Eating Cyanide

Last week I made plans with Ma Nakama (the Paramount Chiefs' wife and the lady who cooks for me) to come over during the weekend to learn how to cook.  I'm at school during the time she's normally cooking so weekends are the only time I can partake in the cooking extravaganza.  I have been repeatedly asked by the teachers at my school if I know how to cook yet so I figured it was time to do some Sierra Leonean cooking.  I had previously helped my host sisters (albeit minimally) cook during training but hadn't yet done much since arriving in Yele.  Time to don an apron and do some cooking!
Saturday morning, after a leisurely few hours of drinking tea and reading on my porch, I traipsed over to Nakama's to begin cooking.  My first task was to separate the cassava leaves from their stems--it could be compared to preparing lettuce or any other leafy green.  Once de-stemmed the leaves were put into a large wooden bowl thing (I don't know how to describe it, hence the use of the word 'thing') where two girls promptly began pounding them with 10 foot long wooden poles.  Cassava leaves contain cyanide so they literally beat the poison out of them.  Seems odd to me that you would even consider eating something with cyanide, but they've figured out how to do it.  Props to the Sierra Leoneans.  Some time in their past they must have been very desperate for food sources.  I did not take part in any of the cassava pounding but it looks like very labor intensive work.  Almost everything added to the sauce is pounded to a pulp, if possible, even if there is no cyanide to banish, such as onion and pepe.  A fellow PCV remarked the other day that cooking in Sierra Leone would take about two seconds if they had food processors.  Instead they do it all by hand so it takes a few hours.
After the cassava leaves have been sufficiently beat they are added to the already boiling pot of water and palm oil.  My next task was to help de-bone the fish.  I learned how to prepare both dried fish and raw fish (luckily I was not asked to gut the fish, I need to build up the nerves before setting on that unpleasant task-I am, however, quite proficient at breaking heads off dried fish).  While I was doing that two other girls were sifting through rice picking out pebbles, pounding the onion and pepe, grinding granat, and adding Maggie (MSG) and salt to the sauce.  Once I had finished the fish was added to the pot and all the other prep was done so the sauce was left to boil for a while.
Looking back I was a relatively small part of the cooking process with my measly two jobs, but it's a start.  I certainly understand the basic concept of cooking here but I don't yet have a good grasp on what proportions (water to palm oil to cassava leaves) makes for a good sauce.

My school has decided to hold end of term exams already, which feels very early to me since I only finished passing back mid-terms 3 weeks ago.  But we're in full swing finals mode, which will be over November 30.  At that point the teachers have a weekto grade their tests and hand over their scores to the C.A.R. committee.  The C.A.R. committee (which, coincidentally I am the chairman of even though I have no idea what that entails) is then responsible for transcribing the scores for each student for each subject into their report card.  With over 800 students, each taking about a dozen classes, should be a quick process (note the sarcasm).  My favorite part of the exams though is that proctoring the tests is called invigilating.  Makes me sound super cool and important when I say, "I've got some invigilating to do today." It sounds like I'm off to go fight criminals.  Proctoring exams is not quite as cool as catching criminal master-minds but at least the terminology lends to some imagination.

In other word news, my new favorite word in Temne is kabep.  It means spoon, but I like it because it's nice and jaunty.  If it was a person I'd picture it wearing a bright yellow rain hat and boots and hopping through rain puddles with exclamations of "kabep!" every time it lands in a new puddle.

Oh Teacher My Teacher

Teaching.  Oh where to begin.  A school day here is the biggest emotional roller coaster I've ever experienced.  There are certainly many problems with the education system here, which each present their own challenges, but on days when I'm struggling with those I'll have a class where a student or two will have an "ah-ha" moment and I feel like I actually taught them something.
Some of the issues I've encountered: the main one I think is time.  According to the Ministry of Education school should have started on September 19th.  During that week we had maybe 10 students show up.  The next week we had enough to fill some classrooms, but we didn't have a time-table so the school day was completely random.  That was probably fine for most of the Sierra Leoneans but I work much better with some structure.  It was at least 3 weeks after the official start of school that we had a decent amount of students and actually got our time-table.  Then, once school has actually started we have random days cancelled for cleaning (students come with their farming tools and clean the campus) or meetings.  That really throws me off kilter because then the classes I teach that day get behind.  For example, my 302 class I only see on Mondays but the last 2 Mondays we haven't had school so they are now behind my 301 class (both classes are JSS3, equivalent to 8th grade, they are split in to 2 streams: 301 and 302). I think it would go a long way towards teaching efficiently if we actually started school on time with a time-table prepared.
Another issue that creates challenges for me is students being promoted to the next grade when they should be repeating.  For example, I was helping a JSS2 student the other day when after about 30 seconds I realized she couldn't read.  I don't know how she got out of primary school, but now I'm faced with the task of teaching science to an illiterate 7th grader.  Not fun.  Also, it is possible for students to be promoted to the next grade if they pass in enough subjects but not necessarily all of them.  So it is possible for me to be teaching Biology to a student who has failed science for the last 3 years.  (Side note: here the students stay in the classroom and the teacher moves around so every class moves along together, there's no chance to repeat just one class if you fail it; it's all or nothing.)  They are certainly not at the level I want to teach and I can't go all the way back 3 years in science because the rest of the class actually passed and is ready to move on.  Sigh.  One great example is math--almost no students pass math classes, but instead of a system where they have to retake a class until they pass they just get thrown in to the next level because they did well enough in their other subjects.
Speaking of math, about a month ago we got our BECE results.  (The BECE is the exam they take after JSS, Junior Secondary School, in order to go to SSS, Senior Secondary School--it's like the SAT for high school.)  Out of 207 students who took the exam, 0 passed the math section.  Each student take the BECE in 8 subjects; 4 of the subjects are mandatory: English, Math, Integrated Science, and Social Studies.  The other 4 the student gets to choose their subject from Agricultural Science, Business, Electronics, Christian Religious Knowledge (C.R.K.), Religious Moral Education (R.M.E.), Creative Practical Arts (C.P.A.), Home Economics, Physical Health Education (P.H.E.) and others I forgot.  To go on to SSS a student has to pass in 5 subjects (a pass is any score from 1-6, and the only score for a fail is a 7).  Of the 207 test takers only 11 got enough passes for SSS.  Not exactly stellar results.
As far as actual teaching goes in the classroom a normal day for me consists of writing notes on the chalkboard, talking about them, then waiting while the students copy the notes.  I've been told by numerous people, both students and people in the community, that I still talk too fast.  I blame America for teaching me to talk at warp speed.  The materials I have at my disposal are quite numerous: chalk and a chalkboard.  The materials the students possess are: notebook and pens (although sometimes they don't have pens and have to share).  I keep thinking of activities or assignments that could be fun but then have to remind myself we don't have microscopes and most students don't have textbooks.  Fortunately my school has a library with some books; not enough books to hand out to each student, but enough that I was able to do an activity in class.  I had them read some pages that corresponded to my notes/lectures then asked them to answer the questions at the end of the chapter.  I don't think the students have much of a chance to read or answer questions that way so it was a good experience for them.  It was also a good learning experience for me--I realized that just teaching these kids how to take a test (read a question and pull out the appropriate information) could go a long way in improving their test scores.  So despite all the barriers there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
I also find it rather amusing the way the students feel compelled to take notes in a certain way.  Some things need to be in red ink, some in blue, some in pencil and God forbid you ever draw a picture on the board because that definitely has to be in pencil and only 5 students brought a pencil to class.  Frantic borrowing of pencils ensues, and there goes 20 minutes of class.  All tables and charts must be drawn with a ruler, or at least a straight edge.  Thinking back to the notes I took in middle school it makes me feel sloppy.
Mom has mentioned a couple times that some people have expressed an interest in sending school materials to me.  I love the idea and I'm definitely thinking about what would be most useful/effective.  When I come up with any good ideas I will be sure to spread the word.

My other cool cultural experience recently was going with my neighbor to harvest rice.  I realized a few weeks ago that with the amount of rice I eat I have an appalling lack of knowledge about the plant--namely how it's harvested.  So when Mary--my friend/house helper--mentioned she was going to her farm to harvest rice I jumped on the opportunity and invited myself along.  For some reason Sierra Leoneans think white women can't work or do physical activity, so it was very hard to convince Mary to actually let me help with the harvest instead of just sitting in the shade all day.  I didn't hike 3 miles into the bush to sit on my butt all day!  However, I eventually got to help and earned my rice education.  In short: the top of the rice stalk holds the grains (it's a lot like wheat) and to harvest it I simply cut off the stalk 4-5 inches below the grain.  I gathered as much as I could in one hand, until I had a nice little bouquet of rice stalks, then Mary would tie them into small bundles.  I'd suggest you go try it in the states, but we have machines that do all that work.

Now for your monthly list of Erica's cultural exchanges.  This one is titled "Things I thought I'd never get used to, but did":
-The crispy feeling of clothes not dried in a machine.  At first I hated my clothes being crispy (especially my socks) after taking them out of the sun but now I hardly notice it.
-Eating raw peanuts: sounds weird, and it was a little weird at first, but now I love it.
-Eating raw rice: no way around it, this just is plain ol' weird.  First time I saw someone take a handful of raw rice and pop it in their mouth I didn't understand the appeal.  Sometimes they soak the rice in some water and add sugar, sometimes they pound the rice into little pieces, and sometimes they just plain eat it.  At first I thought this was very strange, but, call me an African, now I quite enjoy it.
-Spiders: the big ones still cause me the jump in shock but the little ones now seem like childs play.  When I come back home I don't think any insect will be able to scare me (knock on wood).

Miss you all loads!!!