TIME: time has flown. It does not feel like a year since I left home. In general, the days and hours here can go by pretty slowly, but overall time seems to pass quickly. I think that's an observation Peace Corps Volunteers in countries all over the world would agree with (at least from the small sampling of other PCVs I've talked to). I have also gotten to the point where I have a routine in the village, so the slow parts don't bother me as much anymore, they're just a part of my day. I spend pretty much all of my down time reading. As of now I've read about 60-70 books (not including the rereading of the HP series). Yes, I'm keeping a list. That's the other activity I do when things are slow: make lists. It's great fun. Some days the only thing on my to-do list is sweep and shower. Now that's a jam-packed day.
TEACHING: I've made it through one complete year of teaching. Technically term 3 isn't over yet (we don't officially close until July 13) but classes are done and we are now taking final exams. The last 4 weeks of term will be spent grading exams and filling out report cards. I only got 4 weeks of teaching in term 3, which, out of a 12 week term, is not a whole lot. I did start teaching my JSS2 kids about atoms though, so that felt productive. Hopefully I'll move up with them and teach them in JSS3 next year so I'm laying some groundwork this year. Now that I've got a year of the school system under my belt I'm excited for next year (after a nice long summer break, though). I've already got ideas about activities and classes I want to teach next year, and I'll have a better understanding of how to get that done in a class with 70 students. I'll also have a better understanding of how school works: when it will be open, when it won't, etc. The only wild card is that this November Sierra Leone is having their next presidential elections (just like us!) so things at the schools might come to a standstill. I'm still not sure how exactly that's going to work out.
PEOPLE/CULTURE: my mother asked me recently in a letter, now that I've been here for a while, what my thoughts were on the state of poverty of the village people. To be honest, it's not something I notice. Yes, people here are very poor, but they don't live in a world where everyone has laptop computers and ipads and constant internet access, so everybody lives at the same level as their neighbor. Even if you gave them those things I doubt it would improve the quality of their life. People here just live their life and in general seem quite happy to me. People are able to eat every day, buy clothes, sleep indoors. They don't make a ton of money, but they're still able to live life. I would say the biggest area that needs improvement would be health care, but there are a whole load of issues where that's concerned. I don't work in health care in any way, but from what I've observed one of the biggest problems is simply education about health issues. Obviously prevention would be a great first step, but nobody sleeps under mosquito nets--they use all the government issued mosquito nets to make fishing nets. And there's education out there, workshops on malaria, advertisements about malaria prevention, etc. but people still don't change their behavior. You can send as much medicine into a village as you want, but if the village people still believe more in the traditional healing techniques, the medicine won't be used. Or when some one needs medicine they have an idea of what they want/need so if they get pills instead of an injection they don't think it will work (despite what the doctor says). So there's a lot of education and behavior change that needs to happen with regards to health care.
BEING A PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEER: I realized in the past few weeks that the most important thing I need to do is decide what I need to do or accomplish to feel like a successful volunteer or to feel like I did something in my two years. It does not necessarily need to be something tangible (build a school, write a grant, etc.), it can be small things, but the point is I need to decide now what I personally will define as a successful service so I can give myself some direction in the next year. As a PCV I pretty much always feel like there is something more I could or should be doing, but I can't do everything, and I can't feel bad about everything I don't do, so I need to figure out what will be enough for me.
Recently at site I made lists of things I liked and didn't like about being a volunteers, so I wanted to share some of those with you:
Top 3 hardest parts of being a volunteers:
1. Being lonely--I wrote that write after the April break when I had spent 2 weeks with other volunteers then went back to my village and felt particularly lonely (we affectionately call those Freetown hangovers). Right now though I'm actually quite comfortable with being alone in the village. One of the biggest lessons I'll learn in the Peace Corps is how to be by myself.
2. Loss of anonymity--everybody talks about me all the time in the village. I wouldn't be surprised if I got to school and one of my teachers said, "So I heard you ate oatmeal for breakfast today." Everybody knows everything I do. Apparently I'm very exciting because apparently they all talk about me non stop. Sometimes it can be amusing, other times I just wish I wasn't always the center of attention. This experience has made me realize I would in no way enjoy being a celebrity.
3. Being a woman in Sierra Leone. It's just not that easy. Women in general don't get a lot of respect. I'm ready for the gender rights movement to sweep through Sierra Leone, but that will probably take another 50 years.
Top 3 favorite things/things I like:
1. My neighbors--the Kanu family takes good care of me. They leave me alone when I'm in my house, but they're always willing to let me sit and chat when I'm feeling social. Gbassay, the 8 year old, might be my favorite person in my village.
2. Learning about food--I've learned so many things about how food actually grows. I know now what peanuts look like and how to harvest them. Pineapples look super cool when they grow. I know how to harvest rice. Did you know cashew nuts come on top of little red fruits (oddly known as cashew fruits)? So many things to learn about the natural world here because everything is so natural.
3. Kids at play--kids entertain themselves in the most simple ways here. I remember the first time I saw my little 1 year old neighbor just having the time of her life by putting sand in a calabash and pretending like she was soaking rice (they way she watches her mom do it). I'm pretty sure she was playing "house." She's also getting to the point where she's learning to carry things on her head, and she just has a ball whenever someone puts something on top of her head for her to carry. I've also witnessed little toddlers, barely able to walk, practicing for sports. Sports are like track and field, so these little kids line up, get in a starting crouch, then race for the 10 yards to the next tree. It's pretty adorable. Especially since their motor skills aren't quite developed yet. Not the most coordinated.
The other exciting thing about reaching our year mark is that we get our newbies! Salone 3 just landed in Sierra Leone last night, so we officially have 45 new trainees in country. I'm going to work at their training, but not until the very end. I'm excited to interact with them though because I think it will make me realize how far I've come in the last year. It is difficult to remember all the things I struggled with at the beginning, but watching the new kids go through it all will be about the closest I can get to reliving my first 3 months.
Hope everything is going well stateside. Miss you and love you all!
