Pease On Earth: June 2012

The last day of the school year is referred to as son zeng, the last bell. Each graduating class (the best comparison would be each graduating homeroom) gets one hour in front of the school assembly to thank their teachers, perform skits, sing songs etc... This year, my counterpart suggested some of our students put on a play in English in honor of the graduating class. I jumped at the idea. My counterpart told me that she thinks American teachers are creative, so I should write the skit. The stipulations were it must be ten minutes and funny. It took a mere 30 seconds of thinking for me to realize that I wasn't really up to the task of writing an original, funny 6th grade Azeri skit in English. Thus, after several internet searches for basic scripts for ESL learners, I narrowed it down to Three Little Pigs, Jack and the Beanstalk, the Guest of Honor (a Turkish folktale), and Little Red Riding Hood. I consulted my counterpart and quickly eliminated the 3 Little Pigs. She thought it was hilarious to consider the students acting as pigs. But hilarious as in ridiculous, not funny hilarious. In addition to the fact that Muslims don't eat pork, the Azeri word for pig (donuz) is an insult, and the idea of the students running around dressed up like pigs wasn't quite kosher. Pun intended. This also reaffirmed my decision that not writing a "my idea of funny skit" was a good decision.

We settled on Little Red Riding Hood because there is a Russian tale that everyone here knows, Qirmizi Papaq (red cap), and it follows the same idea. My counterpart insisted we would save time because we wouldn't need to translate it. Fine by me. I printed off six scripts, assigned roles, and held 3 play practices at my house. We hit our first road bump when the student I assigned to be the narrator beat my counterpart to asking the orchestrator of the son zeng events about 6th grade students performing qirmizi papaq. Usually skits are reserved for the 11th graders (p.s. high school finishes after 11th grade in Az). Having no background information about the qirmizi papaq idea from my counterpart, the orchestrator immediately disregarded the student's inquiry. I told my students to start learning their lines anyways, my counterpart would follow up and we'd be back in the game. For whatever reasons though, even after my counterpart explained what we were planning, the orchestrator stuck to her guns and said olmaz (not allowed)! My counterpart tsked at her, muttering something about the school's bureaucracy. We were a bit disappointed, but decided we would do it next year, at a different school holiday. However, to my surprise, the very next day, I was sitting in the teacher's room when the assistant director approached me. She said a long string of Azeri words, the last of which were qirmizi papaq keçəcək! Hazirla! Red cap will pass. Prepare! I was surprised because my counterpart wasn't at school that day, and I hadn't raised the issue of the play again. Someone, however, was advocating for qirmizi papaq. That was all the inspiration I needed.

We had one week to prepare. One remnant of the Soviet Union's legacy in Azerbaijan's education system is that the students are damn good at rote memorization. For the first time, this worked to my advantage. The first practice was great. Enthusiasm was high. We got down the sequence of who speaks after who as well as spatial orientation. Mother's house-->forest-->grandmother's house. By the second practice, the students had their lines down. At one point, the woodsman got a little swing happy with his pretend axe. I had to point out to that the term "knock out the wolf" means one fell swoop of the axe to the wolf's head. It does NOT mean a complete massacre of the wolf OR a recreation of a deleted scene from the exorcist. To my great pleasure, the students took initiative to invent their own costumes. They supplied everything from little red's basket, to the wolf's mask and tail, to the woodman's axe. I was thoroughly impressed. In an effort to express my gratitude to them for being awesome, I decided to surprise them the day before the big show with ice cream after our final practice. I went to the market and picked up 8 ice cream bars before the dress rehearsal. Unfortunately, only the narrator and little red showed up. This made me nervous for a lot of reasons, but it wasn't all bad because those are the two parts with the most lines. [Note to self: don't feel bad about selecting your diligent students for lead roles]. We went through their lines together, and I helped them a bit with intonation. I realized that even when they understand the meaning of the sentence, intonation can still be difficult. It's a hard thing to teach. After that, we mostly ended up talking about our summer plans and eating icecream. Also, I'm not sure if I can count two people showing up for dress rehearsal as a road bump if I ended up with a net surplus of 6 ice cream bars.

Son zeng itself, the actual day of the performance, was a great example of the ups and down of Peace Corps work. I arrived at school with grandmother's scarf and name tags in tow at 10 o'clock. I had not been informed of our play's time slot, I just knew it was sometime between 10 and 1. Two of the students came up to me saying no one wanted to perform anymore. I asked if it was because the orchestrator said we didn't have time. They said no, it was because the crowd made them nervous. There were so many people, they thought no one would listen to them. I tsked (a habit I've acquired from xanims to express disapproval) and told them that if they perform just like they did at practice, the play will be a success no matter what. The crowd is not important. Then I whipped out their laminated-with-tape name tags, raising moral at least 5 points, and herded them into an empty classroom for one final practice. At the same time, the director's assistant was calling me to watch the 11th formers performances from a seat at the front of the assembly with the director and administrators. Sometimes, it's hard to get by without ever having an idea of the plan for these things. I politely excused myself for our rehearsal, pinned the tail on the wolf, tightened his mask, adjusted little red's riding hood and put grandma's glasses on right side up. We got one full practice in before being ushered back outside to watch. Sitting next to the director and his administrators for each class's performances, I had a front row seat to the battle for time keeping. If one class even seemed like it might be going longer than the time it was allotted, students from the other 11th grade classes would march right through their skit to the director's seat to ask how much time they had. For each class, it was a race to get through handing every student his/her diploma individually. At the beginning of the day, I had been told that we would perform at the very end. My students were excited because that means it would be the very last thing before the actual, final bell rang. Throughout the course of the three hours, qirmizi papaq was on and off at least 3 times. We had time for it. We wouldn't have time for it. We had time. We wouldn't have time. I could have taken this as a sign of the event's overall time and moral support for qirmizi papaq. I tried not to though. I remained patient, encouraged by my students waiting excitedly and nervously in their costumes when I looked back over my shoulder.

When we finally got our introduction at the end, my students marched out like the little champs they are and began smoothly. They had the additional factor of handing off microphones to each other to deal with as well. Despite their nerves, they delivered their lines in English with minimal errors, and I was really the only one who could detect those blips anyways. However, I think that not understanding what the students were saying increased the restlessness of the already restless crowd. Just over halfway into the play, the director turned on a previously latent microphone, thanked us for our performance and gave his closing remarks. That type of move from a director is not as abnormal in Azerbaijan as it would be in America. Still, I couldn't help feeling like some of those fears the students had about performing in front of a big audience came to fruition. I tried to encourage them the best I could, telling them that they did a great job with the parts that they got through, but I could tell they were disappointed. It was hard for me to be positive too, as at that time, I was feeling bitter towards being cut short. Mostly, I was thinking about the things I could have done differently to be a better facilitator. I just hated the idea that they could be left with the crash-and-burn feeling when they really didn't crash and burn at all. They did everything they were asked to do.

Reflecting now though on the whole experience of our first English play, I realize that it was MUCH more than the 6 minutes spectators witnessed at school today. It might take a little while, but I hope that one day when the students think about qirmizi papaq, they remember how special they felt when they were assigned a role. How excited they were when I told them the play was back on after being told we couldn't do it. How un-intimidating memorizing lines in English became when they highlighted just their part. How funny the wolf looked when he was dressed up as grandma. How they made each other laugh. How accomplished they felt when they finally nailed a difficult line. And how often they practiced their "The End" bow relative to the rest of the play. I also hope they know that I was very proud of them for trying something new with a tenacity I don't often witness students exhibiting for school-related things.

I took this picture and video during practice the day of our performance. I had to edit it down to just one part so I could post it. Notice little red's stellar intonation?

And some pictures from the son zeng celebration itself!