Update

So I wanted to provide an update/give you more correct information on both the gas shortage and the teacher strike.

1) The gas shortage appears to continue though not quite as severely as before. There are more motos on the road and the other day we paid the equivalent of $2 a liter instead of $4, however there is still a shortage. This past Friday while driving by a local gas station there were about 25 cars in a line and around 150 motos parked waiting for gas. When a gas station has gas, it gets swarmed with customers until there is no gas left. While things appear to be a bit better, there is still a ways to go before the gas shortage really finishes.

Here is a picture that I took while passing the local gas station. In this picture, there are only a few cars and maybe 60 motos.

2) The teacher strike has ended, and all students are back to schools. I have since learned that the strike was because they were not paid for last year’s exam preparation and marking, which is slightly different than what I originally posted. It is sometimes hard to get accurate information because I receive information mostly from a variety of people who hear it from others or the radio.

Nasara learns Ngambai

Ngambai is a language spoken by people in parts of Chad, spoken in most of Moundou, and certainly in my family it is everyone’s fist language. Children’s first language in my house is Ngambai and they begin learning French when they go to school. So while I try to learn the parts of the body in Ngambai, Junior my 5-year-old brother is learning them in French.

I have said it is a language spoken and that is because Ngambai is by and large a spoken language. In fact there are few people who can read and write fluently in Ngambai. I have had the priviledge of having a Ngambai teacher who is able to read and write, so I’m learning how to read and write as well as speak.

Chadians seem to think that Ngambai is easy, but I do not fully agree with them. It is true that the verb conjugation is fairly simple but what makes Ngambai difficult for me is:

-The fact that there are 3 tones- there is a high tone, a middle tone and a low tone. It is important to pronounce the words with the proper tone otherwise people may not understand you.

-The same word can have many meanings. My favourite so far has been the word

Erî tromper (to mislead)

Erî pleuvoir (to rain)

Erì etre cuit (to be cooked)

Ërì    caillou (rock)

Erì cicatriser (the healing of a wound)

Erì urine (urine)

Erì tenter (to attempt)

Both of these areas produce challenges for me when I try to understand and also when I try to speak.

The Ngambai language uses images to make many words. My favourite example of this so far has been words used for a house. Ngambai uses body parts to express the different parts of a house:

Kei = house

Do kei = the head of the house ie. roof

Tâkei- the mouth of the house ie. door

Kembôlé- eye opening ie. window

Kei-kuman- house of medicine ie. pharmacy/hospital

Another example of imagery is ‘kura ge dara’ or friend from heaven (which is translated to be angel).

So Ngambai is a tonal language, which uses imagery and while I finish up my Ngambai lessons this week, I hope to still continue to work on my comprehension and spoken Ngambai because this is what is used in my everyday life at home.

What do I eat in a typical day in Chad?

For breakfast I always have hot powdered milk to drink with

a) a baguette with an omelette (which is then put into the baguette to make a sandwich)

b)a baguette by itself

c) beignet (or donuts), but they are more like deep fried dough. Often we buy them from local woman, but I did help make them once.

Lunch = starch + sauce

Boule/rice and a sauce  (¾ of the time it is boule). Boule is made from flour and water (the flour can be millet, sorghum, rice, corn- but the first two are the most commonly used by my family.)

The sauce can be a red sauce (tomato based) or leaf based (and there are a number of leaves that are cooked up). There is typically meat in it- beef and fish are the two most common. Sauce is sometimes slimy which is not my favourite- the slim comes either from okra or from an African plant.

Dinner is a bit of a mixed bag. Sometimes we have salad, sometimes there is pasta, or couscous, sometimes we eat yams, and sometimes there is just bouillie. Bouillie is a hot drink that Chadians have for breakfast and dinner that consists of water flour, sugar, and lemon juice/milk.

 You may have figured that fruit is something that is not really mentioned here. It is true that Chadians eat fruit on occasion, but it is not a regular part of the diet. However, my family provides me with fruit which I keep in my room, so that I’m able to eat it regularly. I have bananas, guavas, papayas, pineapple, and apples.

Sometimes there are things that I eat that I don’t recognize. I ask about them. Sometimes they know the word in French and other times they only know it in Ngambai. If they are unsure of the name we find something it is close to and say it is the cousin of spinach, or the sister of the potato!

Slowly but surely I’m learning to cook some of these dishes. I look forward to learning more and continuing to try new foods.

Below are pictures of me preparing boule, boule with a typical leaf sauce, and some pictures of me helping to prepare beignets.

ABC 123

I am a teacher. I value school and it’s importance not only in teaching subjects but also in shaping the lives of young children. I believe in the value of the teachers. So I looked into the education system in Chad, both with a few statistics and anecdotal reports from my family, and here is what I found. From the Unicef site, between 2008-2012 the primary school survival rate to the last primary grade according to administrative data is 49.3%. According to the data, 22% of males attend secondary school, while only 11.6% of females during the same 5 year period.

School strike!

Starting on the morning of Wednesday November 5, all public teachers went on strike, because they have not yet received their salary from the government. All private school teachers decided to do a 3-day solidarity strike to show that they support the public school teachers. Private school teachers’ salaries come from fees paid by the students at the start of the year as well as church and mosque funding support.

Getting teacher’s in the first place

There is little problem getting teachers for private schools, as they get paid regularly and have a bit more security. This means that teaching in public schools is much less desired than teaching in a private school. Teachers in public schools are more likely to not show up for class, be late or need to reschedule their lessons. (This may be because they are also teaching at private schools which gets priority.) Three weeks into the year, at the public school of my cousin, they were still missing teachers for certain subjects.

Getting students to come in the first place

As a teacher at CENTRAM, I did not at first understand why students who were eager to learn did not regularly come to class. I have since come to the realization that often home activities take priority over class. For example: someone in the family is sick, you are sick, your have guests, you are asked to wash clothes, you must make dinner, you are in the bush, you are grieving the loss of someone at ‘la place mortière’, you had to take care of children etc. While in Canada, if you sign up (and pay) for extra classes (like students at CENTRAM) then you would show up, and while students do want to show up, there are many other things happening in their lives that can sometimes take priority.

Importance of school

School is important, and while there is still less than 50% of youth aged 15-24 who can read and write simple sentences, literacy is improving in Chad and that is positive.

In 1993- 17.35%

In 2000- 37.56%

In 2004- 41.67%

In 2010- 47.05%

(Taken from indexmundi.com)

As Nelson Mandela once said, "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."