week 6

Week 6
The most exciting news I have for everyone is….are you ready!? We got a baby, well a puppy that is! He is the cutest thing ever and we went with a good ol’ San Antonio name; Ginobli. A few weeks ago, we had told our host mama that we wanted to get a dog before we went to our permanent site; part for protection and part because we just wanted a dog. We didn’t expect to get him so soon, but our host mom found one for us a few days after we told her we wanted one. He is only a month old and now sleeps on a towel in our room. He’s a whopping 1.5 feet long, is tan with white paws and a white tip on his tail. He keeps us up at night by crying when he wants to play just like a really baby probably would….but he’s so adorable that the annoying whining is quickly forgotten. We tell everyone here he is our “Pikin” or child and they laugh when they see us carrying him in his towel to the training center. Animals are not coddled here like they are in the states, but it’s a cultural exchange experience all the way! We are definitely planning to bring him back to Texas with him when our service is over! Can you tell how attached I am already!? I will try to email pictures if I can ever get the attachments to load fast enough!
These past two weeks have been wonderfully exhausting, with the puppy, teaching summer school, and all the other new experiences that come with living in Sierra Leone, West Africa. I had very few expectations when I came in because I did not want to be overly disappointed, but instead I find myself pleasantly surprised. The summer school teaching is awesome and I am so proud of my students. It is so awesome to see my host brother and sister come home and actually WANT to study. They ask so many questions and make sure they are getting everything right. Most nights they are up until 1am studying or doing their homework. I gave one of my classes a writing assignment about what they wanted to be when they grew up and I could not believe some of the answers. My favorite was from a girl who said, “When I grow up I want to become the president because there are many suffering children and people in my country, who I want to help.” Another great one came from a boy who said “I want to become a doctor so I can help eradicate diseases and help people who are ill.” Mind you these kids are 13 years old, but set such high goals because they know they have to have to if they want their country to move forward in a positive direction. I cannot even begin to explain how much joy teaching these children gives me. I am also very excited to get to our permanent site because there will be lots of opportunities for secondary projects. I hope to start a service learning club so that students are self empowered to help in their community. We are only weeks from moving to our new home and about a week away from finding out where this will be.
I would like to share one more experience that really moved me. We went to the market to get a leash and make shift belt/collar for Ginobli. We were planning on making the hour trek back to our house so to not have to pay for a taxi. As we were walking someone approached us and asked us if we remembered him. We have met so many people that it was really hard to recall who he was. A couple of weeks ago we were in the mini super market and met this guy, (Victor,) who shared his own experience with a Peace Corps volunteer more than 30 years ago. The woman who taught him in primary school paid for his entire education and he could not emphasize how grateful he is to God for putting her in his life. She is an elderly woman and he wants to reconnect with her to thank her, so he had asked us for Our help. Of course, it would be almost impossible for us to do so, but we said he would try. Well he saw us again at the market and greeted us warmly. When he saw we were going to walk home in the rain, he offered to give us a ride home. His wife and beautiful kids were in the car and he told us that he tries to help Americans every chance he gets because of the difference this woman made in his life. This almost brought me to tears. It is an incredible thing to see such strong faith instilled from one person to another. I only hope that I can have the same impact on the people I come across here; as they have already had on me!

One last bit of exiting news, we found out where we will be living for two years! The name of the town (of 4000) is Magburoka and its in the northern part of the country. If you are looking at a map look for McKenny and it is a little south of there. Apparently our house has electricity, in indoor bathroom, and four rooms! We will also have access to internet fairly regularly so we are very excited. We are located on the Rokel River, not far from mountains, and only 2 hours from the capital and some sweet beaches. We will be learning a language called Temne and visiting our site and house this weekend, so look for updates next week!

Swit Salone

Time seems to move slow here, especially during our cultural learning sessions, which repeat points every 15 minutes or so. Language sessions do not occur daily either and because most people in Bo prefer to speak Mende and not the Krio we are leaning in class, it is difficult for us to fully engross ourselves in the language experience. The sessions I find most interesting are the immersion sessions. One day instead of having language class we went to the market to practice are Krio and bargaining skills with different vendors. I bought 2 yards of fabric for less than 2 dollars and was very close to buying a pair of high heels, (yes, in Africa….i cant reach the top of the chalk boards!) When I first saw the shoe sales man and he saw I was white, (Pumuy) He told me 50,000 Leone, (or about $12.50.) I got him down to 25,000 Leone, and tried the shoes on, only to find out that they were too small L Some vendors are unwilling to bargain with Americans because the assumption is that we have lots and lots of money. Our usual response is that we are volunteers and that we do not get paid…sometimes it works, sometimes they rip us off! The best deals occur when we travel with our host family and they help us bargain, (since they know what prices should be.)
I also really enjoy the sessions on post-conflict awareness. There are a lot of after affects in a post conflict country and I find it really important to know how to deal or even to understand why certain situations are the way they are. For example, the main modes of transportation here are motorcycles, (or in local terms Okadas.) They drive very dangerously, close to pedestrians, ignore most traffic laws and often do not even have legitimate licenses. Many of these drivers are former child soldiers who had no choice but to fight, (or die) in the war. As a result, their level of fear is fairly low and the reckless actions from the war now severely affect other parts of their lives.

On a much brighter note, food seems to always be ready when we get home from training and if we need anything our host brothers and sisters are always more than ready to help us. Our host family is so wonderful; since we told our host mama that we do not like spicy food or fish, she has not prepared any meals with either of the items! She buys us two loaves of bread every morning and we usually have PB and J for breakfast, and bread with laughing cow cheese for lunch, (if we see they are serving fish or spicy sauce for lunch.) We even came home one day and our Papa had brought us what he said was wine. We read the label and it was actually Brandy….very strong Brandy. We had to mix it with juice and are drinking it very slowly for those days that are high stress. Our host brothers, Kuba and Abdullay fill our large bath bucket daily from the well outside our house and it is usually enough for each of us to have not just one, but 2 nice cold baths a day!



This past weekend was quite eventful. On Saturday (July 3rd) we went for a beautiful hike up Kandie Mountain (which is really just a steep small hill.) It was nice because it was peaceful. Usually when we walk to our training site or to town we have to stop and greet people every few minutes. It sometimes takes a lot of energy to tell them our names, not to call us just “Pumuy” (white person,) ask “Aw di de,” (Hows the day,) “Aw yu slip,” (How’d you slee,”) and respond “A tel God tenki,” ( I thank God,) and then be on our way to our destination. This pattern usually happens 5 times on our 10 min walk to training, so just imagine an hour walk to town. Don’t get me wrong, I am happy they people here are so excited that we are here, but it was nice to have peace and quite, especially after a long week of training. It was great to see all the different kinds of rocks, butterflies, and listen to the birds and monkeys, (yes monkeys that probably become delicious tasting bush meat.) The heat was not so bothersome either because the higher we climbed, the more the wind blew on us. To top it off, we bought a water from the junction that goes into our town and it was ICE ICE ICE cold. Little things like cold water are always great improvements to any day. In the evening our fellow PCV Dane had a party at his house, or his family did. His host sister’s son turned one and there was quite a lot of drinking dancing and food. They slaughtered a whole goat for us and gave the American table a case of Star beer…AWESOME!



We came home and were able to check our email because our Papa has an internet modem. We also showed him how to use powerpoint because he wants to give presentations for the NGO he works for (HELP Sierra Leone.) Later that night, we missed a very heartbreaking game for Afric. Ghana lost in the last round of penalty kicks and now all the African teams are out of the world cup. Our host family, plus about 10 others, were watching it and we heard all the cheering and sadness from our room. We decided to relax and watch Finding Nemo instead because it was one of those days that we wanted to pretend we were at home in our atching a movie and eating popcorn. Though I have to say, popcorn is very cheap, easy to come by, and delicious here.

Fourth of July topped our weekend off as we killed or first, and probably only chicken in our time spent in Africa. We first held the chicken upside down for about 10 minutes to “put it to sleep,” then I put itshead over a stick of wood, put my knee on its wing, and held its body, as Carlos cut it neck off….though I think our chicken suffered a much longer death then he should have because the knife was not sharp enough. It was also pretty disgusting because the chicken keeps moving even after its dead and it had to hold it down until this movement stopped. We then had to put it in boiling water and pluck all the feathers up. Finally……..we pulled all the guts out, cut it up and gave it someone to cook…..LIKE I SAID NEVER AGAIN! Needless to say, we chose to eat the hotdogs, homemade tortillas, and bread …and did not like the taste of the chicken. I keep having flashbacks of the massacre in my head. The rest of the day was fun as we played games, eat and drank until we could not move, and sang our national anthem!

This week has been incredible. We started teaching in the summer school and the kids absolutely love every lesson. THey are so eager to learn and because they are so used to just copying straight from the bored without any movement. They are always raising their hands to answer and even to come to the board. Imagine how excited they were when we did a mad lib exercise. Teaching is why I am here and it is the most rewarding experience I could possibly ever imagine! I will defiantely give more updates on the rest of the summer school soon.