First brush with Balkh University students

I am back in Mazar.

This morning I had a rather unsatisfactory visit to Balkh University to meet the students of the English faculty, of whom my first, and doubtless over-hasty, impression was that they are a bunch of feckless ingrates. Maybe I am just pining for my dear, keen bright students in Khujand (northern Tajikistan), but this lot were even talking among themselves and on their mobiles while the Dean of their faculty was addressing them.

I had come as a result of an earlier meeting with the Dean, an elegantly dressed, mild mannered and courteous man, who was very encouraging when I suggested that I could offer the students extra English lessons. I wanted to offer group discussion classes, and perhaps also individual classes, as a way of making local friends and earning a bit of money. I roughly calculated how much I could charge to make it worthwhile for me but not too expensive for them – it seems that attending university is completely free, but it also seems likely that students do not come from the poorest families.

Of course, the memory of being treated like a celebrity and revered like a soothsayer while freelancing as an English teacher in Khujand was fresh in my mind.

When the Dean took me into one of the four classes, the students stood up initially to greet us, but then all slouched back in their seats (well, it is very hot), and resumed their interrupted conversations. Most of the girls had nasty candy coloured lipstick on, which clashes horribly with their skin colour. No burqas are worn in the university of course, but when the students take them off at the entrance, the mouth-shaped smears of fuchsia lipstick on the inside are revealed. The boys had quivering, oiled mustaches.

The girls greatly outnumbered the boys in the class I visited, and they were all very laidback and blasé. As they remained silent when I outlined my plan, I asked them for suggestions and advice on what might be needed. I received the following suggestions: buy a tape recorder, so we can practice; make sure we all have copies of the book you are using (from my own pocket? I could not help asking incredulously – there were at least 50 of them); you should use ‘Streamline’ for discussion classes; we want to learn the new expressions.

The assembled students are all in their last year of English, and their sole ambition is to become teachers of English in local schools, which perhaps explains why they are not particularly driven to improve their language skills beyond what is strictly necessary and locally available. By contrast in Northern Tajikistan, there is a strong feeling that English is the gateway to all the best and best paid jobs, which are all in foreign organizations. Young Tajiks are starved of contact with the outside world, and eager to escape to pastures new, while young Afghans perhaps feel that contact with the outside world is not necessarily all it’s cracked up to be.

I now think that some of the disagreeable impression they made on me (and I daresay the feeling was mutual), was due to their having been summoned there to meet me on the last day of term, before finally breaking up for summer, and because my classes, I think, had not been presented as optional.
Not to be put off, we agreed to meet again in three weeks’ time.