Note on the title: Not sure if that's really how you spell shmorgashborg, then again, I'm pretty sure it's not actually a word so I can't really spell it wrong. I chose that title for this blog because there's not really a central theme, I've just got a lot of random stories (a shmorgashborg if you will). Also, I owe apologies to my faithful readers (scratch that, reader, singular, thanks mom). I know it has been a while since I have written a blog update and I sincerely apologize. Africa happened and I just hadn't gotten around to it. So, on to the cornucopia of plentiful stories for y'all.
First: guess what I ate last week? Anybody? Guesses? No? Ok fine, I'll tell you: crocodile soup!! It may have actually been alligator, but who can really tell anyways. I actually quite liked the croc soup. Crocodile is fairly chewy white meat, but it might be my favorite meat here. Mainly because it didn't have bones, skin, scales, feathers, or hair still attached. I suppose then what I liked was that it was well prepared. Really though, it wasn't that bad. I can now add it to my growing list of new meats I've eaten here: monkey (unintentionally on my part), goat, guinea fowl, and now croc. (Funny story about meats: in my JSS2 classes I taught food chains. When coming up with examples I make the students participate and tell me what might eat something. Invariably every time we get cats or dogs up there and I ask, 'what might eat a cat?' they reply with, 'man.'. To which I say, 'I don't eat cat, but if you do I guess we can put it up there.' They think it's funny I find it gross to eat cat.)
We are now in March (stating the obvious award: goes to me) which in Sierra Leone means heat. Not any of this pansy 90 degree weather I've been complaining about previously, but I'm talking about baking alive if I'm outside for more than 10 minutes. I don't have a thermometer, but it is well over 100 degrees for at least 4-5 hours a day. Someone told me it got to 122 the other day. Not sure if I totally believe that, but it's probably not far off for the hottest days. In conjunction with the heat, March is the end of dry season. We have not had a single drop of precipitation for at least 4 months. That's the longest I've ever gone without rain. Growing up in the PNW, that has never happened to me; rain is so much a part of life that going without for 4 months feels like someone is slowly cutting off my appendages. This also means the well by my house has dried up. Luckily I have some house help, and once a week Mary goes to the nearest working pump and fills up a giant bucket in my house. It usually lasts about a week. My little neighbor girls have all of a sudden become fond of fetching water so I gave my bucket to Effie yesterday to go get water. Back comes the bucket with some truly disgusting looking river water. Not wanting to hurt Effie's feelings I acted very grateful and continue to let her get my water. I don't tell her I only use that water to flush my toilet. Talking to my parents last weekend we came to the realization that this lack of water is why so many people have written songs about rains in Africa. If I could sing (or write songs) I'm pretty sure the first rain of the wet season would cause me to burst into the next hit Africa song.
Exciting news in Yele: the president of Sierra Leone (the honorable Ernest Bai Koroma) came to visit a few weeks ago!! I got to stand about 10 feet from him while he ate lunch. In all honesty it was a lot less exciting than I had anticipated. All the preparations the week before he came got me psyched up, but politicians are just people. Don't get me wrong, it was definitely cool he came, especially for the villagers, I just didn't get any gitters when I was around him (granted I also didn't talk to him personally). I probably will never meet a president of a country again, so at least I can cross it off my bucket list. Honorable president Koroma came to Yele because there are multiple development projects in the works right now. There's a new hospital (should open in June), the palm oil factory, the water purification plant (including a huge water tower in the middle of town), the hydro dam (for electricity!!!!), and a new market structure. So yeah, there's a lot going on here, hence the president's visit. The elections are also coming up in November, so it was a bit of a campaigning visit too. After visiting all the development sites he went to the school and gave a speech to the village. Mostly it was about all the good stuff Lion Heart (the NGO in charge of most of these projects) is doing here, but he also mentioned the elections. He is APC (All Peoples Congress), which is the political party of the north, meaning he was speaking to people who are already going to vote for him. The other main party in Sierra Leone is the SLPP (Sierra Leone Peoples Party), which is the party of the south. In general political affiliations in this country are based on tribes, so if you're Temne you vote APC, and if you're Mende you vote SLPP. There are very strong tribal ties in politics and not as much idealogical identifications. I'm interested to see what happens in the upcoming elections. General consensus when I talk to Sierra Leoneans is that it will be peaceful. Then again, I'm in the north, which is where the current president is from, so they're all fairly contented with him in office. I've heard from volunteers in the south that they might get a little agitated. But no one knows what's going to happen. I'll keep you posted.
Enough about presidents and politics, back to the important stuff: me. The past few weeks have been pretty busy, but good. I have started teaching after school at the local clinic. It's the Lion Heart clinic that is opening the hospital in June and they are training Yele locals to be nursing auxiliaries. Nursing auxiliaries is a mouthful, but it's not any sort of official program and the students don't get any sort of certifications, so the ministry of health had problems with calling it a nursing aide training. It's essentially a chance for the hospital to train their employees. In the morning they do math for an hour, then medical topics (cardiovascular system, skeletal system, digestive system, diseases, infections, patient care,etc.) for two hours. In the afternoon they do an hour of practicals. Then enter the protagonist: moi. I teach them either English or science for an hour every afternoon. At the beginning I was very apprehensive about taking on extra teaching responsibilities. Teaching is exhausting and I'm usually wiped after a day at school. Turns out though that this extra class is actually kinda invigorating. It's a small class, only 20 students, they are all very eager and motivated, and I have resources available if I want to print things or make copies. In essence it is the complete antithesis of teaching at the school. Teaching that class has reminded me that teaching can be fun.
School update: second term was tough. The biggest problem for me was that I came back from the Christmas break feeling like things were going to be easier because I had it all figured out. Wrong. I didn't. I definitely had my trials in first term, but the things I found frustrating in second term were the things I wasn't expecting. I was prepared for the same problems as first term, but I hadn't really figured thugs out as well as I thought I did. Sierra Leone still had a few tricks up her sleeve for me. The biggest issue for term two is the lack of motivation in both the teachers and students. What really irked me was teachers complaining how the students weren't serious/dedicated because they came late, when only 3 out of teachers out of 25 showed up on time (if they showed up at all). For some reason nobody takes second term seriously, which meant lots of classrooms without teachers and reduced student attendance. Coming from an American work ethic background this was frustrating to say the least. Term two is now over. We stopped teaching 2 weeks ago to hold final exams. These next two weeks are for teachers to grade, then school officially closes April 5 (at which date I'm outta here for my break!). Term three starts again April 23 (which means really beginning of May). For the April break I'm going to Pujehun, Freetown, and Banana Island. I'll write an update about all the festivities once they happen.
The only other exciting news is that I finally feel like I've found my groove. It only took 8 months, but I got to the point where I'm content here. That does not at all mean that living here is easy (actually, it's extremely difficult) or that I don't miss America anymore, it just means I no longer feel out of place when I walk around town. Chatting with some other volunteers a few weeks ago we came to the conclusion that integration (the mantra of the Peace Corps is 'integrate integrate integrate!') happens when you no longer feel uncomfortable doing things: walking around, talking to people, traveling, shopping, and so on. I don't know if I really fit the Peace Corps definition of integrated, but I feel good about my level of interaction with the community.
As always for me, I also have to include the requisite cat story. My kittens have started to grow up some and in their development I am very happy with their hunting abilities. However, what I'm not happy about is them bringing their hunting finds INTO the house. I don't have mice or cockroaches in my house. My cats apparently find this appalling because they catch mice and insects outside, then bring them inside. Seems backwards. Usually they eat their kills, but one morning I woke up to a mouse head on my floor. Every other part of the mouse was eaten, but apparently my cat had to leave a souvenir for me to find. I also end up sweeping dead cockroaches off my floor almost every morning. Thanks cats.
Hope this satisfies some curiosities about the past few months of my life. I will also try to post some more picture in the next few weeks. As always, love you and miss you. Hope everything is going well back home!
First: guess what I ate last week? Anybody? Guesses? No? Ok fine, I'll tell you: crocodile soup!! It may have actually been alligator, but who can really tell anyways. I actually quite liked the croc soup. Crocodile is fairly chewy white meat, but it might be my favorite meat here. Mainly because it didn't have bones, skin, scales, feathers, or hair still attached. I suppose then what I liked was that it was well prepared. Really though, it wasn't that bad. I can now add it to my growing list of new meats I've eaten here: monkey (unintentionally on my part), goat, guinea fowl, and now croc. (Funny story about meats: in my JSS2 classes I taught food chains. When coming up with examples I make the students participate and tell me what might eat something. Invariably every time we get cats or dogs up there and I ask, 'what might eat a cat?' they reply with, 'man.'. To which I say, 'I don't eat cat, but if you do I guess we can put it up there.' They think it's funny I find it gross to eat cat.)
We are now in March (stating the obvious award: goes to me) which in Sierra Leone means heat. Not any of this pansy 90 degree weather I've been complaining about previously, but I'm talking about baking alive if I'm outside for more than 10 minutes. I don't have a thermometer, but it is well over 100 degrees for at least 4-5 hours a day. Someone told me it got to 122 the other day. Not sure if I totally believe that, but it's probably not far off for the hottest days. In conjunction with the heat, March is the end of dry season. We have not had a single drop of precipitation for at least 4 months. That's the longest I've ever gone without rain. Growing up in the PNW, that has never happened to me; rain is so much a part of life that going without for 4 months feels like someone is slowly cutting off my appendages. This also means the well by my house has dried up. Luckily I have some house help, and once a week Mary goes to the nearest working pump and fills up a giant bucket in my house. It usually lasts about a week. My little neighbor girls have all of a sudden become fond of fetching water so I gave my bucket to Effie yesterday to go get water. Back comes the bucket with some truly disgusting looking river water. Not wanting to hurt Effie's feelings I acted very grateful and continue to let her get my water. I don't tell her I only use that water to flush my toilet. Talking to my parents last weekend we came to the realization that this lack of water is why so many people have written songs about rains in Africa. If I could sing (or write songs) I'm pretty sure the first rain of the wet season would cause me to burst into the next hit Africa song.
Exciting news in Yele: the president of Sierra Leone (the honorable Ernest Bai Koroma) came to visit a few weeks ago!! I got to stand about 10 feet from him while he ate lunch. In all honesty it was a lot less exciting than I had anticipated. All the preparations the week before he came got me psyched up, but politicians are just people. Don't get me wrong, it was definitely cool he came, especially for the villagers, I just didn't get any gitters when I was around him (granted I also didn't talk to him personally). I probably will never meet a president of a country again, so at least I can cross it off my bucket list. Honorable president Koroma came to Yele because there are multiple development projects in the works right now. There's a new hospital (should open in June), the palm oil factory, the water purification plant (including a huge water tower in the middle of town), the hydro dam (for electricity!!!!), and a new market structure. So yeah, there's a lot going on here, hence the president's visit. The elections are also coming up in November, so it was a bit of a campaigning visit too. After visiting all the development sites he went to the school and gave a speech to the village. Mostly it was about all the good stuff Lion Heart (the NGO in charge of most of these projects) is doing here, but he also mentioned the elections. He is APC (All Peoples Congress), which is the political party of the north, meaning he was speaking to people who are already going to vote for him. The other main party in Sierra Leone is the SLPP (Sierra Leone Peoples Party), which is the party of the south. In general political affiliations in this country are based on tribes, so if you're Temne you vote APC, and if you're Mende you vote SLPP. There are very strong tribal ties in politics and not as much idealogical identifications. I'm interested to see what happens in the upcoming elections. General consensus when I talk to Sierra Leoneans is that it will be peaceful. Then again, I'm in the north, which is where the current president is from, so they're all fairly contented with him in office. I've heard from volunteers in the south that they might get a little agitated. But no one knows what's going to happen. I'll keep you posted.
Enough about presidents and politics, back to the important stuff: me. The past few weeks have been pretty busy, but good. I have started teaching after school at the local clinic. It's the Lion Heart clinic that is opening the hospital in June and they are training Yele locals to be nursing auxiliaries. Nursing auxiliaries is a mouthful, but it's not any sort of official program and the students don't get any sort of certifications, so the ministry of health had problems with calling it a nursing aide training. It's essentially a chance for the hospital to train their employees. In the morning they do math for an hour, then medical topics (cardiovascular system, skeletal system, digestive system, diseases, infections, patient care,etc.) for two hours. In the afternoon they do an hour of practicals. Then enter the protagonist: moi. I teach them either English or science for an hour every afternoon. At the beginning I was very apprehensive about taking on extra teaching responsibilities. Teaching is exhausting and I'm usually wiped after a day at school. Turns out though that this extra class is actually kinda invigorating. It's a small class, only 20 students, they are all very eager and motivated, and I have resources available if I want to print things or make copies. In essence it is the complete antithesis of teaching at the school. Teaching that class has reminded me that teaching can be fun.
School update: second term was tough. The biggest problem for me was that I came back from the Christmas break feeling like things were going to be easier because I had it all figured out. Wrong. I didn't. I definitely had my trials in first term, but the things I found frustrating in second term were the things I wasn't expecting. I was prepared for the same problems as first term, but I hadn't really figured thugs out as well as I thought I did. Sierra Leone still had a few tricks up her sleeve for me. The biggest issue for term two is the lack of motivation in both the teachers and students. What really irked me was teachers complaining how the students weren't serious/dedicated because they came late, when only 3 out of teachers out of 25 showed up on time (if they showed up at all). For some reason nobody takes second term seriously, which meant lots of classrooms without teachers and reduced student attendance. Coming from an American work ethic background this was frustrating to say the least. Term two is now over. We stopped teaching 2 weeks ago to hold final exams. These next two weeks are for teachers to grade, then school officially closes April 5 (at which date I'm outta here for my break!). Term three starts again April 23 (which means really beginning of May). For the April break I'm going to Pujehun, Freetown, and Banana Island. I'll write an update about all the festivities once they happen.
The only other exciting news is that I finally feel like I've found my groove. It only took 8 months, but I got to the point where I'm content here. That does not at all mean that living here is easy (actually, it's extremely difficult) or that I don't miss America anymore, it just means I no longer feel out of place when I walk around town. Chatting with some other volunteers a few weeks ago we came to the conclusion that integration (the mantra of the Peace Corps is 'integrate integrate integrate!') happens when you no longer feel uncomfortable doing things: walking around, talking to people, traveling, shopping, and so on. I don't know if I really fit the Peace Corps definition of integrated, but I feel good about my level of interaction with the community.
As always for me, I also have to include the requisite cat story. My kittens have started to grow up some and in their development I am very happy with their hunting abilities. However, what I'm not happy about is them bringing their hunting finds INTO the house. I don't have mice or cockroaches in my house. My cats apparently find this appalling because they catch mice and insects outside, then bring them inside. Seems backwards. Usually they eat their kills, but one morning I woke up to a mouse head on my floor. Every other part of the mouse was eaten, but apparently my cat had to leave a souvenir for me to find. I also end up sweeping dead cockroaches off my floor almost every morning. Thanks cats.
Hope this satisfies some curiosities about the past few months of my life. I will also try to post some more picture in the next few weeks. As always, love you and miss you. Hope everything is going well back home!
