two months in Guinea

Yesterday was the two month mark in country. I have about two weeks left in training in Forecariah before the swearing in ceremony.
Sometimes I feel like I’ve been here for much longer than two months. I remember my going away party—saying goodbye to all of my friends. I remember the day I stepped off the plane into the rain and then into the chaos of the small customs room in Conakry. All this seems so distant.
Now that I’ve grown accustomed to things in Forecariah, it is time to change it up. I’m moving to Timbo to teach for two years!
I have already started teaching here in Forecariah. Peace Corps has us do this ingenious thing we call “Practice School,” where we get to practice teaching Guinean students for three weeks of summer review courses. We are a week and a half in. I have to say that it’s incredibly exhausting, this teaching business.
The students are excitable and hard to manage. I have been teaching 8th, 9th, and 10th graders and for the most part, they struggle with basic arithmetic. Last Friday, when I was trying to give a quiz, on of my boy students hit a girl. She hit him back and I kicked both of them out of the class. The girl left, but the boy refused to move. He kept saying, “Pardonnez-moi madame. Pardonnez-moi.” I told the class that I wouldn’t start the quiz until he was out. The class yelled at him to leave and the ‘chef de classe’ or teacher’s aide, got up to force the boy out. Then the chef de classe and the boy fought. It was 20 minutes into the class before I gave the quiz. It was an easy quiz, but very few students passed. Many students tried to cheat, although I told them the quiz was open book.
Exhausting. But I feel that it will be rewarding overall. I also feel that I have a natural knack for teaching, and I remember something I read in A Course in Miracles: "Teach only love, for that is what you are"