I don’t know if I’ve updated you since I started school but I am working 20 hours a week at school; 18 of which are math and 2 of which are for English. Quite a few of my friends have left the village due to high school and university starting. Boubacar, the principal’s son, left which was quite sad for me because I really enjoyed his company as well as our French and English exchange lessons. He’s called me since he left to tell me his English teacher is impressed with his level in English and often times says the phrases Boubacar uses are words he doesn’t even know. Also many of my students that left I have stayed in touch with, every so often they call me or vise versa to check in on each other. I really miss them.
I especially had a really tough day at school with my tenth graders the other day. I gave back their exams, which they as a whole had not done well on, and they were angry. I couldn’t get them to settle down, they were disrespectful, so I finally said I was done and walked out of the classroom. I went to see the principal and did everything in my power not to cry in front of him or my students. I told him what happened and how the students applauded when I left the classroom. He was mortified. There was only one student left waiting who also reinforced my story.
I walked home crying the whole way and thought about how appetizing a flight to the US seemed at that very moment. After cooling down, I had two English lessons that night; I was not in the mood after the days activities, but I pulled myself together. After the lessons I broke down and told the boys what happened, and told them it was days like this that makes me question why I am here. I told him that it was so hard because I didn’t have my family or friends here to talk to and that if the kids didn’t want to learn, why was I here? And also what I could be doing if I was back in the states. Mamoudou looked at me and said, “I thought we are your friends? When you have a problem you talk to your friends and together we can figure out a solution.” I felt so terrible and selfish because even though I have family and friends in the states, I also have family and friends here.
The next day at school was interesting to say in the least. The principal and all the other teachers and myself went into the tenth grade class and the principal made all the students apologize one by one. I was probably just as mortified as my students. But ever since then, they have been amazing. I also found out later that the principal had made an announcement to the whole school that I was going home if they didn’t behave better and that some of my seventh grade students had started to cry.
On another note, thankfully this year I have two volunteers close to me, one only 15 kilometers away and the other 35 k. So we have been biking back and forth. But my guy friends here in my village also have friends in the other volunteers’ villages, so we’ve been riding together. It’s been quite fun, we are like a pack of bikers Guinean and American, buts its hysterical because we race, (or maybe its just my competitive nature) but we start off so fast that halfway through we are all so tried we can hardly make it to our destination.
The Fete de Tabaskii (Fete = Party) In French
The day before the party, I had just finished teaching and was sitting with some friends in the center of the village when the principal came by and said that Ne Ne Kudy was here. (That was the woman I spent all summer with) So I raced to his house to see her, but she was out. The principal gave me a package he said was from Boubacar. I opened it up and there was the nicest note I had ever received, pretty much him telling me how he had been so discouraged after not passing his Bac, the entrance exam to University, but after working with me this summer and improving his English he felt like he had a new motivation to succeed and decided he was going to do it this year. He also sent me a pair of sandals for the party, cheese, food, drinks it was so thoughtful. After I found Ne Ne Kudy, the principals two sons, and the wife of one of his sons was there. We partied the next day for the fete. I got up early with them and helped them cook, watched them slit the throat of the goat, then danced. So much fun, then that night I had three girl friends coming to visit me and stay the night, so the boys I do English with had decided that we would have our own party. So myself, and two of the boys cooked up a big meal for 10 of us, then we celebrated into the night together.
The next week a German NGO that had built a library in the village was going to be inaugurated on Monday, which meant no school. The village had a big ceremony, which included the governor, the Germans, the German Ambassador and everyone from the surrounding villages. The library was beautiful but has since remained closed. I am trying to find out who has the key so that I can open it in the afternoons after school.
Ne Ne Kudy stayed for a few days after the fete and explicitly stated that I was required to hang out with her, so Sunday through Wednesday, I taught at school but then pretty much lived at the principals house. We talked into the night just us girls, my mom here in Guniea, ne ne Kudy, and the wife of the principal’s son. I was pretty tuckered the rest of the week, but had promised another volunteer that we would bike to the regional capital together. So right after school on Thursday, in the prime hours of heat, I biked an hour to her site, than we continued on to the regional capital. It took us 4 and ½ hours, but we made it and were able to hang out with the other volunteers there and celebrated Halloween. Thankfully on Sunday we were able to catch a ride home back to site, but once again I was tired for the start of my week of school.
School that week went well; I started 2 English classes that thankfully have filled every seat in the classroom. The kids love it. I’ve still been doing afternoon/evening classes with the boys, but had agreed to go with them to find a famous tree in a tiny village a ways from us. So on Friday afternoon all four of us took off and made it to the bridge the Chinese are in the process of building, had to leave our bikes, and be pulled across the river on a raft. After we continued on 5k by foot to find this tree, but the whole time the boys were arguing about the route to take, which path it was, which doesn’t help that there’s about a million. It reminded me of traveling with my parents when my mom is navigating and my dads driving and we go over the highway rather than finding an on ramp. Just kidding I love you both!
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| Pulling ourselves across on a raft |
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| The famous tree |
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| The boys and I infront of the tree |
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| The Bridge being built. Mamoudou and Yaya |
Anyways, we finally found the tree, met with the Imam of the village, the boys prayed and then we took a bunch of pictures. It was getting late, so we started heading back only to find that there was a massive truck coming, so we ran 2 k to the bridge trying to beat the truck. After we met all the Chinese workers, then crossed the rushing river on a wooden made ladder. There where we had left our bikes, we took off as the sun was setting, the boys make fun on me because almost every night after out English lesson when the sun is setting, I look out and tell them how beautiful it is. They laugh and say when you’ve seen that everyday growing up, it’s just not that amazing. But to me, its one part of the day that I cherish because I know my mom is looking the other way seeing the same thing.!
On Monday, I gave my first health class with Momoudou and Yaya the boys I teach English to. The topic was AIDS/HIV. We went though what the disease was, how you can get the disease, prevention, etc and at the end I gave a demonstration on how to put a condom on a banana. I don’t think I have ever heard my classe so quite. Truly I was so impressed with my 9th and 10th graders because they were so mature, all 80 of them.
At the end of the week my host brother I lived with in Dubreka for the first 3 months I was in Guinea, came to visit. He arrived on Friday at 11pm and ended staying till Wednesday. It was so much fun and so nice to have someone to stay up with and talk to. On Saturday he went to the market with me, and everyone was asking me if he was my husband, which I explained over and over again that no he was not, that he was my brother. They looked at our skin and then looked confused. I cooked for him on the weekends and after school during the week. I could tell he thought I didn’t know how to cook because he kept looking over and monitoring me cooking, so finally I told him that if he looked over one more time he would regret it. He laughed and when we ate it together later he was truly surprised, and apologized for doubting me.
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| My Host Brother |
We explored my village; he met my friends, went to the market to watch the soccer games at night, and came to school with me. One night though, we came home from taking a walk at dusk to find my entire pathway to my house was covered in marching ants, which are the ones that bite and make you dance if they get in your pants. So we had to sprint down the pathway with his pants and my skirt hiked up to avoid getting the ants all over us. My neighbors were laughing as we came sprinting up the path and me yelling. Then another night, I was walking back to the table when I stepped on something squishy, which ended up being a scorpion. I of course screamed and Aboubacar came over and killed it, then we both examined it. I refused to move while he examined the rest of the house. As much as I didn’t want him to go, it was a relief not to have to worry about what I was going to cook in between school and English lessons, or if I needed to go pull more water from the well and carry it home. It made me realize; I don’t know how the women here do it, they are so incredible tough! At the same point, I did come home from school and Aboubacar, my brother, had swept the house, washed the dished and cleaned my dirty sandals in an attempt to make it so I didn’t have so much work to do. Other times he forced me to go to bed while he stayed up because he knew I had to work in the morning. It didn’t help that he was up at 5am in the morning for Morning Prayer. Normally I can hear the call to prayer at 5am but can go back to sleep but with him here moving around it just wasn’t the same.
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| Picture of the sunset from my house |
Then after he left on Wednesday I worked until Friday and on Saturday afternoon I biked 15k to the missionaries to help prepare and cook Thanksgiving dinner. It was delicious, mashed potatoes, green beans, carrots, chicken, home made gravy, biscuits, and salad. I ate so much! After eating, one of the teachers for the missionaries kids and I decided to go on a hike. Maybe not the smartest idea right after eating but we hiked up this mountain not far from us. Due to it being the end of the rainy season, everything is over grown so we were pretty much bush whacking through the woods until finally we arrived at the top of the mountain. We watched the thunderstorms in the distance, looked at the mountain ranges and of course for me, the SKY. Absolutely beautiful. We hiked down in the dusk light, arrived back after dark, showered, ate apple and pumpkin pie, watched a movie and went to bed. Quite memorable.
The other day I was in class with my tenth graders, I was in the middle of teaching when the principal came into class and told me that the brother of the student who was rude to him was at the school and would like to serve him his punishment. I asked what that was, and the principal said that even though beating is not allowed at school the students brother would like to do that. I walked back into the class completely disheveled, fumbling with my words, etc and all my students started asking me what was wrong. I was unsure what to say, so I tried to keep going, but then the principal and the student and his brother were standing at the door way, so I left huffing and puffing. Then while I was standing outside the classroom, I became angry with myself for not standing up for the student. Then next thing I know, one of my students came up to me, I asked how many times they hit him and if he was okay, and my student said they didn’t do it because of me. I was shocked. My students had told the teachers that they didn’t want it to happen because I was not okay with it. Needless to say I think the student was okay with it, but the others… not so much. After, I was explained that African students are impolite and that it’s not like in the States where the students are respectful. I questioned where and which state or school they were in, because I was unaware that existed. So I explained to all… that American students are no angles, and I told a story of when I was impolite and what the punishment was. They asked me if it worked just getting talked to. I said yes that I also had to do community service, so I decided that instead of beating the student, he would help clean a large portion of the soccer field we were trying to get ready for the tournament I was started.
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| Some of my 10th graders |
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| My 10th graders who are just hysterical |
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| 9th Graders |
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| 10th Graders |
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| 7th Graders |
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| 8th Graders |
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| The Finale when we were are celebrating |
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| One of my best friends in the village |
That afternoon, my students arrived with their machetes, and we cleared the field by hand, and I made sure to watch to make sure that student worked. The tournament was two weeks long where I had the grades competing against one another. I also gave a prize to the once and second place teams in an effort to eliminate fighting. I made it clear that if anyone fights, the price is off for the whole team. The final was between the tenth and ninth grade, which was really hard for me to support a team because both grades are my students. The students couldn’t understand why I couldn’t pick a team, when I said I was for both teams.
Now all that rests is my Christmas trip to meet my mom in Paris were we will then be flying to South Africa for whatever adventures my mom had planned, back to Paris for 4 days and home to Guinea for the New Years. I miss you all and hope all is well.
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| The Waterfront in Cape Town |
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| Out to dinner at the Waterfront in Cape Town |
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| Seal Island Excursion |
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| MOM without Life Jacket on Boat Trip |
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| Trip out to Seal Island |
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| West Coast View |
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| South African Wine Tasting |
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| Malay District |
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| Table Mountain on our way out to Robben Island |
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| Animals - Wilderbeast? |
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| Zebra |
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| Ostrich |
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| Baboon |
Also, we have been approved for funding for our Women’s Magazine called, Aisha thank you to all who contributed, I will let your know when we begin the printing process!! Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Years! Below are some pictures for the Magazine!
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| Primary School kids on their way to school with wood on their heads for their teachers |
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| My students at the soccer match |
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| Women walking to the market with their goods to sell |
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One on my favortire pictures. A women walking to the
market with produce to sell |
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| Transporting their produce to sell |
