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Published: October 18th 2010
It's no secret that teaching ESL is not a highly coveted career choice. The hours are fantastic, but the money isn’t great, and it is generally afforded as much respect as cleaning toilets. Native speakers of English are often of the opinion that 'anyone' can do it, evidenced by the vast numbers of English teachers overseas who are morons. Amongst the card carrying PhDs, it is usually worse. At the university, we were tolerated but basically regarded as idiots. Even by education professors, who often really are idiots. And then there is the dark side. Teaching English pretty much fosters linguistic colonialism and promotes cultural hegemony. The State Department calls it ‘soft’ diplomacy. However, once you put the ethical and moral hand-wringing into a more personal context, i.e. work and happiness, or do nothing and go crazy, the polysyllabic politically correct nefarious whitey narrative becomes less burdensome.
So now, I am under contract to bring the English good news to ECA (the United Nations Economic Commission of Africa). Generally, this means teaching really rich Africans the language skills to remain really rich Africans. As the new guy though, I get the conversation classes. These are the classes filled almost exclusively by the local general staff. Unfortunately, the beginning of the term has dovetailed with the frantic preparations for the African Development Forum, so there are no students.
The African Development Forum (ADF) is one of those United Nations super meetings where the big heads fly in, gather in cavernous rooms, and windbag for hours and days on end. This year, climate change is the topic de jour, so a mountain of non-binding resolutions, protocols, and referendums will be produced before everyone agrees for the need to do it all again next year.
The non conferencing peons, i.e. my students, are needed to keep it all running, so I haven’t seen many of them this week. The exception is two students who stubbornly refuse to give me a week off: the Village Idiot, who doesn’t speak English, and the Cultural Minister of Madagascar, who does.
The village idiot is Ethiopian, looks disturbingly like Gollum in a suit, and today had snot dripping out of his nose for most of class. He's been at ECA 33 years, looks 70, and recently (I think) got hit by a car, none of which is helping his language learning. Though he produces recognizable English words, they are largely incomprehensible when strung together; a kind of guttural litany of proto-English punctuated by hyena barks and emphatic gestures that are interjected haphazardly throughout the seventy-five minutes of class. From what I can discern, he is a messenger for the ECA Registry, which I believe means he carries things from one office to another. The inherent nobility of all work aside, I think the job responsibilities and his longevity in the position may suggest how the ADF is getting along without him. Further prejudicing me is the fact that he smells like a donkey. By the end of class, an acrid sweet stench chokes the room. My revulsion may be surprising given my historically inconsistent relationship with personal hygiene, but this reek is eye-watering, throw-up-in-your-mouth pungent.
The cultural minister is a nice woman who seems to bathe regularly and be impervious to the stench. Perhaps cultural ministers are innately more culturally sensitive. As it is only her and the village idiot, the normal communicative activities such as explaining to your partner how to get from A to B are altogether impossible. Consequently, I have given up on teaching anything and just printed out topical questionnaires; tell me about your culture kinds of things. Today the topic was the paranormal. Though unlikely to generate a lot of practical vocabulary, there was a good chance it would amuse me. This has always been a high priority ever since I realized how entertaining it was to pair 18-year old Saudi Arabian males with Brazilian women and make them discuss women’s rights. Good times.
Similarly, the cultural minister didn’t disappoint. Horoscopes, tarot cards, numerology, tea leaf and palm reading, and the Malagasi method of divining, reading piles of smoothly polished stones, didn’t really get anywhere, so we veered into UFOs. These were dismissed rather quickly as ludicrous, but finally, as often happens, the conversation wandered into fertile territory: ghosts. Ghosts, it seems, are very common in Madagascar.
“Are they transparent?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know they are ghosts?”
“Everyone knows ghosts don’t have feet.”
On the white board, I draw a footless ghost hovering around some trees under a crescent moon. Not sure what ghosts look like in Madagascar or anywhere else, I opt for the Pac Man version. I can only assume most of the words being spoken are meaningless to the village idiot, but seizing on the word ‘feet’, he blurts out in his English association scat:
“Feet! Foot! Shoes! I wear. Haaruumpawooooooo”.
This final verbal injection trails off into some ‘my precious, evil little baggins’, muttering wheeze. Moving us back to the curious case of the feet-less ghosts, I say,
“No feet. How do they get around?”
“They float, like an angel.”
“Have you seen one?”
“Of course. I saw my grandmother when I was a little girl. Later, she visited me in a dream.”
“So ghosts visit dreams as well?”
“Yes. That is how they talk to you. My grandmother was buried 20km from our village. it was a very long walk, so one year, we didn’t go to visit her on All Saints’ Day. Afterwards, she visited my dream and told me she missed me.”
I wonder momentarily what might happen if you piss off a grandmother ghost, but ask instead,
“Is your grandmother a good ghost?”
“Of course.”
“Why is she a ghost?”
“So she can watch over her grandchildren.”
“Are there bad ghosts?”
“Certainly.”
“Have you seen one of those?”
“Of course.”
“What do bad ghosts do?”
“Well they want to do evil, but everyone knows if you turn your clothes inside out, this drives them away.”
“Really?”
I unbutton and turn my shirt inside-out so we are all clear about what thwarts the evil ghosts. The village idiot has been kind of drooling since the feet outburst, but this strange wardrobe development doesn’t pass unnoticed.
“Shirt. uhm. uhn. bluuuuue. NNnneeeuuuu.”
“The shirt is ‘inside out’,” I say, writing the word on the board.
I look to see if he is writing it down, but his eyes have gone glassy again and he is slack jawed, staring at the mysterious lines on his paper.
Class has been over for 5 minutes now, so though I am pretty interested in learning more about Malagasi ghosts, I ask if we can start here tomorrow. The cultural minister smiles, gathers her things, and hurries off to her afternoon plenary session. The village idiot, cued by her movement, lurches to his feet. Pushing his wall of super power stench toward me, he thrusts a piece of paper into my hands. “Study. English. Good. Ha hump,” he crows and then shuffles out the door.
Written in a child’s uneven scrawl with the letters bouncing up and down between the lines, I read:
“ why were you so late to a claSS
I was delay
hit by a car
take to the hospital.
question by the polioe
inform by polio headqUartero
we have been living here for a long time
mas the Ambaseador been taking for half and hours
Anne began talking courses at new Yonk University so
10 years ago.
she still hasnt finished study”
Afterward:
I think it is probably bad taste to spend too much time bashing on language learners, especially when I have been occupying the post of village idiot for every second of the last four years. In his defense, he may primarily be the victim of bad placement. He clearly has a few words in his bag, just not ones related to ghosts, or the illegal harvesting of exotic woods in Madagascar, or the continuing meddling of colonial powers in the internal affairs of their ex-colonies in Africa. It also seems fairly likely that messengers and ministers have slightly different educational backgrounds. And then there is the perfect storm of genetics, age, and that car. While none of those are doing him any favors, anyone who is willing to try deserves more credit than ridicule. Its just that credit isn’t as entertaining.
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Ed
non-member comment
glass house, eh?
Fourth paragraph, buster: two students ARE not two students is! Those who can't do teach!