September 5th, 2012

        Last week I was in Freetown for our Mid-Service Training (MST).  As
usual the training inspired and motivated me to come back to site and
get started on a plethora of new activities! Ha.  While I know we can't
possibly tackle all the issues and fix every problem there is here, I
enjoy hearing new ideas and learning about what my fellow volunteers
have done or brainstormed.  Of course I always come back with way more
ideas and plans than any one person could ever imagine to accomplish
(yet for some reason I always think I can do them all). But at least
the planning keeps me busy even if the plan/ idea is never fully
realized.
        So here are some of my plans for my second and final year of service:
1.      Continue with girls club (I already printed t-shirts for them),
having weekly meetings as well as big events for World AIDS Day and
International Women’s Day.
2.      Start a health and sanitation campaign.  This would involve buying
soap and water containers for local schools to keep outside by the
latrines.  This would be accompanied by sensitization activities held
at the schools teaching them about germs and the importance of
hand-washing.
3.      I would also like to draw the world map on both my school and the
primary school I help with.  It is a common Peace Corps activity and
includes an instruction manual on how to do it.
4.      I would like to work with my fellow teachers and administration to
create and use alternative punishment techniques in order to reduce
the use of corporal punishment.

So those are more or less the plans.  Oh plus the usual teaching.
This year I am teaching both math and language arts to my JSS 2 and
JSS 3 students.  This means I am teaching 28 periods this year plus
the extra classes twice a week after school for JSS 3 and the extra
class once a week for Class 6 at the primary school.  So hopefully I
will be busy.  Better to be busy than bored!

        Anyways before MST me and 2 other girls brought our Sierra Leonean
boyfriends to Freetown for a triple date.  It was fun hanging out with
everyone and doing a somewhat normal dating activity.  It is also nice
to get a good mix of Sierra Leonean and American sometimes so everyone
feels comfortable.  This way the boys could hangout and talk about
what interests them (football) and the girls could talk about other
things.  Sometimes when it is just me with Mohamed and all his friends
I have trouble engaging myself in the conversation and the same
happens to him when we are around all Peace Corps volunteers.  So this
was a happy medium and I think everyone had a good time.  We went to a
beach bar the first night and then ate dinner and played cards.  The
next day we went to a nearby beach and ate good food and were later
joined by other volunteers.  So all in all a good time was had.
(Oh and the beaches here are amazing so I would recommend you all come
visit someday!)

And now a small success story:
So in my town there is a little girl that has always been terrified of
me and cries on sight. Well finally, she is warming up to me a little
bit.  She is still pretty scared of me but she will greet me and
answer when I greet her.  She even consented to sit down next to me
for about five minutes the other day! haha So while her threshold of
being near to a white woman is still pretty low, it is getting better
and I am slowly but surely breaking through the barrier.  Peace Corps
teaches us to celebrate all the small victories with the big ones.  I
count this as a victory.  Maybe one day she will be able to see me
without feeling the urge to turn and run as quickly as possible in the
other direction.

Okay well that’s all for now!