2005-11-05 - 11:34 a.m.

I got fired. A great start to the school year, I know. I’ve never been fired before. It’s kind of a new concept for me. I may exaggerate a bit, but I’m only slightly stretching the truth. Let me go back to the beginning.

Two weeks ago I arrived back from Selibaby overflowing with concepts and ideas for the new school year. The first day of school we had meetings almost all morning talking about class assignment and problems with the school. After they convened, I asked the director if we could go over my action plan for the year. I don’t like writing home about projects until they are done (it jinxes me and I’m quite ashamed when they fail), but serve it to say I have 8 I am currently working on, two of which are relevant to this story. The first is the fencing project I started working on last January. The idea was to install fencing in 3 elementary schools in Atar for school gardens. The major problem with that was nobody wanted the stuff. I was shaking money in people’s faces and they weren’t even flinching. Anyway, I decided to tone it down and just involve my school. In January we will hold a seminar inviting all of the school directors (20) in Atar to talk about how to establish and maintain a school garden, how to use it in school lessons and, of course, Moringa. The second project is to organize monthly assemblies in school. One of the classes will prepare a sketch that they will present to the rest of the school. After, I will have prepared something myself to entertain the children like a game or just me getting up and making a fool of myself.
Up until now I have had no problems with my director. Every time I do a project, or propose anything to him, he is always behind me 100 percent. When I showed him my action plan he barely even listened to what I had to say.
“Mohammed Lamine, You have been here a year now. You are free to do whatever you want.” I was therefore surprised when a week later Mariam told me she couldn’t work with me and I needed to see the director. In his office he told me,
“Oh, Mohammed Lamine, there is something new. I spoke with the inspector this morning and you can no longer work in the classes. You can work in the garden and that’s all.”
“What!? That’s not my job. I’m supposed to be in the classroom.”
“Well then you need to speak to him.” I stormed out of his office furious. I got my Peace Corps director Aw on the phone and began to relay the story. At first he was inquisitive
“What have you been doing that would have brought this on?”
“Nothing, I’m doing everything the same as last year. I’ve been going in the classes playing games with the kids. I just finished a set of sketches we are going to present at the end of the month. Nouha and I are working on the first lesson of the year.” He started to understand that I didn’t initiate this. I passed on the numbers of all the important people that were involved.

So you all understand better, here is a quick run down of the Mauritanian School system and how it relates to me. My school director’s immediate superior is the IDEN, or Inspector. The inspector visits the schools once or twice a year, sits in on classes and grades teachers on their ability. He passes down the law to the schools from his immediate supervisor, the DREN, or Director of Schools. Each region in Mauritania has a Director of schools. For anything that doesn’t have to do with the curriculum laid down in the national textbooks, he is the highest power. If he OKs any project or idea then it’s the law. Currently we have gone through a change of DREN’s in the Adrar. For the majority of this fiasco the old DREN was absent and the new DREN had not yet arrived.

During my first year here as a volunteer the Inspector has had no contact with me and was basically oblivious to my mission. I also suspect him of being a bigot when it comes to none Arabs as he refuses to shake my hand when he visits the school. When Aw spoke to both my director and the inspector about my job loss, they seemed to be arguing between themselves over where the problem lied. The director said that the inspector disapproved of me working in the classroom. The inspector said that what I did at the school was the director’s prerogative; it was just that I don’t have the right to teach. In the end the inspector agreed that my work was ok, but I needed to come in on Monday and show him what I was working on. In addition, Aw explained to me that the new DREN has worked with PC for years and is very excited about working with me. He told Aw that if the problem still existed when he arrived, he would regulate it.

Monday came and I went to school to get my director. One of the complaints I had with Aw was it seems the director is always supportive of my projects when I talk to him, but when it comes down to doing something, he more or less backs off and doesn’t raise a finger. When I had to go to the direction for the fencing project he sent me off alone to talk to the DREN. This time after some persuasion he decided to come along which gave me some hope that he took both me and my job seriously. Once there however, it quickly became apparent that not only was the IDEN not present for our meeting, but neither was anyone else. They had all gone to Akjoujt to meet the new DREN. This meant I wouldn’t be able to see anyone for 3 days or more because when the DREN arrived it would take that long for the changeover. I returned later that same day alone just to be sure there was no one there. I was in luck of sorts. The inspector that had accompanied me to a PC workshop in Nouakchott last spring was in his office. I sat down and presented him the problem showed him my action plan for the year and the lessons I was currently working on. He agreed that all was ok here and this was what had been presented in the meeting he has attended with me. He agreed I could go back to work till Wednesday when the new DREN would be in. Then I would have to come in again and show him the work. I passed by the school and the director was happy at the news. The next day however he said that he had telephoned the inspector who I had spoken to and he had changed his mind. I was not to enter the classroom until I had shown all of my work to the new DREN.

I twiddled my thumbs the next day and went back to school on Wednesday. The director told me then that the DREN had only just arrived and we couldn’t see him till Friday. Again I twiddled my thumbs. Friday came and I showed up to school in my best outfit trying to look as professional as is possible in a third world country. Upon arriving the director said to me in Hassanya that we would see the DREN at 10. As it was only 8:30, I sat down in a chair in the courtyard and waited. The minutes passed by and not a whole lot happened. It seemed odd. The teachers weren’t really talking to me and neither was the director. He kept running around doing this and that, checking the school over. ‘I must be like poison to these people, nobody wants anthing to do with me. They must have gotten some order not to talk to me or something.’ Nouha, possibly my best friend at school, barely even waved at me. Around 9:45 I started to get antsy, but the director seemed busier than ever. It didn’t seem we would be going anywhere in the near future. Five minutes later a truck pulled up to the school. Out walked a slim black man in a suit and an important looking white moor. Suddenly it all clicked. The director had meant that the DREN was coming here. I stood up and shook hands with both men. The Moor presented the other as the new DREN. The DREN himself told me his name was Sedente and recognized me as the PC volunteer. He was very warm and said he was looking forward to working with me during the next school year. I was polite in return, but did not bring up the problem, waiting for the director to take charge. Respecting hierarchy is incredibly important here, and I didn’t want to overstep my bounds. They began making the rounds in all the classrooms. Again I waited patiently. As they slowly moved through the classrooms on the way to the exit door, I got nervous and stood up incase interception was necessary. Thankfully I wasn’t forced to run out the door. They came back to the director’s office and sat down for a while longer. After 5 minutes or more they left the office and made to leave. This was my last chance. Obviously the director wasn’t going to help me out here. The DREN shook my hand to say goodbye and I said,
“Actually, if you have a moment we have a small problem that needs to be worked out.”
“What problem is that?”
“There seems to have been a misunderstanding between the inspector and the director as to my position here at the school.”
“What is that?”
“Environmental education, here is my action plan and current lessons I’m working on.” I gave him a copy and the director got a copy for the moor accompanying him. After a while the DREN looked up and asked where the problem was.
“I’m not sure, there was a miscommunication between the inspector and my director.”
“Which inspector?”
“I think it was Bezaid.”
At this point the white moor spoke up, “I’m Bezaid.” My face must have gotten beet red. I had thought Bezaid was one of the other directors. I excused myself profusely, and thankfully Bezaid laughed it off. After some discussion between themselves, they came to the conclusion that the problem wasn’t my lessons, but me teaching. In my contract I am not licensed as a teacher, and therefore do not have the right to teach in the classroom. The DREN finally explained that there were no problems with the program as long as I stopped teaching. If I did a lesson with a teacher I had to reserve all comments for outside of class I smiled and nodded though inside I wanted to explode. This is what I feared. It is true that in my contract I am not licensed as a teacher. However, it is in that capacity that I have had the most success. I love interacting with the kids and this would take away nearly all contact. I shook hands with both men and they went on their way.

The following week I must have had five separate meetings with the director to hash out what rights I do and don’t have in the school. I had to make sure I had some authority over the teachers to do the lessons I want. What we have worked out is a schedule so that each week I am prepping a lesson with one teacher and presenting with another. Also the skits will continue as schedule although I will not e able to do any directing as I had wanted to, so the quality of my pieces may be below par. I fought as hard as I could to get some rights back in respect to interacting with the kids. After an hour long argument with the inspector one day he said,

“Mohammen Lamine, I feel very fortunate that yo are here in our school. If I had my way you would be able to have free range over whatever you liked. However, I have rules I must follow. I like my chair here at the school. It is a good chair. It form fits to my body. I don’t want to lose it. I don’t want in a few months from now you to walk down the street and see me sitting there. You’ll say to yourself ‘hey, I know him. That’s the old director. To bad he got fired, the new director isn’t very nice at all. Oh well.’” Thank god he can still make me laugh. We shook hands and agreed that I would stick to the rules until I had further authorization from the DREN. I’m not sure what else to expect right now. Interacting with the kids is one of the most important parts of my job for me. I am working on a proposal to the DREN to allow me a class period each week to do activities with the kids, but I’m not holding my breath

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