This Tuesday, I had my first meeting with one of my tutoring partners, Kader Bogouma from Burkina Faso, Africa. Ok. Confession time. I thought I knew my geography. I have never heard of Burkina Faso. I had no idea it was a country. Yes, yes, I know. …Sad, right? Yes ma’am, it’s a country…Just like Zimbabwe or Nigeria, it’s for real. Oh, I felt so stupid.
Well, no need to harp. Moving along.
Kader’s actual name is Teebnooma Bougouma, but even in his hometown he goes by “Kader”. I told him how my own birth name is Ramona Lucinda, but I have gone by Lucy literally since I was born. Names are a strange thing. His cultural group in Burkina Faso are the “Mossi” who speak the “Moore” language. This is a language only spoken at home and in your insulated communities, otherwise the language of the nation is French. So, that puts Kader at two mastered languages and one what, secondary, tertiary, language? I am impressed. In his country he worked at learning English for 6 years, and hopes to stay here to study Economics- first going to TCC, then FSU. He’ll be attempting the TOEFL in June.
Kader and I worked on a report he needed for Ah Young Kim’s Writing class (a bad experience with the Kim, myself), but hey, we will do what we need to do. The report would be on Muhammad Ali. Hold the phone…Muhammad Ali? As in, infamous BLACK boxer who was turned out of restaurants in his hometown in the 1960’s, after becoming a boxing champ, only because he was BLACK? Briefly took on the name “Cassius X” because he wished to make a statement that Clay was the name he was given by slave purchasers here in the U.S…Yes, let’s talk slavery. Ah, and what was that Kader? You say you’re a practicing Muslim? Funny, Ali was born Cassius Clay and joined the Nation of Islam here, only to be blacklisted by Americans because of his faith. Almost thrown in jail over being a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War because he claimed ‘religious differences’. Ah yes, our first meeting, let’s just hit the high points of American ignorance, eh?
Well, indeed we did cover things. “Basically Kader, 60 years ago you and I could not be here together. You understand? But that is stupid. You understand? …Stupid.”
“Yes, stupid.”
Perfect. So we move along again.
We began by listing the things Kader already knew about Muhammad Ali, and then got online to gather more information. Here, we came across lots of great vocabulary. Words like “controversy” (we needed that one) and many terms- “underdog”, “blaze the trail”, and “burst on to the scene”. I became a little nervous watching Kader take notes ‘verbatim’ and tried to explain that in the U.S. we must cite our information, and usually we don’t want to take information verbatim from other works. He had not heard of citing and even after we talked, I don’t think he understood. Save that lesson for another day. Handle it, Kim. In any case, we outlined his paper together coming up with his thesis statement, three supporting statements, three ways to support those three statements, and a conclusion. I hardly saw him write much down, though. He wanted to work on it at home he said. Okay.
Did I mention that we were at All Saints? Not being from Tallahassee, and preferring the backwoods of my upbringing, I don’t take many Tallahassee sojourns (though this class is quickly changing that!) so I had never been to All Saints before, though I did know it to be the infamous hipster hangout. Nice spot, really. I love the arcade games and I’m thinking I’ll bring another partner there for a play date sometime. The strict vegetarian/vegan menu was a surprise, but that allowed Kader and me to talk a little culture. After an hour or so of Muhammad Ali, I purchased a bean and rice burrito which Kader didn’t really like, and this hydrolyzed soy protein (yeah, really good for you…right…) pizza thing, which he was pretty ok with. He found it very curious that people would be anti-meat. Me too, Kader. Me too. We agreed that in the future we would eat at places with meat.
And that about covers the high points. Boxing, I even got up to perform the “Ali Shuffle” and throw a few punches…we needed to learn the word ‘shuffle’… and meat-eating. On the way home we talked Lil Wayne. I then promptly returned home to recover normal estrogen levels with copious amounts of Meg Ryan movies and chocolate. Check Kader, and checkmate.
and then,
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