9th graders receiving letters from American penpals

9th graders receiving letters from American penpals
Originally uploaded by parisdelhi.

I had to explain to this ninth grade class that their American pen pals do not necessarily fit the stereotypes that they, the Togolese students, may have been drawing upon to imagine life in America. In fact while many differences exist, there are a striking number of similarities between the pen pals on each shore of the Atlantic: both are living in rural areas, both live and may even work in cotton growing zones, both pursue studies in underfunded school systems, both ride bikes without brakes and sometimes with little more than knobs for peddles.