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Marching skills seem to be a required skill around February.

For some unknown reason, in every culture there appears to be that one month, where rules, timeliness, and productivity seem to be thrown out the window. Suddenly, what used to be a calm workplace becomes some party central, and the outside world a playground of festivals, parades, and concerts. In America the festive time of year is December, around Christmas where Christmas shopping and office parties distract from well…everything else. In Russia it’s June, when summer finally shows its true colors and everyone wakes up from hibernation and goes outside to celebrate being alive with as many barbeques and vodka bottles as it takes to forget the winter. In Cameroon, especially in schools, this month is February where every day is almost literally an official holiday.

Starting from January, it’s unclear who seems less concerned about schoolwork: the teachers or the students. Teachers often have this fatalistic attitude towards the second half of the year. Many have tried to explain this to me: “You see, once Christmas is over, the whole school year is kind of done too. Nobody takes February seriously, soon after it’s Easter, and then well, May is basically exams!” What did not seem clear to me was where the other few months got swallowed up. Until now.

If there hasn’t been a blog entry this last month, I blame February, or what should be called “Fête-uary” (fête in French is the ever versatile word for any type of party). Not only is there National Bilingualism day, but there is International Youth Day, National Languages Day (to celebrate local dialects), and I can’t remember the rest. What started as national holidays became holiweeks, which turned into a mother load of holimonth. Worse is when you get sucked into the chaos yourself.

For example, the first week was National Bilingualism Week, celebrating French and English languages. As a native English speaker, the newest member of the English Department, and free labor, it could not have been surprising that I was named de-facto head of the English Club. My title was not on paper of course, because then I might have actually gotten official credit or “motivation” for my work.

the English Club students working even harder than anyone else

the English Club students working even harder than anyone else

Instead, when I should have been in class teaching my students English, I was busy working with other students to set up for the big week of performances, debates, arts and crafts, and everything else. So not only were some of my students, and other students from other grades missing class, but I was too. And when I wasn’t, my students were wired to the brim, since half of their teachers magically disappeared, and they had spent the whole day playing already. Why not continue the games in English class? Worse, the next week, Youth Week implicated me as well, not to mention the week after when I had convinced my school to let my good friend Janet Fofang come to visit with her school Tassah Academy. My old dreams of Peace Corps, guitar playing lazily in the shade of a palm tree “chillin” with locals were completely shattered as I spent day and night working with students, teachers, and administration to figure out how to make all this partying actually work.

And then there were 100 more students, from Tassah

And then there were 100 more students, from Tassah

Due to this chaos, many teachers and students took advantage of the “fêting” and checked out, first mentally, and then physically. It’s almost impressive to see how quickly students can pick up momentum, once the teachers start “disappearing”: first it’s a few students outside the classroom, slowly wandering from hallway to hallway, with the official “badges” hanging from their necks. Next thing is a few kids rough-housing on the doors of their classrooms, or drawing on the chalkboards which is fun to admire from afar, but terrifying if you actually have to experience it up close. Then, all of the sudden, it’s as if the classroom regurgitated whatever was inside, and the sudden explosion of fights, laughs, screams, and running engulf the entire inner courtyard, as the younger classes of 6th graders and 7th graders start rejoicing in their freedom in a sudden burst of energy as the “discipline masters” wave a white flag, giving up on any sort of order. This is about the time the older kids walk out and leave school in droves, because they’d rather be anywhere else really.

Many of us teachers shook our heads, wondering what on earth was going on. However, one by one, as our classes diminished from 90 to 45 to 10 students, we too, picked up our bags or brief cases, and wandered home, secretly (or not so secretly) enjoying the fact that there was no work to be done (unless you were, of course the Peace Corps Volunteer involved in every activity). The only solace to be found was that somehow, school would start up again in March, just in time for exams, based on the content that the students had learned in February. The only challenge was to figure out what exactly that had been!