Summer School

Last week marks the start of my teaching experience. After one week of teaching Beninese summer school these are the three things I’ve learned: I don’t mind teaching; I hate lesson planning; I really hate kids.

Long story short, it’s really hard to control a class of 40 Beninese 11-15 year olds. Luckily my moustache is starting to really hit its stride, so I think that multiplies my intimidation factor by a sizable margin.

So far I’ve had to flip a desk over (not as cool as it sounds, it was during break time and it was a very controlled flip), I had to take a kid’s a copybook, I’ve made the whole class stand up until they settled down, and my favorite so far, I quietly sat down and stared at them for a couple of minutes. Once I actually start teaching I have some other classroom management strategies I’m looking forward to trying out.

And the thing is, no matter how mean or harsh I think I’m being, I’m not using corporal punishment, so they will not think of me as being all that mean.

Some other things I’ve learned is that I never get through as much material as I think I will, that Beninese students take forever to copy anything into their copybook (many Beninese teachers give points for writing perfectly so the students tend to write really slowly so they don’t make any mistakes), and that individual work doesn’t really exist here.

This is the first of what will surely be a series of posts about my experiences teaching.

Since August is coming to a close, this is also as good a time as any to talk about Oro and Zangbeto. Admittedly, I am far from an expert on either of these subjects since I’m a male and neither of them really exists in the community I’ll be teaching in, but Oro and Zangbeto are two secret religious societies in Benin.

I’ll start with Zangbeto since they are the tamer of the two. The Zangbeto are a society of men who basically patrol the streets at night (were talking from about midnight to five AM). In theory they are a representation of ancient guardian spirits. They started out in Porto-Novo as protection for the king, and are now seen in many parts of the country. How it works is that at night they walk about making noises, if you hear them coming you should either get indoors or call out to them and explain what you are doing.

Part of the problem is that they only speak Gun (the local language for around Porto-Novo). No matter where you are in the country, they apparently will speak only Gun. Now, way back when I believe if they found you out after dark, that was it, they would kill you. Now I believe they will only detain you for a while and then you are free to go home.

The primary purpose of Zangbeto is to protect the town, they’re basically night guardians. My favorite thing about them is that they finish up at about five in the morning because, as it was explained to me, that’s when Muslims start going to mosque in the morning to pray, so the Zangbeto are a very religiously tolerant bunch.

And then there are the Oro, who are a much more serious bunch. The Oro are also supposedly ancient spirits who live in the sacred forests, and come out in August/September. Unlike the Zangbeto, the Oro do not exist for protection, they exist to purify the town. They are mostly located in the south and east of the country around Porto-Novo. Apparently my community used to have them, but the sacred forest is being deforested and they don’t really exist in Ouéssé anymore.

The Oro are a much more serious bunch because, in theory, if you see them you must be killed. Men are given the choice of joining the society, women are not. The good news is that they only come out at specific times that you should know ahead of time. Also exceptions are made for things like traveling.

Nowadays, the Oro only come out for three days in August or September, and during those days it is recommended that you stay at your house. Like Zangbeto they make a lot of noise and announce that they are coming.

Historically, before colonization happened, a lot of towns used spirits/fetishes like these as basically a police force. Some of them still exist today, but from what I can tell they are waning, and aren’t particularly scary or dangerous. It’s well known when and where they will be coming out, and can easily be avoided. For instance, one of the Oro days was this last week, no real problems.

This is just one aspect of traditional society in Benin, and this is also the first in what is likely a series of posts on how some aspects are still relevant today. Traditional religions or “voodoo” are still very active in parts of Benin today, and so far I haven’t had any negative interactions with them (although a walking haystack did come into our compound yesterday while I was doing laundry and apparently said that I wasn’t allowed to throw my water in the street).