Exam Revision

 It was revision week before exams, which meant that no one was really teaching (or reviewing for that matter). The school dissolving into chaos usually makes my want to go crazy myself, but at the end of term three, with the JSS III students busy sitting their mock final for the public examination, things felt slightly different. With JSS III occupied, I had five extra free periods which meant I could go into any class I felt like and teach. By some miraculous twist of fate, I had actually managed to cover almost all the review material I wanted to get through in JSS II by Tuesday, and I still had a double period scheduled with them on Thursday morning.

After lunch on Tuesday, many of the students began sneaking away from the school. I had spent the morning bouncing between the JSS I classrooms and another teacher had spent all morning making form II copy the periodic table into their notebooks, but other than that no one had been inside a classroom.

“Are you going to teach form two now?” I asked the science teacher, knowing that he was scheduled to teach them sixth period, but figuring that they had already had about all the science they could handle for one day.

“No, they’re all starting to leave,” he replied.

“We’re going to get off early then?” I asked, verbalizing the assumption that no one seemed willing to voice.

“I think so.” A definite yes.

“Okay, I’m going to teach form two for a few minutes then before we go,” I said. About half the class was present so teaching didn’t feel like a waste of time.

As the lesson was starting, it began to rain. The rain steadily increased as we reviewed perfect and continuous tenses. When I had finished everything I wanted to cover, I asked if the students wanted to go home. I knew full well that the answer would be no. Asking students to walk in the rain would be like asking them to eat hot coals.

“Let’s stay here first,” they replied.

“But Miss Kenley can balance the rain, so you will go and bring us an umbrella yes?” Betty Swaray joked, meaning that I could dodge raindrops.

“I’m too tired to balance the rain now, otherwise I would. But if we are going to be here, let’s try to translate stories into English,” I said. I figured translating stories from Krio to English was a good way to keep students occupied and help them understand the verb tenses I had been trying to teach. One student was elected to tell a story. His story was about a wild animal in the bush who killed dozens of people a week, a chief who promised to give his daughter in marriage to the man who killed the beast, and some twins with magic powers. Drawn to the expressive voice speaking a language they could understand, some of the form one students began to slip into the back of the class. When the tale had come to a close, I asked them to explain the story again in English.

“Okay, let me try,” Abdul Rahman said. As he talked, the others occasionally assisted with a word of interjected with a correction. The translating of the story eventually dissolved into the students trying to explain a word to me that they only knew in Mende.  

“That thing, it looks like dirty but it’s not a dirty.”

“Just say rock.”

“But it’s not a rock.”

“Look, look! There’s one there,” they pointed out the window.

I failed to see anything out of the ordinary despite their incessant pointing, so Osman ran outside in the rain and pointed to a small mound of dirt that I assumed was an animal’s burrow. Everyone had gotten out of their seats to stand by the window, and when Osman returned to the class no one bothered sitting down again. Instead they stood around Abdul Rahman’s desk, while he resumed his translating.

“Snake!” Sannie Swaray suddenly shouted, pointing out the window again. “There, there! In the tree!”

A long brownish-green snake was wound around a palm tree. It’s thick body encircled the tree several times and it stretched its head out in the rain like the arched neck of a swan. We abandoned the story-telling to watch the snake, because clearly a beast twenty yards away is more fascinating than the man-eating creature of an imaginary tale.  

If not for the rain, the students said they would go and kill it for me. I smiled to myself, thinking that it would be a shame to kill the snake, which was strangely fascinating. I found myself admiring its slow poise, the still power in its long coiled body.  Then again, my interest in saving the snake was not at all practical. They say snake meat is “sweet” and I’m sure it would have made a lovely addition to the evening plasas. Come to think of it, I probably should have demanded that the students go out in the rain and kill it, just so I could say that I ate a snake in Africa.