SenegalStyle English Anglais Language Club

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I am sharing this so my students can read this... I will put my thoughts in the comments. Also read the comments from the people that are agreeing with this guy, THEN read mine.

I genuinely believe that most people who come to Africa to work for NGOs arrive with good intentions. Many studied development, politics, economics or global issues because they wanted to make a difference. They wanted to work for social justice, to reduce poverty, to empower women, children, people with disabilities and those pushed to the margins. I do not doubt that this was the starting point for the majority. But having lived and worked across Southern and West Africa for decades, in Botswana, Malawi, Nigeria and now Zambia, I have watched how quickly those intentions can become diluted, distorted and in some cases lost altogether.

What often happens is that people enter a bubble. The NGO world becomes a parallel society. They all know each other, socialise together, marry within the same circles and move as a group from country to country. In places like Blantyre, where I lived for a time, and now in Livingstone, this bubble is easy to spot. Branded four by fours, the same hotels, the same restaurants, the same social spaces. The people they claim to serve are rarely part of their social world. Africans exist in their lives mainly as beneficiaries, drivers, cleaners or staff, not as friends, equals or neighbours. Work is one thing, real life is another, and the two are kept firmly separate.

This separation matters. It creates emotional distance. It allows people to speak about poverty, vulnerability and empowerment in abstract terms while living lives of extraordinary comfort relative to the communities around them. I am not suggesting anyone should take vows of poverty, but there is something deeply uncomfortable about fighting inequality by day and retreating into insulated privilege by night. Power becomes addictive. Proximity to ministers, donors and international influence brings status. And somewhere along the line, the original purpose gets blurred.

I have heard directly from Zambian friends who worked at senior levels in international organisations, including the WHO, that genuinely transformative ideas were sometimes quietly discouraged. Not because they would not work, but because real solutions threaten the system itself. If a problem is solved, the programme ends. If the programme ends, the jobs disappear. So progress must be measured, but never too much. Enough to justify funding, not enough to remove the need for the organisation. Poverty becomes something to manage rather than eradicate.

This is how well intentioned people slide into white saviourism without realising it. A community of foreigners, from Europe, North America, Australia or elsewhere, with different languages and cultures, but united by whiteness. A blob that exists alongside African society rather than within it. And the tragedy is that this was never most of their intention.

That said, I know there are exceptions, and they matter. I know genuinely ethical organisations and individuals here in Zambia who live in the community, work with people not over them, and build relationships rooted in dignity rather than hierarchy. I can name some, which in itself is worrying because they should not be exceptional. I also know many local NGOs doing extraordinary work quietly, without glossy branding or international applause. And I know white foreigners who actively reject the bubble, who have deep friendships with Zambians, who listen more than they speak and who use their access to amplify local voices rather than drown them out.

Those people exist. They comment on my posts. They challenge injustice alongside Africans, not in front of them. They are allies, not saviours.

The problem is not NGOs as a concept. The problem is what happens when good intentions meet comfort, power and insulation. If you truly want to work for justice, you cannot live in a parallel universe. You have to step out of the bubble. You have to allow yourself to be changed by the place you claim to serve.

Last week's lesson

Lateral Thinking Puzzles

1. A man who lives in a 30-story building decides to jump out of his window. He survives the fall with no injuries. How did that happen?
Answer: He may live in a 30-story building, but he jumped out a first-floor window.

2. Laura is restrained all night long, with her hands pinned to her sides, and cries out occasionally, while someone watches her on a video camera. No one is alarmed, and Laura is happy in the morning. Why?
Answer: Laura is a baby who is swaddled, and her mother is watching her via a baby monitor. Though she cries out a few times during the night, she goes back to sleep and is well rested in the morning.

3. A man is condemned to death. He has to choose from three rooms to accept his punishment. The first room has a firing squad with guns loaded. The second room has a blazing fire. The third room is full of tigers that haven’t eaten for six months. Which room should he choose?
Answer: The room full of tigers. If the tigers haven’t eaten for six months, they’ll be dead.

4. Three-year-old Lily goes missing, and her parents are devastated. They desperately try to find her, searching everywhere and putting up flyers asking for her safe return, but the FBI and even local law enforcement refuse to help. Why?
Answer: Lily is a dog.

5. A woman lives on the 30th floor and hates taking the stairs. Every day, she takes the elevator down to the lobby floor to go to work. When she comes home from work, she takes the elevator to the 20th floor and walks the rest of the way up, except on days when it rains. Those days, she takes the elevator all the way up. Why does she walk the last 10 flights of stairs if she hates it so much?
Answer: The woman is too petite to reach the button for the 30th floor. She can only reach the 20th-floor button. On days when it rains, she uses her umbrella to hit the button for the 30th floor.

6. A man pushes his car until he reaches a hotel. When he arrives, he realizes he’s bankrupt. What happened?
Answer: He’s playing Monopoly, and his piece is the car. He lands on a space with a hotel and doesn’t have the money to pay the fee.
7. A woman opened a door, screamed and was found dead a few minutes later. No gunshots were heard in the area. What happened to her?
Answer: She was on an airplane, opened the door while the plane was in flight and fell to her death.

8. Sam wouldn’t stop playing video games, despite his father’s pleas. To keep Sam from playing video games all the time, his dad grabbed a hammer and solved the problem. Now he can play video games, but Sam cannot. What did the dad do?
Answer: The dad built a shelf out of Sam’s reach and put the video-game console up there. The dad can still reach it to play, but Sam cannot.

9. After a night of partying with her friends, a woman arrives home and finds that she cannot enter the house. She’s sure that she’s at the right home, but she can’t get inside. Why not?
Answer: Her friends took away her keys because she’d had too much to drink. They called her a cab to get home and kept her keys, which meant she didn’t have her house key.

10. Every two weeks, a woman sits down and writes two words on 60 sheets of paper. Why does she do this?
Answer: The woman owns her own business with 60 employees. Every week, she signs her name on their paychecks.

11. A man is stranded on a deserted island. There are no means of transportation available to him anywhere, yet he somehow manages to escape without swimming away or anyone coming to the island to rescue him. How did he do it?
Answer: When the tide went out, it exposed a massive sandbar that led to a populated island, which he was then able to walk to.

12. A woman walked up to a man behind a counter and handed him a book. He looked at it and said, “That will be $4.” She paid him and walked out without the book. He saw her leave but did not call her back. Why?
Answer: She was returning an overdue library book.

13. A man and his wife are on the side of the road in their parked car when a stranger suddenly enters the vehicle. However, the couple is not alarmed. Why?
Answer: The woman is pregnant and gives birth in the car. The stranger is the baby, and the parents are happy to meet their new bundle of joy.

14. A man walks into a bar and asks the bartender for a glass of water. The bartender pulls out a gun and points it at the man. The man says, “Thank you,” and walks out.
Answer: The man had hiccups and the gun scared them out of him, to which he said, “Thank you.”

15. John goes to the same woman every day for advice. He trusts her implicitly and always follows her directions, but he has no intention of ever meeting her, and he never asks her about herself. What’s stopping him from developing a more meaningful relationship with her?
Answer: The woman is not a real person. She’s the voice on his car’s GPS.

16. A woman married 10 different men over the course of her ‘lifetime, but she never got divorced, she wasn’t widowed and she wasn’t a polygamist. How is this possible?
Answer: She was an actress, and she “married” 10 different men while playing different roles.

17. A man is racing through the streets at 200 mph. He passes men, women and even children. Cops see him go by, and yet he never gets a ticket. How?
Answer: He’s a driver in the Monaco Grand Prix.

18. A woman books a flight to London in the morning, makes reservations in New York for lunch and buys Cirque de Soleil tickets in Vegas for an 8 p.m. show—all for the same day. How will she make it to each of these places in time?
Answer: She won’t. She’s a travel agent booking reservations for three different clients.

19. A man stepped on top of a diamond, which caused his leg to break. What happened to him?
Answer: He was a skier on a black diamond slope who broke his leg in a crash.
20. A man isn’t alarmed to see sharks swarming around him, despite there being blood in the water. How did he survive this encounter?
Answer: He was in a shark-diving cage, and the company that organized the experience put blood in the water to attract the sharks.

21. Tom was walking through the woods when all of a sudden, he was shot repeatedly. He survived the attack without serious injury. How is that possible?
Answer: He was playing paintball.

22. Loud voices were heard coming from a room behind a door. However, when the room was checked, there was only one person sitting inside quietly. This person was completely sane, so what’s going on?
Answer: The person was watching TV.

23. If you were alone in a dark room, with only one match and an oil lamp, a fireplace and a candle to choose from, which would you light first?
Answer: The match. You can’t light any of the rest of the objects without first lighting the match.
24. Joe was born in 1955 and died in 1980 at the age of 75. How can this be?
Answer: He was born in hospital room 1955 and died in hospital room 1980.

25. A woman enters a house that isn’t hers. She doesn’t live there and isn’t related to anyone who does. Though the homeowners are home, they say nothing when she leaves with some of their stuff. Who is she, and what did she take?
Answer: She’s the housecleaner, and she removed the trash.

26. Two men enter a bar. They are served identical drinks. After taking a few sips, one lives and the other dies. What happened?
Answer: One of them is deathly allergic to an ingredient in the drink, and the other is not.

27. A man is driving down the highway at 65 miles per hour in a 65 mph zone. He passes three cars going 60 miles per hour, then gets pulled over by a police officer and is given a ticket. Why?
Answer: He’s driving the wrong way down the highway.

28. You are standing in a room in front of three light switches in the off position. They are connected to three lightbulbs behind a door in another room. You can do anything you want with the switches, but only one can remain on at a time. When you walk into the next room, you need to know which switch is connected to which bulb. How can you do that?
Answer: Turn on the first switch and leave it on for five minutes. Then turn it off and turn on the next switch, and go into the other room. You now know that the second switch turned on the light that is currently on. The first switch you flipped turns on the bulb that is still warm. The switch you never flipped is connected to the bulb that is still cold.

29. A family has a chicken coop for their 12 chickens. One night, a tornado ripped through the neighborhood and sadly killed all but eight chickens. How many chickens did the family have the next morning?
Answer: Still 12—four dead and eight alive.

30. Everyone hates when Susan snores, because it’s loud and annoying, but today in particular, her snoring is causing you to panic. Why?
Answer: Susan is a taxi driver, and you’re her passenger.
31. A man talks in great detail about a gruesome murder he planned and carried out, but he isn’t arrested. Why not?
Answer: He’s on a talk show, discussing the plot of his new book.

32. A man aimed his gun at his victim and pulled the trigger. He very quickly realized his mistake, and minutes later, the killer was dead too. What happened?
Answer: The killer and the victim were on a snowy mountain, and he fired his gun near a cliff with snow. The shot triggered an avalanche that he couldn’t outrun.

33. Lucy commits a murder every single day, yet no one reports that the victims are missing. She even keeps trophies of the killings and displays them for the rest of her family to see, yet no one calls the police. Why?
Answer: Lucy is a cat, and she’s killing mice and birds, then leaving them as “gifts” for her owners.

34. There are explosives in a building, and everyone is told to evacuate. The explosives detonate, and the building is destroyed, but there is no investigation or subsequent arrest. Why?
Answer: It was a planned building demolition.

35. Jack and Jill were found dead on the floor of the living room, surrounded by broken glass and water. They don’t have any obvious signs of trauma, and no weapons are found nearby. What happened?
Answer: Jack and Jill are fish, and someone knocked over their fishbowl.

36. More than 50 vehicles are involved in a fiery accident. The crash is so large that military and emergency vehicles arrive at the scene. However, there are no injuries despite the size of the crash. How?
Answer: The crash is part of a video game.

37. There is a dead man alone in a field with nothing near him except an unopened package. How did he die?
Answer: He jumped out of a plane, and the unopened package was his parachute that failed to deploy.

38. A woman grabs a man’s ring and pulls on it. They both die minutes later. What happened?
Answer: She pulled the ring out of a gr***de, which then exploded.

39. An international group of highly skilled people is shocked to find one of their colleagues murdered. The man is surrounded by blood, but there are no footprints around the scene of the crime. Authorities in several countries know what has happened, but none can arrest the killer. Why not?
Answer: The man was an astronaut who was murdered on the International Space Station. Blood splatters more in space than it does on Earth, and there are no footprints due to the weightlessness of the killer. The arrest will have to wait until the astronauts come back to Earth.

40. Sally is in perfect health, yet she weighs nothing. She adheres to a special diet but otherwise goes about her day as usual. One day, when she gets home from work, she weighs 130 pounds. How can this be?
Answer: Sally is an astronaut who has recently returned from space.

41. Twelve men entered a hot area where temperatures soared to temperatures not compatible with life, but they didn’t die. How is that possible?
Answer: They were gingerbread men baking in an oven.

42. George is unemployed without a penny to his name. He lives in a mansion he doesn’t pay for and has all his needs met. George isn’t a criminal, so how does he get away with it?
Answer: George is 6 years old.

43. A boy learns about a man who was murdered in the theater. He tells all of his classmates about it, but nobody goes to the police. In fact, though the boy seems to know all the details of the man’s death, nobody questions him at all. Why?
Answer: The boy is giving a presentation on Abraham Lincoln to his class.

44. A woman had two sons. They were born at the same hour on the same day of the same month in the same year. However, they were not twins. How could this be?
Answer: They’re triplets—there is a third child.

45. Sandy entered a busy restaurant where people were eating during the dinner rush. When everyone saw Sandy, they dropped their silverware and ran out. Why?
Answer: Sandy is a lion that escaped from the circus visiting the town.

46. Six pieces of coal, a carrot and a scarf are lying on the lawn, but no one put them there. How did they end up on the ground?
Answer: A snowman was built in the yard, and the snow has since melted, leaving the eyes, nose, mouth and scarf on the ground.

47. A man dives for lobsters for a living. One day, he finds himself face to face with a shark and has no way to defend himself, but he isn’t worried. Why?
Answer: It was the diver’s day off, and he went to an aquarium. The shark that confronted him was in a tank and behind glass.

48. Three people enter a room, but only two walk out. The room is empty. Where is the third person?
Answer: The third person is a baby who crawled out of the room.

49. There are a dozen eggs in a carton. Twelve people each take a single egg, but there is one egg left in the carton. How?
Answer: The 12th person takes the egg and the carton, leaving the egg inside.

50. A child eats breakfast at 7 a.m., lunch at 7 a.m. and dinner at 7 a.m.—all on the same day. How is this possible?
Answer: The child is on a long airplane ride and traveling through different time zones.

Let's talk about business this week... big business: Egg Farming! ,

TITLE: Senegal businesswoman wins $4.6 million to boost Gade Gui egg output - Billionaires.Africa

SPECIAL INTEREST: What spices help chickens lay eggs?
Herbs and their benefits
Garlic: laying stimulant.
Ginger: high in vitamins, parasite control.
Parsley: laying stimulant.
Thyme: helps with respiratory health.
Basil: antibacterial.
Oregano: boosts immunity, combats coccidia.
Nettle: Increases egg production.

Senegal businesswoman wins $4.6m to boost egg output Adama Sène Cissé secures $4.6 million from Proparco to expand Gade Gui’s egg production, boosting Senegal’s local food supply.

From the book The 5th Column talking about the media... I am going to discuss this in my English class and let them draw parelles in their own society and experience.

The book was written over 50 years ago but is still true today, moreso now because it's all owned by the u know who's and they set the Agenda WORLDWIDE, specifically in the white, western, world.

QUOTE:

"There are words that, under the guise of warning, seek above all to instill fear.

Under the guise of clairvoyance and burning patriotism, he emphatically recycles this old temptation:

Designating imaginary enemies to mask real contradictions.

We come away stunned, not by the depth of the words, but by his pretension to see clearly where he mainly sows fog."

YEP. Just think of the series MAD MEN about advertising and how they manipulate reality behind the scenes to create a world view and spider's web of consumerism and control that has everyone still stuck on stupid today.

A prime example is DEI... look at who has been benefitting the most and who is ACTUALLY benefitting the least, yet it's the LEAST OF YOU that are doing the MOST with the Target boycott for example, when most of them are doing NOTHING FOR YOU.

The stores will go to online shopping only and ultimately close. Then you'll be saying they are racist for putting all them (white, brown yellow and then black), employees out of work.

But is it though? The CEO retired (again) and got a nice fat golden parachute... so who actually won?

English Lesson 4next week:
APOLOGIES...
How not to have to or if you do, DO IT RIGHT!

This is my list of movies and tv shows that are a great representation of the American entertainment industry and shows ADOS/Black American in particular, in positive roles (most of them!) as fellow human travellers on planet earth and not ugly stereotypes.

Some are political, some are Mafia! lol! All are great movies and tv shows though, family friendly with no gay/trans agenda (2) that I have made note of so you won't be surprised or you can avoid it. I added them because people need to know how they target teenagers and young children in America with tv shows that sound and look innocent, but they are everything BUT innocent. They will have an interesting story line and repeatedly show unnatural scenes over and over and over so by the end of the series, everything seems normal in their brain. When they see people behaving like they do on tv... it's normal right?

That's how they will bring this trans agenda to Africa and why I included it here, so you will be able to spot it when you see it, turn off the tv and go outside with your kids.

AMERICAN/UK OTHER FRIENDS: if you would like to add anything to the list, feel free! This is basically what I have locked and loaded on my computer right now! I didn't look anything up on google, it's what's on my C drive under 'movies and tv shows!' I only watch multicultural images, nothing demonic if I can help it, with positive characters and good writing. Some are UK/Australian or Caribbean (Death in Paradise cast photo on the bottom - great family friendly series but start at Season 13/2024 because up until that point, the cast wasn't the same) but ALL of these are really good so ENJOY!

Movies & TV Shows
American Skin – GREAT MOVIE
Fist Fight
Foster Boy – GREAT MOVIE
Fracture
Ghosts of Mars – Ice Cube
Higher Learning – Ice Cube CLASSIC
Knives Out
Miami Vice
Salt-N-Pepa
One Night in Miami - Errybody
Deuces - Errybody
Fallen - Denzel
NYC Epicenters* - Spike but info is outdated
Red One – Rock
Skylines
The Black Phone – old school psych horror
The Incredible Hulk – I slept on this – GOOD
The Tax Collector
The 4:30 Movie
The Birthday Cake – Aldis Hodge Mafia movie
The Dogs of War – classic
The Mule
The Old Man – tv series, pretty good
The Order
The Take
The Tower – tv series
The Veil
Time Bandits – tv series
Bruiser – B list Black, very good stepdad flick
Trafficked – tv series
The Fire Inside
Government Gangsters – PLEASE WATCH
Ballerina from the World of John Wick
Foundation – TV series
Jesus Christ Superstar
The Amateur
Wayward – HELLA TRANS/GAY teen tv series
The Twelve – tv series
The Terminal List Dark Wolf – tv series
Slow Horses – tv series
Peacemaker – HELLA GAY & SUPER VIOLENT
Death in Paradise – Caribbean tv family friendly
Bad Boys Ride or Die
BMF – tv series
Boss Baby series – the ONLY cartoon I let me grandson watch along with a French one by Tony Parker
Fatal Affair – green eye’d dude… 4get his name
Green Zone
Love, Beats, Rhymes
Richard Jewell – WATCH THIS
Scary Movie Collection (never saw it still!)
The Killer
The Manchurian Candidate THE ORIGINAL 1962 – WATCH THIS ONE
Till – Emmit Till
V for Vendetta CLASSIC WATCH THIS
Girl you know it’s True – SOOOO GOOD Nilli Vanilli
Half of a Yellow Sun – African history Biafra
War of the Worlds 2025
The Conjuring
Hollywood Shuffle – classi c black flick
Kill Em All – documentary
Black Comedy in America series (episode 3)
Bob Marley One Love 2024 VERY GOOD
Coming From America series (episode 6)
Get Out
Servant of the People
The Donut King – documentary
Mysteries of the abandoned series (s011e07)

American movies I have in French that I showed in my restaurant bcuz they were family friendly & action without drug use and crazy stuff going on:

Mission Impossible
Mad Max Fury Road
Les Profs
Jarhead 3 The Siege (Sam L Jackson)
Extraction
How to be Single
Viva le France

NEXT:

'The Prince' by Niccolò Machiavelli, written in 1513. A short treatise on how to acquire power, create a state, and keep it.

Clan of the Cave Bear' by Jean M. Auel. A prehistoric fiction novel by Jean M. Auel about a Cro-Magnon girl adopted by a Neanderthal clan. This is the origins of mankind written in a way that's easy to understand and meticulously researched and documented. It should have mandatory for high school, in my opinion.

What I like to do is not only teach conversational English thru conjugation and verbs, but I like to teach my students to THINK, specifically, to think about things they may not have thought about before!

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SenegalStyle English Language Club, Ouest Foire, Dakar (2025) Welcome to SenegalStyle English! My specialty is teaching PHONICS 2 EVERYONE