How beautiful are our feet - Follow-up

L-R: Eniang, Kenny, Me, G-Prayo, Christy, Rugged.

Kenny

Saturday was a really good day. I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the ZRR evangelism programme we held at Iwo-Oke. Well, it hasn't ended. The main programme has ended but the follow-up which is equally important, continues. Asides winning souls, part of the ZRRE plan is also to start a project in the chosen evangelism site, whether it's building or constructing something. For ours, we decided to do a borehole project.

In the past two weeks following the programme, we've kept in touch with the villagers of Iwo-Oke. We call it 'Rural Rugged follow-up', the aim is to ensure that now that they are newly borns in Christ, we put them on the right track, encouraging them and guiding them on how to grow their faith.

I missed the one that happened two Saturdays ago but I was fortunate to be at Saturday's. Our evangelism secretary emphasized the need for Yoruba speakers in counselling the villagers. In my head I'm like, "erm, it's one thing to be able to speak Yoruba, it's another to be able to preach in the language o!" but I went for it. 

We arrived at the village at about 4.30PM. Armed with our 'korope' (a mini-bus), drugs (the villagers had requested for), Yoruba Bibles, and a megaphone, we kicked off with a town cry which was led by an ex-corper and important member of the fellowship, Ondo-bred 'G-Prayo' (Don't ask. I will do a post on our nicknames one day, I promise!). He urged the villagers who had decided to give their lives to Christ two weeks ago, when we first held the programme, to meet us at the same venue as we had 'something' for them. Some of our corpers had gone ahead of us to the venue to welcome those who would show up.

After the town cry, the four of us: Myself, Kenny, G-Prayo and Patrick, went to join the other corpers. 

To my surprise, quite a few people did show up. I thought, 'OK, they are just showing up for free drugs', but after speaking to them, I realised that they were serious about their decision to follow Christ.

Counselling began. I started by asking my 'clients' what 'following Christ' meant to them, why they made the decision, what some ways of worshiping God were. I explained the importance of a relationship with the Trinity, which far supersedes religion.

Then I spotted a group of four girls. I'd say they were about 9-ish years old. I sat them down and asked if they were part of those who had given their lives to Christ, seeing as they had shown up at the venue, and that was the criterion for attendance we had provided. Nafisat was a believer, the other 3 weren't. So, I sat them down. I asked if they knew who Jesus was, only Nafisat did. Then I asked if they knew Adam, they said no. I'm thinking 'Whaaat? who doesn't know Adam' ? lol, so I had to go over the creation story, through to Adam's sin and then God's sacrifice, Jesus. We discussed how to become 'Jesus' child' through faith and what being one means; and being a new creature and letting go of old things. The girls were very attentive and intrigued. Idayat especially. It showed on her face.

After talking, I asked if they had any prayer requests we could pray about as a group, and they mentioned a couple, but before this I had asked if they were willing to become believers, explaining the importance of believing in the God one prays to. They said that they wanted to but their fear was in the danger of serving more than one God as they would still have to be at the mosque later that evening. I told them I understood. So we prayed about school; protection from danger; and for a better understanding of who God truly is. Then I asked them if they needed drugs medication for anything and referred them to where the doctor corpers were seated. I think what made me smile the most about my conversation with this particular group was their willingness to listen.

There was another group that got me excited. The one that showed keen interest in taking their journey to the next level by owning a Bible. They begged us not to forget to bring them Bibles next week. I assured them that we won't.

I went into these counselling sessions reluctant from feeling unqualified, to be honest, but I came out feeling good. 

Yo, preaching in pure Yoruba- not Lagos Yoruba that permits the addition of English terms here and there- is not beans, but it went really well. Far better than I had expected. God was present. God is real. God is faithful.

PS: This one is a village.

Footy. Iwo style.

Nothing like watching a football match Iwo-style. Once you get past the heat and the mosquitoes, you'll really enjoy the experience.

Incessant commentary from the indigenes, yelling at the TV screens as they scream their renditions of the footballers' names, like "Feepee" (VP) and Chamm-bah-layne (Chamberlain), is usually the highlight for me.

Sunday was my second time of watching a football match at one of the footy huts. The first was the Nigeria-Malawi one which happened over a month ago. And Sunday's was the ManU-Arsenal game. I haven't really kept up with footie since I've been here but I do my best to not miss Nigeria/Arsenal games. 

So, you walk into the little hut-esque building with walls made from joint pieces of wood. A man collects your N40-N50 at the entrance, then allows you to proceed into the building. Sit wherever you like. Well, wherever you can find space. You'll find one standing fan, 2 television screens on which the game is being projected, and over 50 loud and sweaty men, all giving you the surprised look for being the only woman in Iwo interested in football.

I went with a friend. When we got to the entrance, my friend asked the man in charge, "How much?" MIC: How many people? Friend: Two. MIC: *seeing me* Woman too? ehn? OK, you pay N40, the woman is free.  Me: *smiling* Ahhh, nice one! 

It was too dark to take a picture of the building. I will definitely take one at the next game. 

There was this particular man at Sunday's game, though. He had a comment for literally almost every move made by each player. I didn't think this was possible until Sunday, lol. I know Nigerian men get passionate but Iwo men are particularly on a different level.

-"Abi won sepe fun Falensee-ah (Valencia) ni?" - Is Valencia cursed?
-"Ehehn, oya je ki won mo pe oni l'ojo ibi wa" - Let them know today is our birthday! Not literally anyone's birthday, by the way. He only said this as if to say "Let them know who the boss is!" - This he'd yell whenever a ManU player was about to score a goal.
-"Kunle, ti mo ba ti gba dukia re tan, o o lo join Kwara United"- Kunle, when I'm done taking all your property, you'll go join Kwara United. My guess was that he and Kunle had made a bet prior to the game.
-"Bentnah were! Fine boy ni yoo ma se kiri! Mo hate e ehn!" - Bendtner, Mad man! I hate him. All he's concerned with is being a fine boy. - This he yelled when Bendtner was brought on as a substitute.

...And continuous hilarious comments of the sort.

Given the above, I'd like to review my '10 joys of Iwo' list and add:
11. Watching footy with Iwo indigenes.


PS: I still dare say, it's a town, not a village! :P

JOStified part 1 by Ephraim O.

Ephraim was among the many who made the trip to the NCCF headquarters at Jos, for the national conference which marked the organization's 30th anniversary. Unfortunately, I was unable to be there. Below is the first part of his account of the experience:

Exhilarating best describes the feeling. You could sense it in the songs chanted in unison, the smiles, jokes and comedy bouts, history told by comrades, knowledge shared in the midst with accompanying affirming knuckles and hi fives given to him/her whose statement you best concurred with. 

It was my first 18-hour trip (I wasn't alone in this novelty of a trip) heading from Osun to Jos in a Toyota Hummer bus packed filled with corps members and their luggage. Consequently, considering the spate of insecurity in this part of the nation, our decision to make this death-defying, terror-shaming trip was birthed from a passion for upgrading our spiritual O.S.

We stopped at almost every state we got to (for annoying reasons best known to the drivers) and soon we had exhausted the limits of our vocal chords, with tiredness setting in, we began to take differing anatomical positions for what we could make out of sleep. With the exception of the lady that had fallen travel sick, and a few of us that burdened ourselves with knowing our location on BlackBerry map and occasional sign-posts, most of the other fellas had fallen prey to sleep by evening.

                                       

War against hunger wasn't as fierce as imagined. Light feeds, small chops and soft drinks came in handy, keeping the mouth busy and hunger at bay. The tactic was to avoid any attempt to greet the bush for "piss offerings" or any other form of offering. 

Briefly we waited at Kaduna for two buses from our convoy of seven that had lost their way somewhere around Keffi in Nasarawa state. We were lucky to get a Mallam who sold a miserable meal of sun baked bread and over-salted omelette at about 11:39pm for dinner.

                                      

I learnt two critical lessons from my sight-seeing trip to Jos. First was what I choose to brand not as foolishness, but trust and a unique way of life in that traders left their oranges and Irish potatoes shaded on the high way with no fear of theft. Wow! That wasn't fairytopia, I saw it live in Kaduna and in Nigeria.
Beware; do not try this in Lagos, Benin or Onitsha.

The second was that we had always found slight condemnation for our Foladele friend who always held small chops in her bag. But on this very trip I discovered its relevance and so rescind my decision. Choosing to rebrand the action, 'Hunger back up'. 

To be continued...

PS: It's a town, not a village! :P

How beautiful are our feet

Well, not literally. I'm only referring to Romans 10:15.

You could say we were fulfilling the Word when last weekend we camped out at a rural area for our Zonal Rural Rugged Evangelism (ZRRE) programme.

Off we go!

A bit of background info

The Nigerian Christian Corpers' Fellowship (NCCF) was birthed 30 years ago with the aim of taking the Gospel to several parts of the country. The idea came in the form of the prophecy: 'A time will come when Nigerian youths will be paid by the government to take the Gospel to several parts of the country'. It's why at NCCF, we believe that in the hierarchy of importance, it's NCCF first before PPA. So, at the very core, evangelism is what NCCF is actually about, and the ZRRE programme is a result of that. Over the years, NCCF has grown into a huge organisation with branches in every state in Nigeria (as in, NCCF Akwa Ibom, NCCF Lagos, NCCF Osun, and so on); and even little branches in almost every local government in each of these states. For example, in Osun, there is NCCF Iwo, NCCF Osogbo, NCCF Ola-Oluwa, NCCF Ife Central, NCCF Ede South, and so on. NCCF Osogbo is our oga at the top, so we report to them about any and everything and they are usually in charge of organising the State Rural Rugged once a year where every zone and sub-zone in the state is expected to be present. Then there's Zonal Rural Rugged which is smaller and as the name suggests is usually organised by zones in conjunction with their sub-zones.

Last weekend was the Iwo zone ZRRE. Being sub-zones under the Iwo local government, Aiyedire and Ola-Oluwa teamed up with us. We gathered together our mats, megaphones, generator, plates and spoons, our doctor corpers, hair-savvy corpers, our welfare secretaries AKA 'Mamas', and every possible hand we could get, and we set out for Iwo-Oke; a very small, pre-dominantly Muslim village in the Ola-Oluwa local government. Our camp site was a secondary school building. The only secondary school in the village. We arrived there Friday afternoon and would be there 'til Saturday afternoon.

"The main, the main"

We kicked off the programme with a session of worship and prayers, then a film show followed. Some more prayers took place after. Then dinner (we had cooked in Iwo and brought it along, alongside utensils and foodstuff we would require to make the next day's brunch) and lights out followed. 

From 12.30am-2.30am, we held a prayer chain where each zone/sub-zone were awoken to come out and pray as a group for an hour each. So, the Aiyedire corpers prayed from 12.30-1.30, then Iwo followed from 1.30-2.30 and Ola-Oluwa from 2.30-3.30. Hence, prayer chain. HATED getting woken up at 1.30am, or maybe it was the how I hated (megaphones should be banned :) ) but it was well worth it. The peace God's presence gives is beautiful, I tell you!

The next day was "the main thing". We had gone out for a 'Jesus march' the evening before and early that morning too; which just means a walk into the village to inform the villagers of our arrival and invite them to the programme. We told them that there would be a film show that Friday evening and the next day, there would be gifts, counselling and free medical check-up. Most of them had promised to come and they did. Jesus marches are super cool and are usually made lively with our chanting and singing.

Saturday's programme was divided into departments. I was in charge of the children section, which Jane helped me with. It was lots of fun; we spoke about God's love, played games, danced, and gave them biscuits, clothes, books and pens/pencils. We asked if they wanted to give their lives to Christ and a lot of them showed interest. We had a set of Muslim twins present in our circle, one of which initially raised her hand to indicate interest but after catching her sister's eye of disapproval, put down her hand down. Jane and I smiled as we reminded them that salvation is a personal decision.

The programme setup went thus: As the children walked in, they were immediately sent to the children section. While the children section fun was in session, the children who wanted to get a haircut were selected and sent to the male haircare section, and after, were brought back to join us.

Female hair care section

Male hair care section

For the adults, they were registered upon arrival at the venue. After this, they were sent to the one-on-one counselling section where they were told about salvation, and offered general advice. After this, they were sent to the Faith Clinic for one-on-one prayers, then sent to the classroom the doctors had occupied for free medical check-up and free drugs. Then, they were led to the welfare department to receive free clothes. The female hair care section was beside the gift section so after receiving their gifts, if they wanted to 'ko' their hair or plait it, they could just go straight through. For the children, after talking and playing with them, we sent them to the welfare department too, to receive clothes, books, pens, biscuits and sweets.

Medical section

Faith clinic

After all the villagers had left, it was time for brunch. Some of us had been exempted from the Jesus match earlier so we could prepare the brunch. After eating, the NCCF family formed a closing circle where we thanked God for the success of the programme, sang the family song, and parted ways. The buses were on ground to transport us back to our locations.

ZRRE was short and sweet, yet powerful. Not that I'm surprised at the success seeing that we spent several weeks praying for the success of the programme. God is faithful indeed.

Iwo-Oke for Christ, yo!

PS: It's a town, not a village! :P. Ok, this one is a village sha. Lol.

The N10 fine

After teaching my students 'Speech work', I was packing my notes to leave when I noticed some hesitation. I asked them what the problem was and they expressed that they wanted me to continue the lesson. I was surprised because not only was my time up but it was also break time. And I know these kids don't play with break time/food.

It was either they enjoyed getting fascinated by my pronunciation of the English words I was teaching them or they were actually interested in some more learning. Judging from how they'd chuckle whenever I pronounced what they'd usually call 'os-pi-tah' as 'hos-pi-tul', I'll go with the former. Whatever the reason was, I decided to stay and play some games with them. During the course of this, I realised how horrible their sentence construction was, so I asked for suggestions on how we could tackle this problem. Some suggested break-time lesson, others suggested more reading. Then I heard someone say something about enforcing a N20 fine on anyone who speaks Yoruba in class. And it hit me! THIS IS IT! THIS WILL BE IT! This was the idea we were going to adopt but with a little tweaking. 

In that moment, a new rule was born: Anyone who speaks Yoruba in English class will be fined N10. You won't be fined if you attempt to speak English and end up 'tabon'-ing, the rule would only apply to you if you did decide to speak and it was in Yoruba.

This happened just yesterday, and because I haven't been at school since 'cause today was my day off, the plan won't officially kick off until tomorrow. I'm looking forward to that and just seeing how it pans out as time goes on. I think if we adhere strictly to it, it will make a difference. We've also appointed a "financial secretary" who will be in charge of collecting the funds, lol.

OyaNa! LezzGoDiyeh!


PS: It's a town, not a village! :P

PSS: My camera is temporarily faulty, hence why I've been slacking on sharing pictures. But I'll soon have that sorted out. 
Thanks for understanding :)

Baby steps

I have been wanting to do this post. Not only so you'd know what I've been up to this term but also to serve as a reminder for me, of my goals for the term.

It's been over two weeks since teaching resumed and I'm already enjoying it. A little more than I did last term, I'll add. This is because with now being more familiar with the students, and having a clearer understanding of the areas in which they struggle, I find that so far, teaching this term has been easier and less stressful. As some of you who have been following my journey might know, teaching my kind of students can at times be very difficult and frustrating for several reasons I've mentioned in previous posts. The mistake I made last term was that I focused on trying to strictly follow my lesson note plan. However, I have decided that this term, I will throw caution to the wind and just "freestyle". 

The long break helped me realise that as long as I keep trying to tackle their problem from the top, I will keep getting frustrated, so I've decided to start from the root, as one should with any problem. The problem my students have has eaten so deeply into their system that one can only/must fix it by tackling it from the bottom. For example, if essay writing is scheduled in the syllabus, it would be pointless teaching that when the students aren't even confident enough in their understanding of the basics of constructing a sentence, or of when to use verbs, nouns and pronouns. I realise that I must start by making them understand the smaller things before we can proceed to the more complex things, and we may never even get there seeing as I have about four months left here, but we can still make progress.

As part of the 'baby steps' plan, I've incorporated frequent dictation exercises into the syllabus. Last week was the first of many to come. It was with the JS3s. I dictated 20 words, one of which was 'uniform' and when the time for corrections came, I asked a student to step up and share with us how he had spelt the word. He wrote 'yulifomu'. His mates laughed and before I could even tell them to stop, I found myself chuckling a bit, not because he misspelt it but because he spelt it the exact same way their strong Yoruba accent permits them to pronounce the word. Anyway, I showed him the correct spelling. Knowing my lazy students, I had imagined that they would have forgotten what they had learnt, so the next day, I went to their class and asked the same boy to come to the board like he had done the day before, and spell the same word. What put a smile on my face was not only the fact that he spelt it correctly but the confidence with which he wrote the word on the board. It was a proud moment for me. I repeated the same test a week later (today), and he still didn't disappoint :)

I foresee this new method I've adopted being very time-consuming and putting me behind on lesson notes because topics which should normally be exhausted in one period would now require three periods. But the aim of teaching is less about sticking to lesson notes and more about ensuring the students learn, right?

A fellow corper, Jane, and I got talking the other day about what these students need. We decided that it isn't just about caning them but also about our patience and tolerance as teachers. We've weighed the results of caning them versus speaking sense into them. While the former might be effective in making them see in that moment that they've done something wrong, a lot of times, the latter is how one can truly get through to them. I've had to realise that I have to go easier on them as it's not always a laziness issue that holds them back; that it's not their fault that no matter how hard they try, their background will always reflect in their inability to pronounce the 'sh' sound, and that as much as they'd like to write lovely essays, the reality is that they don't even know how to construct simple sentences. Some of these are things you learn in primary school, which I'm sure for one reason or another, some of them skipped.

The system isn't helping either. Don't even get me started on the fact that 30% was the pass mark last term. I came back this term to discover that the students who were supposed to repeat a class, i.e. the ones who didn't meet the pass mark, have been put through to the next class. Why? Then, our public schools are filled with teachers with questionable qualifications. If their teachers are "tabon-ing", how won't the students do the same?

Like I stated earlier, we might not get through the syllabus this term and that's fine. I'd feel fulfilled leaving here knowing that Suli in JS3 can hold a 5-minute conversation in English. It won't be easy; a lot praying, caning, sweating, yelling will be involved. I've already started cutting into other teachers' periods sef, but oh well, lol.

I've gotten a couple of really good ideas from people on how I can do more with the students. Thanks ID and KK.

Jane and I have taken these ideas into consideration and added a few of our own too and with these, we have some helpful projects planned for the next few months. I'll share them here as time goes on.

Evenings are my fave here in Iwo. Since I love LOVE LOVE!!! evening breeze so much-and today's was exceptional btw-, I decided to type up this post outside. So calm, so yummy.

PS: It's a town, not a village! :P

We're back!…and we're leaving again

Written: 02/10/13

"Aunty! Aunty"

"Oya, lo gba bag won", whispered one to the other. 

"Ma worry", I said to her, as I saw her making her way towards me. "Ye! O wo le!", one of her friends present yelled, covering one eye, as we'd do to mean 'ela oju kan' or 'ela' for short. This they do whenever I refuse to indulge kind gestures such as this one.

Yup, I'm definitely back at Anwar-ul Islam. As I stepped on school soil, the first thing I noticed was that the grasses had grown really bushy. It was clear that we had been away for too long and the environment had been starved of naughty students (since we are surrounded by mass grass coverage, you can imagine that cutting grass/mowing the lawn is a popular punishment for the kids who misbehave).

As I moved closer to the staffroom, I met other students on the way who prostrated themselves with excitement to 'hail' me, to which I responded with a smile. "I have missed these children!", I thought to myself. 

The teachers in the staffroom welcomed me with news about a relocation. Our holiday had lasted so long because Governor Aregbe had been working on merging schools. For us, Anwar-ul Islam would join Islahudeen High School. the latter would be our school for the next school year. This surprised me because when we were first posted here, we had cause to believe that Anwar-ul would be our permanent Place of Primary Assignment (PPA) for the service year. The teachers, however, didn't seem bothered. I guess as a public school teacher, you learn not to get too comfortable anywhere as change is constant and transfers can happen anytime.

We were also told that school time for junior schools would change from 2pm to 3.30pm, and from 2pm to 5pm for the seniors, as afternoon prep would be introduced into the public school system. 

My initial reaction was to grumble but after being enlightened on the intention behind the adjustments, I embraced the idea. I wrote in my 'Last day of school' post about revision being a big problem of the students', so to have heard that they would be getting some supervised after-school prep time was good news.

More time in school would mean less time for their after-school hustle which though it keeps their hands and minds busy, usually doesn't give them time for revision. (Though I won't entirely blame this on their after-school jobs because if they cared about school as much as they did their jobs, then they would squeeze out time to revise). This change in times could go either way but I'm hoping the fact that there'll be supervision will make it an effective 1hr30mins/3hours.

Mrs B., one of the teachers present in the staffroom at the time I received the news, said, "Aregbe knows what he's doing. It's just that we lack structure". I'm pleased that we are taking a step in this direction. Since being here and having a better understanding of how the public school system works, I've felt that our schools could use more attention from the government. After all, public schools are the government's property. What I mean is, more can be done to excite these kids about school and make the environment more conducive to learning. I had expected the worst before I got here and was surprised upon my arrival, to discover that we had sufficient textbooks and stationery and even hold mid-week quizzes for the students. 

Furnished buildings, a better structured timetable (that includes educative games, more sports and visual learning; the other day, I supervised a P.H.E. exam where they were asked to draw a handball court. I smiled because I knew they didn't know what one looked like. They could only draw it not as something they were familiar with or had ever seen, but as something they had been shown in their textbooks in class), more (well-educated) teachers, electricity (there are no bulbs or fans or even a connection to light for us to know when there IS light), doors, school buses (with this new merging system, students are having to spend more on transportation) and the likes could really make a difference.

My father speaks well of the public school structure that existed back in his time and how it was so well organised that private schools weren't even popular because everyone preferred public schools. How nice would it be to have some of that excitement revived? 

Any ideas on what else I can do in my remaining four months here to motivate/help these kids? Bear in mind though, that we are dealing with unmotivated and lazy people so your idea has to be super great and continuous even after my time here is up. I was and still am very enthusiastic about bringing change here. The after-school lesson plan I came up with last term eventually failed 'cause the students lost interest. 

Anyway, glad to be back. Two months is too long for a holiday!

PS: It's a town, not a village! :P