FRENCH!
YOU DIDN’T THINK I WAS GOING TO WRITE IN FRENCH, DID YOU?
Hmmmm! Hey you know it is very amazing starting a whole academic year with a school. Like where I work in Morning Glory International School, in Abidjan – my aunt’s school- You know, so I just came here to work for the one year I will be waiting to go to the university, hopefully Greenhill College in Ghana, to study ICT.
Well back to what we were talking about; I was saying it has been an amazing, tiring, interesting, Francophone, Anglophone year. Wow! It is barely four more days to the end of the year(academic). Opps! It is five, yea but today is already ended so…
The first day I walked through these walls, on the 10th of July, 2007, it was a Tuesday I remember wearing my red hat, blue jeans, you could imagine things going through my head in this new world; especially when everywhere I passed, people greeted “Bonjour!”, some Good Morning! I guess I responded accordingly. Hahahah! I think so. I mean all I knew was the little French I had in my head from Juniour High
I remember one time I was so frustrated already with the French language. I mean I came here to learn but then, just in one year, I wanted to become a bilingual at least before going back to Ghana, my home country. So I asked Aunt Cecilia, the assistant headmistress of the school, ” How can I learn the French language fast?” I remember that day like it was yesterday. She was sitting down in front of the Grade One class and I approached her. She replied, “you just speak what you know, it doesn’t matter if it is wrong, just speak. People will correct you; besides I make mistakes everyday with the ‘la’ and the ‘le’ (the French and their articles before nouns).” I nodded and said thank you and went away thinking; how could it be possible? Then my dad echoed the same words into my head when I called him one day. He always asked, “How is the French going?” Of course generally I responded, “It is improving” and indeed it was. You didn’t expect me to lie, did you? My father advised me that you keep on speaking what you know, it doesn’t matter if people laugh at you”- trust me; the laughing, you wouldn’t like to take it at first but then it cools down after a while, because the same people that laugh at you also make mistakes in their English. – Of course, after the laughing there is the correction from both parties.
Honestly, you know what put me on the learning on the French course. I had a conversation with the administrator of the school, popularly called Tonton Jacques. He told me that I should be speaking French; like in another friend’s language, “faire une espère“… He told me that my uncle, Isaac, who brought me along to Abidjan, just speaks the language, making sure that people understood what he said. It did not matter if it is wrong or not. People will correct you. In my uncle’s own words, “but it isn’t my language.”
There is a man I can’t forget to mention, when I talk about my French life, Tonton Pierre, the man who polished my French with our little but good courses on Wednesdays and Mondays (wonder why I wrote Monday after Wednesday, 
) Yeah and there is it, he made it better; far better, though within a short time. Sometimes I wonder, “If I started earlier…” Many things happened with the French language tour with me. I’ll tell you a bit later.
Well, there we are 10th June, 2008, I’m so glad that this one year with Morning Glory will be soon over. Thank you, God! Like I wrote on Facebook; I’m going to have some long sleep! Of course then comes the summer school…I’ll talk about that too, another time.
THE OFFICE
When I talk about this place; it is where the main things take place. Everything goes through the MGIS administration work site; an amazing one story building, which you wouldn’t notice until you were told. From the gate, the first building is the bookshop, which my man, Tonton Jacques usually works (talked to him once this academic year. He said that he wouldn’t sit in that place next year, but rather in the Administrator’s office near the sick bay. It is much calmer there. You can’t blame the guy). Then after that the bookshop you are lead straight through to the main building. Of course you would meet the receptionist on you way in. Hmmmm! makes me think, receptionist! There has not been a consistent one since I came here last year. The first one I meet here was called Elsie. She was not your average slim woman. I know she will smile at this description if she saw it. Well, when the academic year started, she said she did not want to fill in any more, because of personal reasons, of course she was filling in, and so…you can’t blame her. The immediately came the sudden passing away of her mother, she left to Ghana, and that was it.
You wouldn’t believe who became the next secretary or receptionist? Me! Yea! Of course my uncle, Isaac is the only capable of pulling that one off. It did not work for long; I went back to my own corner in the office occasionally, and pulled out of the title. Sure, he complained a little that no one was sitting there so once a while I’d sat there… I came into that position, probably because I could type, what else! I could not answer that phone. I was in a francophone country, and you should have heard my French during that time… Would you answer the phone and be a secretary, receptionist for long when all you ever did on the computer was in the glaring eyes of the people coming in, and when you picked up the phone and there was a francophone and you could even said, “hold the line.” Interesting huh! No offense but NO!
Up till now there is no substantive secretary. My cousin, my auntie’s daughter, who just finished university in Ghana came over to sit in a little, but doesn’t really combine well since she teaches in the preschool class. So up till now, nothing!
The other offices have the Headmistresses places of course, and the assistant’s office which she doesn’t use -the assistant, Aunt Cecilia- She said she prefers teaching her class, Grade two. She usually comes in all the time to meet and talk with parents, and new comers. That’s about it, I’ll tell you later about my uncle, the financial controller; a title bestowed on him.
For more on the Abidjan stories, check out “Abidjan” under my category section on my page.
