welcome to the village

Office Hours

For second term, I started a policy utterly foreign to my students- I began holding office hours.  The teachers here share one “teachers room” and students are not really supposed to go inside, so my “office” is some grass on the side of a hill on our campus.  Three hours  a week, after the final class period of the day, I sit out there and talk to students who have questions, or just want to practice their English.  Here is a short snippet of the most entertaining conversation I had during office hours:

STUDENT: As we know, all Americans are very rich.

ME: Not all Americans are rich.  We have poor people too, and some even have to sleep on the streets.

STUDENT: No, it is not possible.  We have seen movies and they show us how you live.

ME: Movies are for entertainment.  They’re not real-

STUDENT: No, I do not think they can have fiction on television.

ME: Most movies are stories; dramas.  There is a Kinyarwanda radio drama that is very popular I am sure you have heard.  Movies are like that, fake.

STUDENT: No movies are real?

ME: Well, a few are.  Name a movie and I can tell you if it is real or not.

STUDENT: Terminator 2.

ME: That movie is- [incredulous pause]- you think that there are liquid metal people who can shapeshift and travel through time?

STUDENT: [shocked] Teacher, there are not?

{Scene.}