Locked Out?

Very simple things were all I wanted this morning. I needed matches (because instead of buying their own my family uses mine), soap, phone credit, eggs for breakfast, and a new gas tank because mine was out. All of these things should be found at any boutique. 45 minutes later I had soap, eggs, and matches and then I had to wait for someone to open the door to the main house so I could sneak in and use their gas since I couldn't find a boutique that had any. That nice boutique I found a while back? Yeah, I don't like them anymore. I walked all the way there and the guy let half the quartier cut in front of me and then joined in the laughter as all of the kids, teenagers, and adults mocked my Wolof accent. My only solace that I scared the crap out of a toddler whose mom cut in front of me in line. Karma.

Today was also supposed to be the day of my lockout experiment. I told my Junior Achievement students last week that if they were more than 15 minutes late today that they would be locked out and couldn't attend class. I arrived 15 minutes early to make sure I was there on time and to get everything ready. As usual the room was still locked when I got there so I went on a search for the key. One would think that a school would have a master set of keys; this is apparently not the case at the Lycee Technique. Each professor who uses the room has a key for it, but there's no one who's generally in charge and can open all of the doors. Efficient. Why did my experiment fail you ask? Well, it took me 45 minutes to fins someone with a key to open the door, which allowed of my students to be their requisite 30 minutes late.

Otherwise, my Junior Achievement class went well. It was the final class before Talla and a few other professors come and judge the students' ideas. Today's subject was marketing and I struggled to convey the importance of market research while everyone just wanted to create marketing material and ads with the colored pencils I brought. I don't think that I adequately explained target market or anything else non-creative, but hopefully they took something away with them today. What they have not taken away is the fact that when they complete this Junior Achievement course I'm not going to give them a bag of unmarked bills nor will I go to the mayor's office for them and register their businesses alone, they don't want to come with me.

Back at home, I ran around the house with Ahmed - literally. He loves running in a circle around our house and courtyard. I taught him 1,2,3 go which he loves because it gives him greater opportunity to cheat!