Choul Wang Chiok

Three weeks ago, we admitted a student from one of my most favourite countries – Bhutan, taking our total number of nationalities in my school to 57.

So what nationality would you say Choul Wang Chiok? Korean i thought - we boast North and South Koreans amongst our student body being located just 800 metres from the Korean Hospital. Choul is not Korean. Choul is born in a remote part of rural Ethiopia where Choul’s parents still live. Choul lives with an uncle, aunt, siblings and cousins in Addis.

What gender does Choul sound like to you? To me it sounds strong and thus masculine.

I see Choul in the playground always playing football.. A very tall and lanky Grade 3 student and probably the blackest of all my black students – and i have a lot of black students!

Both to myself and Miss Rakeb, his classroom teacher, he is a boy, despite on the attendance he is marked as a girl. But our new school nurse Nina starts to raise  doubts.

Choul suffers a chest injury after a cynical high tackle from Dagmawi and he is escorted to the nurse’s room for treatment. He is shouting to his friends “I am a boy! I am a boy!”

She checks him out and detects “developing breasts”. She goes back to Secretary/Records Officer Lidya who pulls out his admissions file. Completed by his guardians they have ticked “Female.” We also demand a copy of the birth certificate, which we have, but the cert has no indication of gender. A little strange.

I call in Head of SEN Rasta Rosenburg and ask her to “have a chat” with Choul and she is necessariy assured that he really is male, and i am somewhat pleased to pass on the info to Nurse Nina. No need to call in the guardians on what could be a somewhat tricky conference.

However Nina is persistent, and she comes back to me. She spoke to older sister, who informs her that Choul “doesn’t know if he is a boy or a girl”.

Are we dealing with something hermaphrodital here? Again i call Rosenburg to have yet another chat with “him”.

10 minutes later Choul, Rosenburg and i are sitting down in my office.

Choul means “bravest warrior” in his dialect. 

And yes, he does have a penis he informs us.s. 

Boy / Girl Choul