Party Animals

It’s our last full day in Bo – and we have been super-busy. The Child Support Program/Foster Care Program party is this afternoon….we are hosting 174 children. That’s already a TON of work, but we also really need to try to get some things done during the party: 1. Get updated pictures of every one of them, 2. Get a little personal information to send to their American sponsors, and 3. Hand each one a book and bag.


We’ll have some fun too – we’ve planned a scavenger hunt, balloon relay (can you run with a balloon between your knees?) and of course a snack station. I’m anticipating we’ll be exhausted by the time we get back to the MTC for rest and dinner before our farewell party with the resident children. We’re already wiped out from party prep: blowing up balloons, cutting papers for bios and scavenger hunts, getting the station signs ready, making “passports” for kids to wear around their necks so they can get stamps at each station.

Yesterday was spent prepping and planning. The men spent the day rebuilding the rain gutter on the MTC with the help of some of the security guards and Tommy, the caretaker of the MTC. God blessed us with a torrential downpour after devotions last night so that we could test their work – which held really beautifully, but of course they wanted to tweak it a bit today and have spent the morning working on it. Craig and I were also able to have a very frank and productive meeting with the staff yesterday afternoon.

Last night we attended the election of the new president of the Children’s Voice. It might have been the longest election I’ve ever witnessed, but it was the most fair. Ishmael Koroma beat his opponent in a landslide.

Winding Down

It’s our last real work day – if we don’t count tomorrow. And we don’t really count tomorrow, as our primary task is to throw a party for the 150 CSP (Child Support Program) children and the 25 Foster Care children supported by African Programs as part of the CRC/Mercy project. The focus of the party is to encourage the children to read. They’ll each receive one of the canvas tote bags Kate got for them with our CRC Reads! Campaign dragon on them, and a Scholastic book to keep for themselves. That will take place tomorrow afternoon with 174 children!

We’ll have our traditional farewell party with the resident children tomorrow evening, with treats and t-shirt signing. And then early on Sunday, we’ll begin the long journey home.

It’s been a very full week. We haven’t completed our task list, but we accomplished a great deal of it, and feel good about what we have been able to do. I think we gathered some useful data about how teaching and school work here, and we’ll be able to draw some conclusions about what we could do differently to be more supportive and responsive to our students' needs in the summer school programs. We have a better idea of their reading levels as well.

School visits might have been the highlight of the week for me. Though some of it I had expected, some of it surprised me, both pleasantly and not. The students learn in classrooms with virtually no resources. No teacher at any level or in any class I observed had much more than a spiral notebook they had turned into a grade book, three or four pieces of chalk and a battered blackboard. The classrooms have no electric lights, no posters or educational materials on the walls, no books in shelves lining. They sometimes sit two and three to the same desk because of overcrowding.  JSS and SS students don’t bring textbooks to school (though they have them at home for some subjects) because they have eight classes a day and no lockers at school. They write everything they learn from their teacher into their copy books (composition notebooks); one per class, and most information is memorized and recited back from rote memory. The teachers are by and large tough and funny, and they don’t put up with any hint of misbehavior.

Students seem remarkably polite, well-mannered and attentive in class. Even the very youngest students remain relatively still and quiet while teacher is talking. Of course, one reason for that is that corporal punishment is widely used here, and culturally acceptable. I saw one third grade teacher twist the ear of a student who was writing when she was not supposed to be. One of our own CRC children was flogged (four “cuts” with a cane on the seat of her pants, though the last fell on her arm as she tried to block it) for being disrespectful to a teacher. Punishment is physically and verbally harsh here. Teachers not only hit students, they say things to them that would get an American teacher fired. And yet, they seem to genuinely care about their students, and they work very hard at their jobs with absolutely no resources at their disposal. The people here believe that this type of punishment is necessary to toughen a child. Some reflect that they prefer their children to go to the government schools so that they will be beaten more often and learn how to behave. I’m glad ours go to private schools if that is the case. It is hard to see them hurt. I wonder what these teachers would think if they had the chance to observe in our schools.

Rains in Africa

This is actually the dry season in Sierra Leone. The rainy (monsoon) season begins in May, and I’m usually here in the summer months during the rainy season. Farmers use this time of year to burn their fields in preparation for planting. We actually passed one on the road from Freetown to Bo:

It was a little frightening, but we could see the thunderstorm approaching and we passed by it quickly. The ensuing rain was so strong that it broke a tree limb that fell on the cable that connects the MTC to BKPS (Bo Kenema Power Station). Rain is very dramatic here – it rains very hard for a very short period of time. It rained again yesterday just before dinner. Craig put on his bathing suit and went and stood under the rain gutter where the water was pouring down like a shower. It only took a few minutes to get the rest of us out in it in our clothes:

The entire MTC staff came peeking around the corners to see the pumoy standing around in the rain.

Pictures!

Now that I’ve had someone help me compress files, I’m hoping that I can post a lot more photos (I know these are a lot more interesting than any words I could write)! So here’s my friend and fellow team member Mary:

Kathleen, so happy that she’s smiling with her eye’s closed:

Scott cutting out paper airplanes:

Ken, smiling a little goofily:

And lest you think we’re all just sitting around making paper airplanes, sticking stickers on people and hugging kids, here is the K1 class I observed on Monday (age 2-3). They’re staring at the pumoy in the room:

and practicing writing numbers on their slates:

This is Class 2 (second grade):

And the group that swarmed us for hugs and pats as we were leaving:

We Are Marching

Tonight we had story time with the kids for the first time since we arrived – last night the kids begged off so they could study. Really. They are some kind of stressed about the WASSCE! The men went to the boy’s dorm for stories and the women to the girls. After books, the girls sang – one of my favorite things about being here. You’re crammed in this dark, hot little lounge in the girls’ dorm, girls on every piece of furniture and draped over you, and they sing. They naturally harmonize, and Africans sing more from the diaphragm than Americans do. Their voices come out so strong it makes us sound so ready and thin. Sitting in the middle of that room though is like sitting inside the music somehow. I always get a little choked up.

Today was a very low-key day – church for two hours, then lunch and free time with the kids. I don’t get to do that often enough when I’m here for summer school – or I don’t take advantage of the opportunities then like I should, so I made myself leave the list in the MTC and just hang out. Spent most of the afternoon sticking stickers on kids and getting soundly beaten at various card games that I never understood.

 

But if you want to know what we're really doing here, check these out:

Off the Grid

Off The Grid


We had hoped to blog while in Bo – and I’m not giving up yet – but the Internet here presents its own brand of problems. The Internet connection – tenuous at best – which was working at Mercy lab mysteriously went down yesterday. They were able to get it back up for a little while, but it keeps blipping in and out, so emails crash and burn before they can get sent, and Skype just drops the call as soon as the connection is made. It’s frustrating – and tough to switch from the American mindset of reliance on the Internet to not only work but to be FAST and reliable.

Going to have to go low-tech and go back to the SAT phone tomorrow night to give this weary team a chance to hear their loved one’s voices – some of us need a bit of a morale boost.

I get the chance to get off the grid a little when we have our family reunion in WV – and it’s always an adjustment but also a bit of a relief once we get used to it. Of course, I’m not as off the grid as I am in Africa – and I’m not so far away from everyone I love. Still – we’ll make do. And pray that the Internet connection improves in the next day or so. And the most important thing is that the team has arrived at the CRC – been fed and spent a little time with the kids, and now we will get some rest so we can get the week off to a good start.

Stranded

Anyone remember the name of the Tom Hanks movie where he gets stuck in the airport?  We're feeling a little that way.  Our Freetown flight was scheduled to leave almost two hours ago, and we are still waiting to be officially called to our new gate (though we overhead where it's going to be).  Our original plane was replaced for technical problems (certainly don't mind getting a new plan), but the veddddy polite BMI workers just keep reassuring us that we will be ready to go in "five minutes".  They've been saying that for about an hour.

It's all good, though, because this is hopefully giving them time to find our team member's luggage.  Scott handed his bag to the girl at the counter to be weighed, and she put it on the conveyor belt without tagging it at all.  We have no idea where it is right now, and it has no way of knowing what flight it's supposed to be on.

We know travel to Bo is hard - just didn't expect the challenges to start in London!  Still, the team is well, and resting - and if you have to be stuck somewhere, Heathrow isn't the worst place in the world to be.

The Relectant Expat

The Reluctant Expat

Thanks Laura for asking me to guest post - it's a treat. Laura and I met when we were both vendors at a craft fair. We became fast friends and I often had the pleasure of sitting near her at craft fairs - we'd give each other potty breaks and quickly became each other's best customers. Our worlds overlap in many arenas and it is fun to add the blog sphere to the places we can meet.

When she asked me to guest post, I really wasn't sure what to write about. So, I just chose what I know - this crazy expat adventure we have undertaken.

My family was not looking for a move - especially not a move across oceans. We were quite comfy cozy in our very little corner of the world. In fact, when my husband came home and asked if I would be willing to move to India, I asked if it was a new street in our neighborhood.

So, I didn't exactly start immediately packing. First, I took a deep breath, then I threw up, then I started praying, then I started a blog (www.areason2write.wordpress.com), and then I finally started packing after delaying our official move twice. I arrived in Delhi almost exactly one year ago and it began to change us the minute we stepped off the plane - honestly, it began changing us the minute we began to talk about stepping on the plane.

I was no stranger to living abroad. As a child, I lived in Germany for two years - and I moved within the U.S. quite a few times. Luckily travel was important to my Dad and we saw a lot of Europe and quite a bit of the United States.

But frankly, I wanted my family to stay put. We had made a home for ten years in a wonderful neighborhood. We had just renovated our house and life was rolling along quietly and uneventfully and I wanted that for my children - I wanted for them what I never had. I wanted my children to grow up with life long friends and family around the corner. I wanted the comfort of the familiar for them - elementary school, middle school, and high school all within one mile of each other. I did not want each new school year to be a new beginning. We were in the zone - the comfort zone. And it was working quite well, at least for most of us.

Except that my husband had lived within the same 20 mile-radius for as long as he could remember. And he was itching to step out of that comfort zone. He wanted for our children what he had never had. He wanted them to meet new people and see new things. He wanted them to go more than 20 miles from home for more than a week.

Then he got the phone call. A former boss asked the only question that we would have answered yes to - do you want to work for me in India? I would have said no to Alabama, New York City, Germany, Poland, anywhere else - did it have to be India?

My husband had visited India so he knew that it would be a life as different from ours as it could possibly be. He wasn’t kidding. He wanted our children to see that the quality of life for most people in the United States is not reality for most of the world. He wanted our children to appreciate that we are all lucky - damn lucky. Me? Well, I had to look up India on the map. My first question was, “You mean all the way over there?”

He did not think it was funny when I asked if there wasn’t a Sally Struthers special we could watch instead.

So we began planning and crying and planning and crying some more. For my husband, they were tears of joy - for the rest of us - not so much. The kids and I really weren’t all that interested in leaving family and friends and routines and our newly renovated kitchen with the perfect island for entertaining. It was hard. I just did not think I could bring myself to do it. I don’t think anyone believed that we would ever actually get on the plane.

And the first four months were very challenging - challenging in ways I never imagined. When you come from a developed country to a third world country, be prepared to get sick - probably nothing serious - but your stomach and your lungs and your heart will need time to adjust. We got stomach bugs and skin rashes and jet lag hit me particularly hard. And we were homesick. My husband went to work and the kids went off to school and I managed to get out of bed and at least blog. I tried to laugh and make light of some of the adventures - but I was mentally homesick and physically just sick. I was having a really hard time understanding why this was a good idea.

Some one had given me terrific advise right before I left. “Don’t have any expectations.” That was the best advice I have ever gotten. I started putting it in to practice.

I would head out the door and expect nothing. And I started enjoying it more. I found the American Women's Association and met some great people and started going out and doing things and discovering Delhi. And I found that I enjoyed the people as much as the sights. Because the monuments don’t change me - they fascinate me and I love their stories - but they do not change me. It’s the people I want to get to know.

And it was some of the people that were upsetting me. They seem so desperate and absolutely alone. Every ride down the street introduced me to more helplessness. Children selling balloons in the middle of the road. Parents begging for just a few rupees. It is heart breaking, really. And most people say that you will harden to it. That has not happened to me yet. I cannot imagine that it will.

As you drive down the road and see the poverty and the children and honestly the filth, you can try to keep it at a distance. Read the paper, pretend to talk on the phone, just ignore it. And you want to ignore it because you feel helpless. How can one person make a difference? And then you get out there and you meet people who are doing just that - making big, big differences by starting with little bit steps. Then they get others to walk those little bitty steps with them, and all of the sudden, lives are changed forever.

I met Anou from Project Why (www.projectwhy.org) who is an amazing woman. Her daughter struggled in school and she came home from school one day very upset (again) and Anou decided enough was enough. The school was not meeting her daughter’s needs so she told her daughter that she did not have to go back. She created Project Why to help children in India who were not getting help. She reaches hundreds of children every day. I went to visit her schools and the reality began to sink in. The world is indeed a big place where the corners will probably never meet. There are millions and millions of children in the world who are suffering and it just takes one person who has had enough to help at least some of them.

I met Kiran Bedi ( www.kiranbedi.com ) who is a marvel unto herself. She has written several books and has her own television show. But she is best known for her work at Tihar jail. She tells the story that she was causing too many waves in the police force by publicly asking the tough questions so they were going to show her. She was assigned to run Tihar Jail. She immediately instituted policies like no smoking and insisted that the prisoners be given access to radios and books so that they would not be completely isolated from the outside world. Mrs. Bedi began a program called Weaving Behind Bars to teach the women prisoners a skill they can use when they were released. These women often take their children with them to prison - so Kiran established day care facilities and classroom facilities so that these children also had options. She did not want anyone rotting away in jail. So she was pushed into corner - a filthy rat infested corner - and she pushed back hard to the benefit of many.

I met Harmala Gupta who is the founder of CanSupport ( www.cansupport.org ). She is a cancer survivor herself and saw a tremendous need in India, and particularly in Delhi, for education and early detection. Through her work with hospitals, Mrs. Gupta realized that nearly two-thirds of the cancer diagnoses in Delhi were in the advanced stages, which left too many patients with little hope of recovery. Those patients were often too weak to go to the hospitals to receive pain medicine, so Mrs. Gupta began getting the medicine to the patients. Cancer in India carries its own stigma - so beyond fighting for their lives in tremendous pain, many patients are left alone without family support or financial resources to manage their care. That is where CanSupport steps in. They provide education and coordinate treatment free of charge for patients. And two years ago, they began the Walk for Life - it is as much an attempt to raise awareness as it is a fund raiser to help those struggling with cancer. Well over 3,000 people participated in the Walk this year.

I met some of the young leaders of Salaam Baalak Trust ( http://www.salaambaalaktrust.com/ ), an organization that helps find and keep safe the street children of Central Delhi. Many of its workers will navigate the train station to reach children arriving alone in Delhi before someone with less than honorable intentions finds them first. That thought will keep you awake at night - the idea that some one will snatch these children up and use them simply to make money without any concern whatsoever for their well-being.

I met April Cornell ( http://blog.aprilcornell.com/ ) who brought her manufacturing business to India. Surely, it is cheaper to do business here but you can tell she wants to do business here because of the people. She does not hire any child laborers, she pays her employees overtime, and she follows the rules - not just the rules set out by the Indian government - but the rules of her heart. She leads by example. When her company recently won a big contract, she decided to share the gains with her employees, who in-turn, provided food to needy families. She is not only providing a safe environment for her employees, she is sharing with them the gift of generosity. She is teaching them that you can find great joy through helping others - even if you are not exactly rich.

And finally, I met His Holiness the Karmapa ( www.kagyuoffice.org ) who simply teaches that we should live our lives peacefully. That the only changes in people we need to make are changes in ourselves. Because we frankly don’t have a lot of control over what other people do and do not do. That was good to hear and now I just have to remember it!

So, yes, the world out there is much different than we ever understood it to be. It is not the perfect bubble of comfort and convenience that we reveled in when living in the United States. It is also not home. We will return to all of those comforts and people we miss, but hopefully we will understand better that we have an obligation to this world to somehow make it a better place. To not just take from it but also contribute to it. Our corner has become less rigid - it's sides have softened and our eyes have opened.

I am also beginning to realize that when we leave, there will be things we miss about living here. And I never imagined myself saying that.

So, you can guess just how proud I am of Laura for taking another big leap across oceans to help those in Sierra Leone. Safe travels!