It's 4:30 am. I've been up for an hour and a half. I may have gone to bed too early. For me, this means something in the 8:30 or 9:00 range. I am finding my rhythms of sleep have become deeply disturbed. I realize the days and nights that I manage to I rise and fall in harmony with everyone else are really deviations from the pattern rather than a return to normal life.
Maybe being single again has something to do with my fractured sleep cycle. Maybe it is stress from events coming or maybe it is Africa, letting me know the natural world is too full of wonderous beauties waiting be drunk in, while life is too short to allow for adequate consumption.
It is the birds that keep me company in the early hours, and in the darkness of night? A mixture of human interactions, insect melodies, frogs that sound twice any size they could truly be, and numerous other unidentifiable night creatures. Maybe it is this mystery that prevents me from peaceful slumber.
Most recently we have discovered a new housemate- a mouse with a voracious appetite for fibers who is eating through all of our clothes. I see him nearly every evening, scurrying along the edges. I had thought he confined himself to one or two rooms, as he always came running along the path from the kitchen to my closet and then along the wall to my dresser. However, one evening when we were all sitting in the living room, I saw him come down the hall and round the corner into the kitchen. It seemed he had found my room empty and come to join us for a family fun night.
He cannot be caught. There are no mouse traps. I have requested several, was told they were searching Kinshasa, and finally, no, could not find any. I have a large metal rat trap reminniscent of the French guilloutine. He has eaten several snacks from there, being too small to actually trip the catch and so I've abandoned this idea altogether. I'm told to get a cat, but I can't quite get over the ragtag nature of most Congo cats long enough to actually let one in my house.
I did find a rather large lizard stuck on the back porch however. When I came home from school, he was clinging to the screen trying to figure out why he couldn't jump off into the bushes below. (Bushes=outside, lizard= inside.) He was not one of the cute little Santa Fe wall deco lizards that I usually see runnning along ceiling corners. He was big and meaty, one of the blue and orange lizards we like so much...from a distance. It was a Lucille Balle comedy hour trying to get him out. He ran one way, we ran the other. All the while I was shouting at Nabih to shut the door or he would run into the house (I'm wondering now if he might not have been able to catch the mouse. He was probably a gift I ran off.) Actually, I did not run him off. It was Mama Vero who got a broom and was chasing him around the porch while he skittered here and there full of fright and confusion. My method involved leaving the screen door open and letting him leave on his own good time while we huddled safely inside. She took a more direct approach.
I have had to take a direct approach in finding Nabih a school. While he is clearly getting some kind of education at home, learning French and how to ward off giant orange glo reptiles, it's time for something more. I have been visiting Kinshasa preschools and feel a bit like the lizard stuck on my back porch. The whole process is dizzying and disorienting.
I was willing to consent to the first school we saw, mostly because I know several other families that go there and it is close. The program itself was not impressive, but acceptable. We visited the class for an hour and saw (many) children working in small groups. They had a numbers area on the carpet, a writing area and two reading areas. One adult was at each table and worked with the children individually. There was a cute row of blackboards, child height, and the one or two kids working here were supposed to be copying words from the wall. Some children spent a bit of time sitting and waiting for an adult to help them and some also got books to read and sat on the carpet. I didn't see any toys, but there was a bookshelf with some unidentifiable stuff packed in bags and boxes. Looked like a few puzzles and maybe a building toy. The kids appeared to spend most of their time deeply focused on academics. Just as we were leaving, a whole group lesson had them sitting on the floor trying to remember the names of garden plants. It seemed a ridiculous lesson with difficult words to remember. It did include a song and a few examples of real plants which the kids got a turn touching.
This mediocre school later informed me, on what was to be Nabih's first day, that he needed to cut his hair. I was inscensed on several levels and we left there with me a raving lunatic- something I'm not usually prone to here in the DRC. I did run into the director later that weekend while shopping and she assured me the whole thing was a huge mistake, but damage done.
I took a morning off to visit two other schools. One run also by an Indian woman and operating on the British curriculum. This was a very small school and only had six children in the class we went to visit. Each child sat at a table and everyone faced a chalkboard. The floor was cement, no carpet and no open place to play. The small tables took up the entire area. There were no visible toys and no books. There were, I was assured, puzzles and toys locked up in bins in the cabinet. Illuminating word choice. There were textbooks (yes, in preschool) and notebooks filled with children's letters and numbers. There was even some addition. I was also shown a small notebook filled with drawings and dictations. We did not stay to visit in this class and were not invited to do so. There was a much older girl sitting at one of the tables and it is unclear what her role or purpose for being there was (punishment? helper? During the presentation of notebooks to me, the children, in their neglect, had begun a general discussion about whose turn it was to write on the board and what exactly should be written. There was some quarreling and the girl didn't move or say a word, so I'm guessing punishment was the reason for her presence.)
We visited another class, same set up- cement floors, chalkboard, small tables, children writing. I was told about monthly contests for handwriting and poetry recitation. I was told events inspired the kids to do better as they compared themselves to how well others did and developed a sense of competetion. I kept trying to balance the idea of such academic focus with the developmental need to play and explore. Does copying the word twenty-nine really mean something when you're four? In trying to be careful not to view everything with an American ego, I wonder if there isn't something to pushing our children to BEGIN early and get started on the race of good grades and high marks and recitiation.
It wasn't long before images of my own students came to mind. The phone calls I get asking, "Ms. Soumah, what does it mean when they say infer?"
And.."What am I supposed to do for number 4? It says what do you think...?"
I'm not ready to give up my ideas of American education yet. So with these images I headed off to the Belgian school, reported to have a great pre-k program, albeit in French.
I was in not in great humor uppon arriving. I'd been disarmed by the previous school who told me Nabih would have to pass a test to get in (yeah, to preschool. But "I'm sure you can teach him what he needs to know..." If I could do this, I wouldn't be looking for a school. We talked about the social aspects and finally she clarified the test as one to establish a baseline but I was basically feeling hopeless.)
I arrived at the office and hazily comprehended the French instructions about admissions process. I asked if I could see a class and I got directions. To go. Alone. It seemed bizarre to me- a stranger, given the go ahead to walk around the campus, unaided.
In order to get to the maternelle side, I had first to pass through a locked gate by the security post. I stopped and peered into the first classroom I saw with an open door. Two teachers were painting at easles and behind them were the children. Wonderous children! Laughing, playing, imagining, creating, sitting-on-top-of-the-tables children. I breathed in the sight. It was familiar and comforting. A teacher noticed me and came to talk. I discovered they were preparing for a parent carnival and so all of the classes have gathered together this day and things were not running as usual. She offered to show me another classroom where I saw carpets, tables, paintings on the walls and TOYS. Lots of toys in plastic tubs and cubby compartments. I saw signs everywhere of living, breathing, thinking children. She was cheerful and bright as she explained the program. She attempted several times to connect with Nabih, who remained his surly self. As we departed, she remarked on his hair, "Tres kool."
I rode back home with happy visions of the wild school, the full of life school, the play and have fun while creating with new friends school. And I try to convert Euros to dollars. The wildlife academy quickly becomes the unaffordable academy. But I can't stop seeing the little girl sitting on top of the table, flying her lego plane through air. It's an image I can sleep with.
