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August 13, 2008

The Passionate English Club

Harouna Sawadogo is the friendly owner of the Djibo Supermarket.

It's not really a Supermarket, at least not in the Tesco's sense - the lights aren't bright, aisles aren't wide and the smell of freshly baked bread is conspicuous by its absence. I think what gives Harouna's place its supermarché tag is that you can actually walk into it, as opposed to standing outside and pointing at what you want.

Harouna likes speaking English, and has the greeting sequence down to a tee, asking after my health, family, cows and so on in the clipped tones of the World Service. His mistakes are more contextual than grammatical - one day I arrived at the counter with my pasta and orange juice and Harouna barked 'You owe me 2,000 CFA' to which I replied 'No I don't'. Further discussion revealed that he was not trying to collect an outstanding debt but simply asking for payment for the pasta-and-orange-juice I was holding.

Anyway, Charlie and I were in the supermarket yesterday and Harouna told us about an English Club which he is starting up. He invited us to the inaugural meeting that afternoon. Charlie couldn't make it, but I went along out of curiosity.

There were eight men and two women at the English Club, and all the proceedings were in French. We spent most of the meeting discussing a suitable name for the club. 'Djibo English Club' was dismissed as too restricting and 'Apple Pie English Club' as too weird. We were going nowhere fast when Harouna said 'We're all passionate about learning English so let's call it the 'Passionate English Club'! The suggestion was greeted with universal approval, and was all set to be carved in stone in the club's Règlement Intérieur when someone asked for my thoughts about the name. Well, I had to be honest, didn't I, admitting that the 'Passionate English Club' might have potentially confusing nuances.

If only I had kept my mouth shut. The name eventually chosen was 'Independent English Club'. Out with the soulful Alexander McCall-Smith-like name and in with the brutally non-committal IEC. We went on to elect a committee (President, Secretary, Treasurer etc) and I found myself in the role of Conseil Technique which obliges the incumbent to teach the club a fully-blown English course. 'I don't have time for that!' I protested, so the nature of the role was changed - now the Conseil Technique just has to correct any grammatical mistakes which pop up during the club's meetings.

When the inaugural meeting of the Independent English Club finally came to a close, the Secrétaire Générale announced that we could now feel free to start speaking English if we so wished. We stood up and circulated and shook hands and mumbled to each other 'See you next time'. And everyone said it perfectly, so the Conseil Technique will just have to hold his fire.

Posted by sahelsteve at August 13, 2008 06:14 PM