Living here makes me remember daily that we are still fighting
colonialism. I went to a teacher appreciation day yesterday. It was 60
schools that were part of a health program for 3 years that Concern
World Wide conducted. They asked a director and one best teacher to
come to the event. The national inspectors were there who told them
how they should do their job well even if they aren’t paid, because
they made the choice to do the job and they are the ones who produce
the citizens of the country, the president, and the government officials.
What a slap in the face in some respects. The majority of these
teachers even in a public school will not get paid for months at a
time. Some people see 30 dollars a month. One dollar a day.
One of the inspectors made his speech in French. After I made my
argument for them to start thinking about the real problem of why
teachers can’t succeed in teaching the children concepts, because they
are teaching in a language no one speaks on Lagonav, one inspector
responded, “well yes we all know it is a problem but they say if you
speak Creole you are not educated.” Oh, we have so far to go.
Abner picked Robert Cajuste for our best teacher of the year. Here he
is receiving his appreciation gifts.
