So today marks my one year anniversary in Sierra Leone!! WOOHOO!!! Things are going great. Love the work and have no regrets about volunteer two years of my life to live and work in Sierra Leone.
Tuesday May 29th
Well I’ve
decided to update my blog since I have had the past 2 days off from
school. I fainted in class Monday
morning which apparently terrified the students and staff so they have forced
me to just rest and relax. Which to be
honest I am fine with. I really was
quite exhausted yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed being able to just lay in bed
and read or sleep all day. And today I
have been able to plan for my girls club, record grades, wash my hair, and now
try and update all of you lovely folks out there reading this. So you may be wondering what caused me to
faint.. The most likely culprit is dehydration and low blood sugar. Anyways the event caused quite an uproar in
school and all of my students came to see me after school to tell me
sorry. Poor kids. Can you imagine a
foreign white woman just collapsing in the middle of teaching you how to change
decimals to fractions? Literally every kid in all 4 of the classrooms in the
building was on his/her feet and rushing to see what happened. Oh man. Well at least I finally accomplished
my goal of getting everyone in the class to pay attention to me and not sleep.
ha And I have had a nice little 2 day vacation to catch up on some much needed
rest and to get a little ahead in my work.
Also, Mohamed has been the best nurse taking care of me and lecturing me
that my health is more important than teaching, and “health is wealth.” ha At
least he is looking out for me. Oh and
my sitemate Chelsea has malaria. Things
haven’t been great for the girls in Fadugu (update as of May 31st,
her health is much improved. The malaria is gone she is just a little weak.)
Well that
has easily been the most exciting event in my life for the past month but let
me try and update you on the other mundane occurrences in my life. School is going alright. We just had midterms last week and as per
usual the majority of my students failed the exam. Even my JSS 1 students failed and their exam
was just 4 questions, one of addition and subtraction, one of multiplication,
one of subtraction of decimals, and one word problem. And yet still at least 75% of the class
failed. These are things they should
have been learning for at least 3 years in primary school, but the majority
still appear as though they have never seen a decimal point in their
lives. Oh well at least a few kids in
all of my classes are trying and doing well.
In each class I had a couple students get 100% so I know if they really
pay attention they could do well and I cant possible be that terrible of a
teacher. It is just frustrating that
education isn’t seen as that high of a priority. On any given day there will be at least 10
students gone in each class to work on the farm, or to sell, or just because
they didn’t feel like coming and there is no adult supervision that would force
them to come. I guess all I can do is my
best but it is still hard when I see so many things I want to improve but know
I cant possible tackle them all.
On the
positive side, one thing I am very excited about is my newly established girls
club. At the first meeting we had 41
girls show up. This is much more than I
actually wanted for my girls club so I asked any girls that were still
interested after the meeting to write me an application letter just expressing
that they were interested. I ended up
receiving 20 letters and 15 girls actually came to the first meeting which is
the perfect number in my opinion. We had
elections for President, Vice President, Secretary, and Assistant Secretary
which all went smoothly. Then we
decided to plan what we wanted to do. I
want the girls to be in control of the club as much as possible in order to
really enforce that the club is for them and can be used to address the issues
they are interested in and to build their confidence to voice their opinion and
run a club. Anyways, they decided the
first topic they wanted to address is Teenage Pregnancy which is very important
here as I think something like 70% of girls in Sierra Leone have had a child by
the time they reach the age of 20. So
that is the first topic we will discuss as a club and the girls also decided
that in addition to our weekly meetings they would like to plan a play to
present for the community as well. The
play would obviously focus on teenage pregnancy and would try and educate the
viewers on the consequences of teenage pregnancy and how to avoid pregnancy
until you are ready. All the girls were
very excited for the chance to perform and practice. Plays (or concerts as they call them here
which is quite misleading for us foreigners who might expect music given the
name) are very popular and people love to watch what is essentially a soap
opera put on stage. So the girls cant
wait to start the planning and preparation for their own concert. I am also excited because I think it is good
to start with something that will get them invested and interested in the club
and that can show the community what the club is doing.
This
weekend I am going to Bo for a bachelor/bachelorette party. Two volunteers from my group got engaged back
in February or something and the wedding is this coming July so they are having
their respective parties this Saturday evening.
It should be a lot of fun to see everyone and to celebrate the event
together!
Okay well that’s plenty for you all to read for now. As usual love and miss you all! If you have
anything you want to send for me you can send it to my parents and they can
bring it when they come to see me in July!
Here is a message from Mohamed:
Hey! Sara is the person I am always thinking of and I’m
always pleased to be with her wherever life takes us. I am always in place to
give her the fullest protection she deserves. I hope you guys are doing well
and I cant wait to meet you, as I am very excited from what Sara has told me
about you guys. Sara has been very honest with me all this while and helping me
learn the American culture and always practice it. With tons of love…
Aww those Sierra Leoneans such romantics… Mohamed is doing
well. He has been helping to teach at
both my school and Chelsea’s school so hopefully one of these days someone
finally decides to compensate his work with at least a small stipend. He has also played a very big role in helping
me start my girls club and co-facilitates the meetings with me. It is nice having him help when things get
lost in translation. We are also
currently looking into some schooling options in America for him to see if he
would be able to be an international student at a school in Michigan. So hopefully we get the applications for that
in this coming fall and then we just have to pray he gets accepted and some
financial aid! Overall, things have been
going really well and he has definitely been a big help to me in getting some
projects off the ground and to advise me on what would and wouldn’t work here
and how to act appropriately in sensitive situations such as burials and
things.
Okay well now to end with a few “Only in Salone” moments:
Only Na Salone:
· -
Are mayonnaise sandwiches considered both
delicious and nutritious
spiders the size of my hand don’t scare anyone,
but small garden snakes should be killed on sight.
·
will children run away from me screaming because
I am white (at least I’m assume that’s the reason and its not actually because
I am hideously disfigured)
·
can I convince a child to do any chore for me by
promising him/her a reward of a pencil, pen, or even just a few almonds.
·
will the children actually volunteer to do
chores for me with an expectation of nothing
·
is mayonnaise mixed with ketchup a perfectly
acceptable topping for a salad..
·
would the timekeeper at a school not have a
functional watch or phone
·
would I consider buying a goat to increase my
financial worth
·
is a goat worth 25% of my monthly salary
·
have I seen a two-year-old child say “f*** off”
and not be punished for it.
·
would my boyfriend think taking me on a date to
McDonalds would be considered romantic
