing is that the Statistics class from 6:00-7:30 on Friday is my last class until the same class again on Tuesday! Three day weekend every week.
After going home it was Halloween and we were all going to go out. We did the best dressing up we could. Anna Marie just put weird Halloween thing in her hair, Kate was a Hippy, Jenni (who was visiting for the day) was one of the girls from Grease, Bear borrowed my US Postal Service hat wore a blue shirt and went as a mailman, and I just put on the Kalamazoo Speedway hat and pretended that was dress up enough. We all went out to eat.
The restaurant that we were going to go to, Safari Garden, had a sign up saying: "Halloween Buffet, 8:00pm D250". That's a lot of money! By US standards it's only about $8-$9 but we're use to eating bread sandwiches for D5 and maybe going out for a half chicken for D35. A good meal was D80. So D250 is a lot. The owner of the restaurant / hotel is British and had the place all decked out with coffins, ghosts, lights, and carved out watermelons (no pumpkins in The Gambia). We asked the owner, which knew us by now, if we could just order off the menu. He said sure and gave us menus. We knew the prices already, around D120, and realized that for twice as much we could have all-you-can-eat buffet with a complimentary drink. Two plates and you get your money's worth.
We all agreed and went for the buffet. They had: "Bleeding Heart", "Decomposing Fish", "Witches Eyeballs", "Ribs of Corpses", and "Bull's Testicles " to name a few. In common terms they were: "Red Jell-O with Jam", "Fish with red sauce", "Hard boiled eggs", "Spare Ribs", and "Fried Potatoes". These were just the ones I could remember. It was quite worth the D250, especially since most of us got one of everything on the buffet; twice! Was the first time since Swearing-In, when we were at the SeneGambia, that I felt completely full.
The restaurant is an outdoor restaurant by the pool. There were other tourists there, mostly from England, but we did meet a fellow Peace Corps volunteer that was visiting from Cape Verde with his father. We stayed for four hours until Midnight before we called it a night.
This morning AnnaMarie and I decided to check out Serekunda Market. This is the (in)famous huge market that happens daily and takes up a huge number of square blocks and you can get lost quite easily. I wanted to buy a wallet. Found a stand and a wallet I liked, that also had a chain. I wanted to try out a new bargaining strategy I thought of just for kicks and see how it would go.
"How much?"
"Usually D175, but for you I give good price. Gambian Price. D150."
"Too much. I only have D100" [Which was true, I had only D100 in THAT pocket]
"I bought it for D110. I have to make a profit. D125"
"OK. D110"
"Go up, D120"
"OK. D100"
"No no no. Up. D115 at least"
"D90"
"I can't sell it for D90. Too low"
"Ok. Goodbye" starting walking away
"Wait! Wait! OK D100"
"Nope. I said D90"
"Can't"
"Ok. Bye" starting walking away again
"OK D90!"
"Deal"
I'm going to try that from now on. When they want me to go up, I'll go down. If they say they can't sell that low, just walk away. If they call me back, continue go lower. I didn't go lower that time, but should have after he called me back to say "Now it's D80". Walking around the market more I wanted to see if I could find something else I liked to try the bargaining approach again (but more decreasing), but didn't see anything I liked.
One guy came up to me
"I am your neighbor! I live right next to you, with Lamin. You know Lamin?"
"I know many Lamin's"
"Yes! Lamin! He is my friend. I live with him. I am your neighbor. Can you give your neighbor some money, we are hungry"
"Neighbors, Really?"
"Yes. We're neighbors"
"Where do you live?"
"By you, next to your house."
"Where do I live?"
"By me."
"No. No. Where do I live?"
"By the bidick"
"Yes. Of course, the bidick. Yes."
"See. We are neighbors!"
"Which bidick? I live by a popular restaurant, which restaurant?"
"The popular one"
"Yes. Which one?"
He mumbled something and started turning around to leave. As he was doing that I said "Yes. OK Goodbye. Nice to meet you, Neighbor"
-MIke
First Week: Freshman orientation was Wednesday in which Kate and I got a ride to Banjul to attend. All of the incoming freshman, along with the instructors, could fit inside this medium-size auditorium. We didn't know that the teachers were up in front and so Kate and I sat in way back and couldn't hear anything that was going on. A boring two hours of nothing.
The next morning was the science orientation for the current students. I showed up and met my counterparts and was invited to sit on the head table while they discuss policy changes and courses. Another two hours of nothing. Except now I couldn't try to fall asleep.
Was told that classes started the next week.
Second Week: On Monday there was suppose to be a physics lab. I didn't know if I had to teach it or not so I showed up anyway. two things were told to me then: 1. Your not teaching the lab. 2. The lab doesn't start for a month or so anyways. Went home.
Tuesday went back to the University and was told that classes don't start until Thursday. Went home again.
Wednesday was sick.
Thursday rolled around. On Thursday I have a math course which I teach with another Professor. We hadn't figured out who was going to teach what and when so I showed up anyways. He was there. We talked for an hour of the structure of the class. He would be teaching the first part, of 1st order Differential Equations, while I will teach the second part of 2nd order and higher. This class also meets on Mondays. Because of this schedule we worked out, for a month or so I will have Mondays and Thursdays off. After that I will have only one class each day, while he has them off.
We waited for the students. None showed up. Went home again.
By Friday I figured it was my last chance. I was the teacher for a introductory physics class from 8-9:30 in the morning. I showed up early and waited until eight. No one showed up. Went back to the office, changed to regular clothes, and told people I just went through a whole week of teaching without teaching a single student. At 8:30 I received a phone call from the Dean of the department asking where I was. I told her that I waited and no one showed up: "Ah. The schedule says eight, but you have to wait until 8:15 to teach. Some are coming from long ways away. Can you come back?"
Switched clothes again, walked back to the University, and taught twenty minutes on the structure of the atom. This was suppose to be an hour-and-a-half class, but you really can't talk that much on the structure of the atom for non-science majors, in which the prerequisite for the class is 12th grade math. I called it day after the twenty minutes.
Went back to the office again, changed clothes again. Went to get the mail from Banjul and waited the rest of the day until my next, and last, class of the week at 6:00-7:30. By five I realized that I never talked to the professor for that class before and so therefore he would most likely be there the first day and I would be like a TA; which I told might be a possibility for this class, since it's a huge class (~40 students) for Introductory to Probability and Statistics for non-science majors.
Called it a week and went home instead. By 5:30 it was a huge thunderstorm and was sure glad I didn't have to be there at the University.
WEEK THREE
Monday: Day off.
Tuesday: Had two classes in the day. The first was the Statistics class which last met on Friday and an hour after that was the Differential Equation class which he wanted me to show up again to meet the students since none showed up beforehand.
At 2:30 went to the Statistics class hoping to meet the Professor and watch him teach a class or two and maybe see how it goes. He never showed up. As class time was about to begin a coworker told me that the Professor put me entirely in charge of the class, without letting me know! I met the guy once at orientation and shook his hand. We never talked about class structure or who's teaching what. I just got "promoted" to head teacher.
Had nothing planned so I just winged it. For many of them this was suppose to be their first class on Statistics and Probability. Wanting to know how much they actually knew I ask:
"Can you name me some terms you use in Probability or Statistics?"
"Mean", "Median", "Mode", "Average" answered immediately
"Any other terms?"
"Standard Deviation", "Variance"
Beginning to feel this class was a bit low in level I asked: "Any others?"
"Binomial Distribution", "Normal Distribution", "Exponential Distribution"
I looked at the class description. How to compute mean, variance, standard deviation; how to draw histograms, and how to use the normal distribution. They knew all the definitions already. Wondering if they actually knew the math behind it I asked
"If there is a 50% of rain today and a 50% chance of rain tomorrow.
What is the probability it will rain any one of the two days?"
Immediately two responses came in: "50%" and "100%"; both wrong.
They knew the definitions of higher level statistics, but not the math of lower level. I explained why the answer was 75%, and then did another problem of changing one of the 50% to a 20% and seeing how the answer changed. After winging it for a half-hour I called it a day for them. Didn't know what else to do.
At six I showed up for the Differential Equation class and the Professor was already teaching. He wanted to start the class at 5:15 from now on. Thanks for letting me know. Anyway, I don't have to show up for the class again for a month or two. But was introduced to the students and watched as he tried to start the lesson. What was frustrating for him is that Differential Equations is usually the 4th Calculus class you take. They didn't know answers to problems that 1st semester students showed know by heart. He couldn't teach anymore until they knew these answers and told them that on Thursday to bring their Integration Tables so they could look up the answers when they don't know them. At six he let the class go. I went home.
Wednesday: Went to Banjul. My counterpart wasn't there, and I forgot my calculator so to waste four hours I just did a complicated math problem by hand. That was that day.
Thursday: Day off.
Friday: Two classes I knew I had to teach today and from now one: From 8:00-9:30 Introduction to Physics, and from 6:00-7:30 Introduction to Statistics. What I'm suppose to teach in the physics is electronics. I don't know a thing about electronics. I e-mailed a friend from back home, talked to Kate here, and looked at the PC library trying to find out how to teach electronics with only 12th grade math and science understanding. Finally found a good book and so on Thursday wrote how what I was going to teach. First had to understand it myself!
By eight o'clock I was explaining current, voltages, watts, and resistance. Doing an analogy of putting a water wheel in a river to generate power I told the class that, and that the water represented the flow of electricity and the water wheel resistance which causes useable work. They were more intrigued with the idea of putting a huge Water Wheel in the river to generate electricity for their villages then the electricity itself. The downside is that the River Gambia doesn't flow fast enough for that to be a practical generator.
Somehow managed to teach 80 minutes out of 90 of something I knew nothing about. Kate's been helping me understand the electronics and equations a few days before I have to teach them. Next week is Ohm's Law.
Went back to the office, changed clothes and went to Banjul to get the weekly mail. When I got back to the office I knew I better figure out what to teach for the Statistics class that just about knew everything. I had to go off the course description though. Today they were going to learn about how to make a bar chart. Something I knew they already knew.
Showed up at 5:30 hoping to write stuff on the board before it gets dark so they could just copy it. There's no electricity so no lights. By six I explained that I'll go until it gets dark and then we'll see about next week.
Trying to making it interesting I had them take out a Dalasi coin and flip them four times and count the number of heads. This is what will make the tables and charts out of. Going down the rows they were telling me how many heads they had, as I'm tallying them on the board:
"One", "Zero", "Four", "Three", "One", "Five"
"FIVE?"
"Magic Coin!"
"If you have magic coin, you get magic grade!"
By 6:30 it was getting dark, so I called it a day. Was suppose to go until 7:30. After talking with them we decided to start at 5:30 from now on. Went back to the office, changed clothes again and went home for the weekend.
For the first three weeks of class I taught three classes for a total of about two hours.
Class Schedule
Monday: DAY OFF
Tuesday: Statistics, afternoon.
Wednesday: DAY OFF [Go to Banjul]
Thursday: DAY OFF
Friday: Physics, morning; Statistics, afternoon.
The odd thing is that the Statistics class from 6:00-7:30 on Friday is my last class until the same class again on Tuesday! Three day weekend every week.
After going home it was Halloween and we were all going to go out. We did the best dressing up we could. Anna Marie just put weird Halloween thing in her hair, Kate was a Hippy, Jenni (who was visiting for the day) was one of the girls from Grease, Bear borrowed my US Postal Service hat wore a blue shirt and went as a mailman, and I just put on the Kalamazoo Speedway hat and pretended that was dress up enough. We all went out to eat.
The restaurant that we were going to go to, Safari Garden, had a sign up saying: "Halloween Buffet, 8:00pm D250". That's a lot of money! By US standards it's only about $8-$9 but we're use to eating bread sandwiches for D5 and maybe going out for a half chicken for D35. A good meal was D80. So D250 is a lot. The owner of the restaurant / hotel is British and had the place all decked out with coffins, ghosts, lights, and carved out watermelons (no pumpkins in The Gambia). We asked the owner, which knew us by now, if we could just order off the menu. He said sure and gave us menus. We knew the prices already, around D120, and realized that for twice as much we could have all-you-can-eat buffet with a complimentary drink. Two plates and you get your money's worth.
We all agreed and went for the buffet. They had: "Bleeding Heart", "Decomposing Fish", "Witches Eyeballs", "Ribs of Corpses", and "Bull's Testicles " to name a few. In common terms they were: "Red Jell-O with Jam", "Fish with red sauce", "Hard boiled eggs", "Spare Ribs", and "Fried Potatoes". These were just the ones I could remember. It was quite worth the D250, especially since most of us got one of everything on the buffet; twice! Was the first time since Swearing-In, when we were at the SeneGambia, that I felt completely full.
The restaurant is an outdoor restaurant by the pool. There were other tourists there, mostly from England, but we did meet a fellow Peace Corps volunteer that was visiting from Cape Verde with his father. We stayed for four hours until Midnight before we called it a night.
This morning AnnaMarie and I decided to check out Serekunda Market. This is the (in)famous huge market that happens daily and takes up a huge number of square blocks and you can get lost quite easily. I wanted to buy a wallet. Found a stand and a wallet I liked, that also had a chain. I wanted to try out a new bargaining strategy I thought of just for kicks and see how it would go.
"How much?"
"Usually D175, but for you I give good price. Gambian Price. D150."
"Too much. I only have D100" [Which was true, I had only D100 in THAT pocket]
"I bought it for D110. I have to make a profit. D125"
"OK. D110"
"Go up, D120"
"OK. D100"
"No no no. Up. D115 at least"
"D90"
"I can't sell it for D90. Too low"
"Ok. Goodbye" starting walking away
"Wait! Wait! OK D100"
"Nope. I said D90"
"Can't"
"Ok. Bye" starting walking away again
"OK D90!"
"Deal"
I'm going to try that from now on. When they want me to go up, I'll go down. If they say they can't sell that low, just walk away. If they call me back, continue go lower. I didn't go lower that time, but should have after he called me back to say "Now it's D80". Walking around the market more I wanted to see if I could find something else I liked to try the bargaining approach again (but more decreasing), but didn't see anything I liked.
One guy came up to me
"I am your neighbor! I live right next to you, with Lamin. You know Lamin?"
"I know many Lamin's"
"Yes! Lamin! He is my friend. I live with him. I am your neighbor. Can you give your neighbor some money, we are hungry"
"Neighbors, Really?"
"Yes. We're neighbors"
"Where do you live?"
"By you, next to your house."
"Where do I live?"
"By me."
"No. No. Where do I live?"
"By the bidick"
"Yes. Of course, the bidick. Yes."
"See. We are neighbors!"
"Which bidick? I live by a popular restaurant, which restaurant?"
"The popular one"
"Yes. Which one?"
He mumbled something and started turning around to leave. As he was doing that I said "Yes. OK Goodbye. Nice to meet you, Neighbor"
-MIke
posted by Mike | 1:45 PM
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