Friday, August 3, 2007

The Poop Scale

When I came to Africa, I was told that everyone talks about their poop experiences. I doubted this, but come to find out it is true. Poop has become a regular topic of lunch-time discussion. Thus a poop scale has been developed that most of you might find gross, so grandma, if you are reading this you might want to skip this part. I wont go into graphic detail, but everyone knows the difference between a number one and a number two. The offical poop scale has a range from one, being pure liquid (most common), to three, which is when there is nothing coming out. With the help of this scale, one can now just go up to someone and say "Man, I had a 1.3 last night." and everyone will know what that means. I hope that I have enlightened you all. This scale however can only be used in Africa, so dont try this at home. On a side story loosely related to the scale, another trainee.... lets call her Stanley, came here and in the first three weeks did not poop once. That is what we call a number three.

On a happier note, I have gotten so many packages in the past couple weeks, I dont know if I am going to be able to transport it all with me across the country. I have recieved numerous from my partents, and I also have recieved some from Grandma Mary, bro Zack, and the Lawson crew. Thanks for everything. There was one day that I got four packages at once, I think it was pretty much the best day of my life.


I went to a concert last weekend. Thats right, I am in Africa and I went to a concert. It was an interesting experience. The band I think is called Seika Seika, or maybe that is just the name of one of their songs. I am not really sure, but it was cool. It was supposed to start at 4pm, which I thought was very early/hot for a concert to start, but then it actually started at about 7pm, which makes sense in Africa time. Aparently I am told by the other volunteers that if you want to set up a meeting with a Brukinabé, you have to say that the meeting starts an hour before it actually does so that they will make it there on time.


Model school is going better, I guess. I gave both of my classes tests on Wednesday, and I thought they were both relatively easy, but apparently not. The day before in my sixieme class we played Jeopardy to review. It was a lot of fun, but trying to explain the rules of Jeopardy in French is a little difficult. Once they got the hang of it they seemed like they new everything. I had a bag of jolly ranchers in my bag for prizes for the winning team, and that turned out to be a bad idea. I started handing them out, and it was like a bomb went off. Kids were standing on desks screaming that someone stole their piece or that they didnt get a piece, so I just started kind of throwing candy around the room. Then I had probably the stupidest idea in the history of teaching, I thought to myself, I will just give the bag to a kid and he will rip it open and everyone can grab.... wow it sounds even worse when I type it out. So I did, and they all pounced on this kid and people got hurt and it was just a mess. To resolve the situation, I took the candy back and ran away. The next day when they took their tests, it was a different story. The class average out of 20 was a 4.05. I am blamming it on the fact that it is summer and it is not real school. My cinqieme class did a lot better. I think the average was about a 14.

2 comments:

Mom and Dad of Caleb said...

Caleb,

Look at all the exciting things you have time to create in Africa....the poop scale, the mouches game,...can't wait to see what is next.

We're glad the packages are arriving en masse. May the windfall continue.

Where was the concert? In Ouahigouya, or did you get to take public transportation? What language were they singing in?

We are glad model school is getting better. An average of 14 out of 20 sounds pretty good. We enjoyed hearing about your jeopardy adventure. We hope to hear more stories soon.

Love you,

Mom & Dad

Sarah said...

i might've missed it in one of your last entries so just be patient w/ me but, what exactly is model school?

that concert looked/sounded like fun.

i envy your famous wall of pringles. i seriously don't understand how they can have one of those in africa and not have at least two in every city over here in the u.s. i think your should bring some home in 2 years for me to try =)

o btw, i am officially registered for highschool as of last thursday. yay me =)