Spring Break 2012

Greeting from Freetown! I have been here since Monday taking in all of the luxuries like electricity, running water, internet and delicious food. It's going to be difficult to go back to site tomorrow, but school starts on Monday, so back to Kamabai I go. This week I came primarily for a Peace Corps training on life skills which was very informative. We learned a lot about ways to approach girls empowerment, teenage pregnancy and other difficult issues that we don't get to address in our formal classrooms. I have a lot of new ideas and hopefully once I get back to site I can begin to figure out the ones that will work best for my community. In addition to the Peace Corps stuff, I've been able to spend a lot of time with friends which has been great. It's so nice just to sit around talking or watching a movie because we don't get to see each other that much. We've been going out, to the beach, restaurants and shopping. I have been eating so many vegetables, it has made me so happy! They are really expensive here, but well worth it since I don't get yummy things like bell peppers, avocados and tomatoes in my town. Freetown has so many delicious things, like today we found a place that has pizza. Real pizza that tastes sooooooooo good. I had to take a picture of it before we ate it because I was worried that our friends wouldn't believe us when we described it.

On the trip into Freetown earlier this week Kim and I got a ride with a famous Sierra Leoneon rapper. I was star struck. This guy is on the radio all the time and everyone knows him here. When we got into Freetown, word got out that it was him and while we were stuck in traffic our car got mobbed by screaming fans. It was a little traumatic, but everything turned out okay. I mean only in Sierra Leone would this happen to me, crazy.

But tomorrow it will be back to the village and teaching. This week we are supposed to finish up exams from last term.  Before the break the kids took their integrated science exam and the results were not encouraging, as I expected. A very low number of students passed which was disheartening. So a lot of this term will be review of what we did last term. The senior students will have my biology exam this week and I don't think they are going to do that great since its been a solid 7 weeks since we've had class. But one can always hope.

The SSS III students have begun to take their external exams that they need to pass to graduate and go on to tertiary education. It's a staggered schedule and the exams take over a month to complete with each student sitting eight subjects. Even though I haven't directly taught SSS III their biology classes I did help them with extra classes after school to try and cover some topics on the syllabus that they hadn't gotten to. I was happy because students made a point to come up to me after the exam and thank me because the topics we had covered were on the exam and they were able to answer the questions. It was really nice to know that at least something I did helped them with their test.

When school first closed for the break I went to River Number Two Beach which is beautiful. I think I will definitely take my family there when they come to visit in August (so excited about that!). A small group of us went and it was a relaxing few days. Then I was back in Kamabai for a week of hanging out, cooking and reading. It rained for the first time which was awesome. I forgot how much I loved falling asleep to the sound of rain on my tin roof. Also it makes getting water so much easier. Just set a bucket outside and voila I have water to flush my toilet, so great.

On my last night in Freetown I think I am going to just chill out. We did it up pretty big last night, so tonight I'm going to just get my last dose of internet, pack up everything and hang out. Gotta get back in that village mindset. Love and miss you all!

Red House Una De De?!?!?!? (Red House are you here?!?!?)

Sport is finished. It was crazy fun, but I can’t really condone any activity that eats up a month of school time. Nevertheless when it came time to the actual events, the two day discorama, and the two day track and field meet it was a good time (see facebook for pictures). First came the rama, my favorite event. Not all schools have a rama I learned from other volunteers, so I was pumped that my school thought that this talent showesque event was worthwhile. My house (red house) dominated. I was so proud of the kids for working so hard to come first. The format of the rama was two days (Friday and Saturday). It was supposed to start at 9:30 pm but because nothing here ever starts on time, we would get started around 10:30 and would go until all hours of the morning. The first night I toughed it out and stayed until it finished at 3 am. The second night 3 am came and went and we still had two events left and with four houses doing each event I knew there was no way that I was going to make it so I went home. They didn’t finish up until 5 in the morning! Crazy kids.

The rama was so much fun though. First everyone gets really into supporting their houses. There was so much smack talk for the weeks leading up to the event. Thank God my house killed it, otherwise I would have been eating some serious humble pie.I got all decked out for the event with everything red. Shirt, shoes, earrings, headband, nail polish, bracelets, all red. My house was by far the most energetic, yelling and jumping every time it was our turn to perform. Part of your score is how loud the audience claps for you and how many people come up and throw money at the performer, so we had that part on lock. My favorite events were single dancing for boys and single dancing for girls. The boys were awesome. Breaking and locking better than anything I had seen in any music video. The performer for green house was one of my JSS II students, Mohamed, who is 12. He seriously killed it, it was so cool to watch. The girls, oh man how do I even start describing that event. Let's just say that there was so much booty shaking and getting low that if I hadn't been exposed to this kind of dancing for 10 months it would have made me feel uncomfortable. They used muscles that I didn't even know existed. I bet that I looked ridiculous standing at the front of the stage watching in awe as they broke it down, but it was so cool I couldn't help myself. I tried to take a video but my camera doesn't do the best at night and it didn't turn out so you will have to take my word for it, these kids can dance.

After all of the lip synching, melo drama and booty shaking fun of the rama we had a week to 'train' for the sport. For me this meant chilling at my house, working in the library, writing lesson notes, cooking and just hanging out. I got a little sick this week so it was nice not to have to teach. I only went to the field once to watch the kids train but it resulted in a fight between the kids over where I would stand, with my house, or with the person who brought me, a member of green house. By this point I was a little fed up with people losing their temper when anything competitive comes around so I just left. The actual 'sport' was on Friday and Saturday starting in the afternoon and going until it got dark, around seven. Red house performed well, but we still don't know who came first because they haven't announced the results yet. We weren't able to do all of the events because there was some drama and starting late of course so it is still up in the air, which makes a lot of people mad. Oh well, small small. 

Now we are in the interim before we give exams. I'm not too optimistic about the results of these exams. I mean we haven't had school for a month and when I was doing some reviewing with the handful of kids that did show up to school this week, they have not been studying in their time off from school. I can only hope for the best though. School will close next week Thursday and then it's break time! Not that I really need a break, I've had a month off from teaching. But I am going to go to Freetown for a couple days (we have a training) and hopefully a beach. I haven't been out of Kamabai for awhile so it will be nice to take a mini vacation. I'm excited for this weekend though because it is my friend Sara's birthday so a bunch of us are meeting up in Makeni to go to lunch and have a pool party at the hotel. And of course later going out dancing. It will be nice to catch up with everyone. 

Alright I think I have thoroughly exhausted this topic. Sorry for the rambling. Love and miss you all!

Discoramas and Chickens

Since I am basically on break from school I figured I would use some of my new found free time to update you all on what is going on over here. Currently, my school is in full swing of ‘sport’ effectively ending school until end of term exams. Last week and this week have been spent training for the upcoming ‘disco rama’ which will take place this Friday and Saturday. We were supposed to have classes in the morning and then training in the afternoon, but as soon as training was announced everyone left. Sure a handful of kids will show up on any given morning, but since there are not enough kids to hold class, they are just put to work building our stage for the rama. I mean I wouldn’t come to school either if I had to go tote water and stones for the stage, so I can’t really blame the kids. Also the stage for the rama isn’t completed and we’re supposed to be dancing on it in two days, so I’m curious to see how that will work out. Regardless of the ineffectiveness that sport has induced on my school, I’m still pumped to see the final product. I am a teacher in red house, so I have been attending the red house practices for the rama and the kids are spending a lot of time getting ready for this performance. I wish they would spend half as much time studying, but I mean what’s more fun, reading about the Euglena or breaking it down with your friends? I really hope that my house wins the rama, or at least does well. One of the teachers brought his friend from Makeni to train the kids, so this is serious stuff. Everything here is so competitive though, I know the kids will be really disappointed if they don’t win.

               

I went to Makeni yesterday to prepare for the sport which meant buying a crapton of red things, since I do not own anything of that color. But now that situation is remedied. I will be bluffing hard core with red sunglasses, jewelry, headbands, sandals and clothes. I’m going to look ridiculous and I can’t wait. I guess I will never get away from red, despite the protests from my hair which clashes wonderfully with that color. Once a Redwing, always a Redwing. 

Oh my goodness yesterday going to Makeni I had one of the most uncomfortable yet hilarious transportation situations. As you may or may not know, I am more than a little afraid of birds. Especially chickens. This stems from an incident I had with a certain parrot that escaped from its cage while I was house sitting and in my attempts to get it back in its home it bit me a few times. Not fun. Anyways, yesterday I was sitting in the back of a poda poda (a large Scooby Doo esque van) and everything was fine. Then a guy with a chicken gets in and sits behind me, with the chicken touching me. Now, being in transport with animals is not an unusual thing. I have traveled accompanied by goats, sheep and chickens aplenty, but normally they have the decency to give me my space. I had adjusted myself so the chicken wasn’t touching me when the apprentice puts a bag of three ducks right at my feet. In a poda poda it is not like I can switch my seat or put my feet up, there is just no space, so the only thing left for me to do was to ‘bear’ as they call it here, which means to just deal with it. Even though I thought I was doing an excellent job masking my discomfort after the second bump where I jerked my foot away from a duck bill, the lady next to me started cracking up and telling everyone in the poda that the white woman was afraid of the ducks. Awesome. When we got to Panlap, which is a town just a few miles outside of Makeni the dude with the chicken got out and I breathed a little easier. That is until another dude with THREE chickens got in and promptly set them down right next to the ducks. Like was there any other place in that huge van that those chickens could have gone? Did they need to be right next to me? I seriously contemplated hopping out and walking the rest of the way, but I didn’t because I have made it through a lot worse things in things in this country. If I can bathe in a community latrine I am not going to let six feathered creatures get the best of me. As soon as we reached Makeni though I was out of that poda ridiculously fast. This experience just went to show me that some things about me will never change, especially my unfounded fear of anything with a beak.

Well that about sums it up, I promise to take lots of pictures at the rama and sport and to eventually get them up online so you all can see. Hopefully, Mighty Red House will be victorious!

Term Two Continues . . .

Hello all!

I'm currently in Freetown for the weekend, so I get to enjoy unlimited internet at the hostel, awesome. Also, we have electricity and actual showers here, living in luxury :) Since I have some time to kill (waiting on my friends to get in to the city) I figured I would write a quck post while Cat and I are absorbed in the interwebs.

Things at site are good. Just truckin away with second term. We finished our test one this week, so I've been working my way through those. Unfortunately, the results aren't that great. Since I actually started teaching the first week, a lot of the kids who just started coming to school didn't have the full note, or weren't there for any of the explanation. I know that these are things that are out of my control, but I can't help feel responsible when only 8 kids out of 50 pass the exam. Back to the drawing board, to try and figure out how I can get those scores up!

I don't actually have anything monumental to write about, so I'll just include as many random stories as possible. I apologize in advance for the disjointedness that is about to ensue.

A few weeks ago, Seray's dad sent a chicken for me. She was amused when I told her that I didn't want it to stay in my house for the few days before we cooked it. (If you don't know, I have a weird fear of birds, even if they are tied up at the feet). After a few days we cooked it which was quite the process. I've watched this happen a few times, and one day I want to be the one actually doing it, but goodness gracious is it complicated. First you have to kill the chicken, but girls can't kill it, a man has to because if a woman kills a chicken it will curse their future children. Gonna get around that one some how. After that, you boil water to pour on it which makes the feathers easier to pluck out. Then you wash the chicken and roast it quick. Then you butcher it, which is by far, the most complicated part of the process. When you are done seperating the edible parts from the unedible parts you steam it for awhile. Then finally you get to cook it, we decided to fry it. To go with the fried chicken I sauteed green beans and radishes with some yummy seasonings. The lady who works at the greenhouse at the mission hooked me up. It was so nice to get some veggies :) The best part of the meal was when I made some instant cheesey potatoes that my mom sent me. All you have to do is boil the water and then stir in the mix. Seray was astonished and didn't believe me when I told her it was done cooking and we could eat it. I shared the meal with Seray, her brother and my friend Mohamed. They didn't like the vegetables but they loved the chicken and the potatoes. It was fun to mix some American food in with Salone ingredients. Cooking is always a good way to spend time with people in my community and perpetuate the idea that I eat crazy American food :)

Valentine's Day was huge here. In Kamabai we had an outing and a jam with artists and DJs coming from Makeni. I didn't go to the outing (which is like a jam during the day) but Jessie and Chelsea came in from their sites to hit up the jam. It was really fun. Everyone was bluffin hardcore with their Valentines' red on. The funniest moment had to be when a boy was pushing around a stroller with a cooler in it all around the dance floor. Inside of the cooler is what they call 'ice' which is a kind of frozen yogurt sweet treat. I mean I understand you want to sell, but people were breaking it down and the stroller almost got tipped over a few times :) We ended up leaving early before the artists got there, because we had school the next day, but it was still really fun.

Hmmm sorry can't think of any more stories and the internet is extremely distracting today, so this will be a short and sweet post. Love and miss you all!

Getting Back in the Swing of Things

Christmas break was great, but now it is back to reality and responsibilities, hmmph. We have just started our fourth week of school, so that means that now the kids are finally showing up consistently. Which is frustrating because I've been teaching some difficult stuff, especially in SS and the kids that are just now coming are completely lost. I've debated with just doing blow off stuff the first few weeks, but I can't bring myself to do it. Our class time is so limited as it is, and there is so much information to cover for the external exams that I have to teach material, there really isn't any time to waste. Talking about what I'm teaching, I'm currently trying to teach cellular respiration to my SS students. Struggle. I love them though because even though they think I am crazy and talking some weird science language, they are right there with me concentrating so hard and really trying to understand. I might have to explain it a million times, and it will definitely take awhile, but I am confident that they can get it. Regardless, prayers are always appreciated :)

With my JSS kids I'm trying to wrap up ecology with food chains/webs and we are coming into the different cycles (nitrogen, water, calcium etc.). I get a little frustrated sometimes because the JSS are the kids that have to do the work around the school which lately has meant making cement blocks for a stage that they are building. Because of this work they are often pulled out of class when I am teaching, especially one of my classes which is now so far behind. I don't have that many free periods so I haven't been able to make up the lost time. Today they made kids leave school if they had not paid their school fees, effectively ending school for the day because there were only about 5 kids in each class that had actually paid. Instead of getting frustrated with how far behind we were getting, I took all of the JSS 2 kids left (only 12 out of 150) and we went to the library. We actually have some really good lower level science books with lots of pictures and simple explanations of the things that they are learning, so we spent an hour and half just having them read the books and go through the pictures. They would ask me to help whenever they didn't know a word or didn't know what a picture was. It was really fun to try and explain to them how diverse life on Earth is and how even I had never heard of some of the plants and animals that they were asking about. I was really happy because these kids chose to stay and learn when they could have gone home. And it was really great because there were so few of them that we could laugh, be more informal and get to know each other better, all around making a positive experience out of a sucky situation.

I'm planning on meeting up with Cat to go visit Kim up in Rokupur this weekend, which I am really excited about. The Congotown Crew will be reunited! (We all lived next to each other in training in the part of Makeni called Congotown) I've been to Kim's site once, but only for one night, so it will be fun to really see the place. All of our sites and schools are so different, and I love going and visiting friends because then you get to see what they are experiencing everyday, who they talk to and where they go, which is really fun.

Overall today was a good day. After school I was going for a walk with my lapa tied (finally I have mastered how to tie the 2 yards of fabric called a lapa as a skirt without it falling down all the time), my hair braided, sucking an orange (they don't eat the whole thing here, only suck the juice) and greeting everyone in Krio and Limba. I realized that I'm finally starting to fit in here. Yeah I have a long ways to go, but you have to give credit to the good days, and today was definitely one of those.

Belated Christmas Post

I wrote this on December 27^th when I went to the mission to update this blog but then realized that everyone had gone to Freetown and there was no internet. So it’s a little late, but better late than never I guess.

Happy Christmas!

A belated Merry Christmas to you all! I hope that this holiday season has been filled with fellowship, festivities and of course delicious food. What I would give for some cabbage rolls, Grandma Ellie’s corn and of course those chocolate covered peanut butter bits of heaven called buckeyes. Earlier this week my friends and I listed all of the holiday foods that we were craving, which I realize now in retrospect was slightly masochistic since none of those things are available here. Oh well, there will be plenty of Christmases when I get back to indulge in all of those holiday treats. Christmas in Salone was different, but still a lot of fun. We are currently in the throes of ‘festive season’ as they call it here, the time right before Christmas until New Years. This means that almost every day there are football matches, dances or ‘outings’ which is like a picnic with a DJ. On Christmas Eve, one of my PCV friends came to Kamabai and we went out clubbing in Makeni, ya know because that’s a normal thing to do to get a person in the holiday spirit J

On Christmas morning we went to church and it was so awesome to see everyone all decked out in their Africana dress and fancy hairstyles. Even the little kids were bluffing (showing off) with their twenty five hair clips covering their entire head and painted finger nails. After church I showed Cat around Kamabai, we got some food and then took a nap before we went to the football game. For Christmas dinner we had acheke which is a delicious medley of gari (ground cassava root), macaroni, gravy, onion, egg, potato, meat, mayonnaise, and ketchup. Acheke is different every time you get it. It can also include beans, cucumber, cabbage, lettuce, spam, or if you want the expensive kind, even chicken. The acheke lady in my town has a habit of not ever being at the table to sell the acheke so I’ve gotten used to just making it for myself and leaving the money for her. So if the whole going to grad school thing after PC doesn’t work out, there is always the option of opening up an acheke business. Also I realize that acheke might sound like a ridiculous combination of ingredients, but take my word for it, whoever created this culinary phenomenon is a genius, the stuff is really good. Anyways, the rest of the day was pretty chill, we hung out, read some People magazines (thanks Mrs. Cormier!) and just talked. A lot of our PC experience is pretty individual so when we do get the chance to meet up with other PCVs it is nice to just hash out some of the things that we’re all going through, and of course to share funny stories about cultural misunderstandings. There was a really big Christmas dance that night, but we didn’t make it because we were tired and both having some stomach problems. We had just gotten back from Bo, and it’s pretty normal that anytime we travel and eat food at a different place, there are going to be some digestive issues. That has gotten a lot better since we first arrived, but I don’t think we’ll ever be fully adjusted to the food here.

So, on the whole Christmas was great. I am happy I chose to spend it in my community because Kamabai is my home in Salone and the place where I feel the closest connection to people. Yes, I admit it wasn’t a traditional Christmas, but it was still fun, shared with people that I love and at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter about the specifics of how you spend Christmas. What really matters is the presence of the Christmas spirit, rejoicing in the coming of Christ, being thankful for all of the opportunities and gifts He has bestowed on you, and wanting to share those opportunities and gifts with others. As long as that underlying spirit is there, it doesn’t matter your geographic location, because Christ is everywhere and in everyone. I love and miss you all and wish you a happy holiday season!

Christmas Break!

Oh exams week. I have been so crazy busy these last few days, giving exams, marking papers, and calculating final grades. It's so nice to be done! Now that I'm done I have to do some small work on a presentation for our upcoming PC training in Bo, try to finish the World Map mural that I've been working on (pictures soon, I promise) and get my house ready for being gone for over a week. I can't believe that the term is done. I feel like we were just getting on a role and now the time is up. It's a bit of a milestone though, six months in country and one teaching term under my belt and I feel a little bit accomplished :) I have learned so much these last six months and I am so excited to continuing learning and developing as an educator, positive female role model, and community member.

My birthday is coming up on Monday, and I think I may have been talked into throwing a party, which means food, dancing and a ton of people. Not ideal for my last day before I leave on a trip, but I will make it work. It's a birthday present enough to be seeing all of my PCV friends that I haven't seen in ages. It will be so nice to catch up with everyone and compare notes, talk teaching, and just take a break from teaching and community integration. I love living in Kamabai, but a little break will be nice.

I hope that everyone's holiday season is going well. I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas in case I don't update this before then. It doesn't even feel like December here. The weather is currently 80 degrees and sunny. It's funny though because at night it has been getting cold (let's say 55 degrees) and everyone has been complaining about it. They all think it's so funny when I say that I like the cold and the place that I come from is much colder than this. They can't really fathom how it could get any colder and you could not be sick all the time. So that's a fun thing to try and explain.

Oh! Earlier I posted a picture on facebook of me toting a bucket of water on my head and I joked about being able to tote the big bucket one day. Well I actually did tote that big bucket this week and we had to walk a lot farther to get water this time so I felt very African. I caused quite the uproar as I was passing and a few people even took my picture on their phone. So now their background is some white girl with a bucket of water on her head. Awesome. Anyways, I was proud of myself and wanted to share that little success story with you.

Finally, I just want to say thank you to everyone who has sent me birthday or Christmas cards. Especially everyone from St. Joseph's (thank you Mrs. Snyder!!). It was so nice to receive those and know that people are praying for me and my students.

Alright, I don't really have anything else to say. I will try to put up pictures soon, after I the holidays I'm sure I will have more pictures to put up, since Kamabai is supposed to be hopping during the season. Love and miss you all!