A Students' Rebellion

9 November 2006

After my trip to Labe, I returned to a full class on Monday. The 300 student school was finally starting to fill after a poor attendance the previous week during the fete, the end of Ramadan. A one day holiday turned into a week of skipping school.

Tuesday I was ready to teach masse volumique, having the kids measure the density of the red rocks, bauxite, found everywhere.

We teachers however stood in a completely deserted schoolyard. No one to raise the flag. No one to sing the national anthem.

Let us dance or we won't go to school was the cry. The students were on strike.

What? cried the parents and the elders of the village. What type of rebellion is that? Dance or no school?

Why has the dance club and the movie house both run on generators been shut down? Do I really live in such a conservative village that dance has been banned due to its sinfulness?

May 11 is the key to this mystery. Last May the governor of the region banned all celebrations to the dead musician. The kids in my village built a stage and invited the village rasta to speak. An elder tore down the stage. The kids tore down the elder's goat hut. The police came. Kids were chased and dancing has ever since been banned. Bob Marley part of the cause.

Wednesday I taught a 2 hour English class to the 30 7th-10th graders who were accompanied to school by their parents, while the parents and the elders had a meeting under the tree of the schoolyard. After my class, everyone gathered. Speeches were made. A representative from each grade was commanded to say something. Everything was in Pular, in one ear and out the other.

As the week went by more and more kids started trickling in. Apparently some people were blocking the road to school. Was it the owner of the dance club who lost his business of 1500 GF (25 cents) per dancer? Was it a disgruntle student who took only one composition last year and was held back?

I found the strike amusing probably because I was not really involved, just an outside observer who didn't feel like teaching that week anyways, bed bound due to a painful earache.