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January 18, 2005

Living letters

After an hour of dodging the crowd of cars and motorcycles on the main road out of Cotonou, we finally turned off the tarmac road onto the dusty dirt road heading towards the village. 20 bouncy minutes later we pulled up at a village school, closed due to the teachers' strike for better pay. But among the mango trees, from a small structure of corrugated iron sheets over a simple wooden frame, came the tapping sounds of a stick on board followed by the murmur of responsive voices.

A dozen or so men and women, gathered in small groups around school desks, were watching Olivier as he pointed with his stick to the combinations of letters they had been learning, and they read them out:
Tap: "at!"
Tap: "it!"
Tap: "an!"
Tap: "in!"
Tap-tap "atin!".
One of the older women giggled as she recognised the word she had just read: "Tree!"

The class is in the Fon language. Each week the teacher writes "nukplonkplon enegoo" ("Class four") at the top of the blackboard, and some of the class recognise even the longer word already, and point it out and read it when they see it.

While the school teachers are on strike asking - reasonably enough perhaps - for more pay, Olivier and Theodore from the local church and trained by Mercy Ships, are offering their service as volunteers. The students are supposed to contribute, but few manage to come up with the 5p/week required.

The class splits into groups and they help each other out: young women laughing, with babies on their backs; older women, frowning with concentration at the unfamiliar symbols; and the young men, more at ease, and eager to show their knowledge by helping those who are struggling.

Literacy in Benin is about 41%. The inability to read or write is linked to poverty and disempowerment. When asked about their reasons for wanting to learn to read and write, responses from the class vary: to be able to help their children with their schooling; to get knowledge; to avoid ridicule; to find a job...

But most often people just say they want to be able to read the Bible - and above all to read it in their own language.

Posted by Keith at January 18, 2005 01:52 PM