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.