Before I left the sweet succor of Antananarivo last week, I found a few games in the Peace Corps transit house--two of my favorites, in fact, Chess and Scrabble. I don't know if it's because I missed it so much or because my family is unable to sustain conversation, but when I was home this summer we must have spent a full 24 hours playing Scrabble. I decided it'd make a decent English-learning tool for some of my more advanced students, so when I saw a travel set with only 3 or 4 missing tiles, I stuffed it into my bag and headed for the exit. Chess, on the other hand, is for my sole enjoyment.
So far, I've taught just one of my students how to play them, and he's learning pretty quickly. I had thought that the logic and forethought involved in playing chess would be toxic to the Malagasy brain, but no aneurysms yet! However, I don't think there's a word (or concept) of "diagonal" in their language, so figuring out the Bishop has been challenging. I'm not sure why I didn't think of teaching someone these games earlier; they're fun and kill so much time. The kid prefers Scrabble to Chess because he says it's easier, but it's only because we weren't keeping score for the practice games. Just wait until I bust out "CRUSTACEANS" or something ridiculous along the 3x words. He'll rue the day he ever sat down to learn the game.
Meanwhile, school starts tomorrow and I seriously haven't given it an iota of thought. Maybe because it's only the first day (here, the teacher is just supposed to to introductions/class rules and let them go) or maybe because I can do this in my sleep at this point, but I've been too preoccupied with my own English vocabulary for the GRE on October 25th to worry about that of my students. Selfish, much? But, I've come to find out that my math capabilities have deteriorated to pathetic, infantile levels. I'm hoping that playing chess will wake my brain up in time for the test, as reading, alone, seems to have allowed my right hemisphere to go to a screen saver or just plain blue screen. Either that, or a year of teaching has led to a mass-suicide of neurons up there. On that note, wish me luck this tomorrow!
