"This is the life, everyone has to be somewhere. I am here..."

Ok so back to using songs as the title for my blog entries. If you don't recognize that one, it’s from the movie Dangerous Minds. I suggest listening to it or even watching the movie if you want to know why I feel like it describes life at this moment.

As a side note I easily could have called this entry “and then there were 37”, but that’s old news now and isn’t what I want to focus on. It hit me hard at first that another volunteer chose to leave, but I was strangely encouraged when I found out the original Group 1 from 1962 was exactly 37 education volunteers. We always talk about how we are the second version of Group 1 since we are the first volunteers since 1994, so it’s fitting that we have the same amount of volunteers in the same sector.

Ok on to the update. First of all, I’m sorry it has been so long without an update. I’m in my village now and have to travel to a big city to get to internet, and while that isn’t far away, I’ve been thwarted in my last few tries to use the internet (place wasn’t open, not enough time for travel, internet broken, etc.). I’ll try to be updating every month or so from here on out. Also along those lines, I really do want to hear from all of you. I’m sure you probably feel like nothing has changed at home, but it is really exciting to get news from home, even when it seems like something boring or unimportant to you. So please don’t feel shy about sending out a letter or shooting me an email update. I’ll respond back to you using the same method you use.

I have just finished my first month as an official Peace Corps Volunteer. This first month was time before school starts to get “integrated” into your community. That means getting to know people, establishing yourself as a member of the community, trying to learn community strengths and potential community needs (for later secondary projects), preparing for the school year, and whatever else you decide (learning to cook local foods, learning the local language, etc.). I’ve had many conversations with people about how this integration thing is tricky business. First off, in the beginning you are overwhelmed by how much you feel like you need to accomplish, but how little you actually have planned for each day and how to make bring those two things together. I also have the added challenge of being in a big town for a Peace Corps Volunteer at around 10,000 people, which makes it pretty tough to learn “everything there is to know” about this place…

Ok so I won’t keep you in suspense any longer, here are some things I did in this past month:
• I started Mende tutoring with a local middle school Mende teacher. We spent most of Peace Corps Pre-Service Training working on Krio, which is the lingua franca for the country, but the area where I am is heavily Mende speaking (People only really speak Krio for trading or other business ventures and a combination of Mende, Krio, and English at school). The language is coming along very very slowly, but its definitely coming along. Nya gaama Mende yie klo klo (I’m learning the Mende language slowly)…
• I’ve been walking around the town randomly just talking to people and trying to get the town used to the fact that I’m around. That pretty much just means walking down streets, greeting people the best I can in Mende and telling them my name is Konya not pumui (white person), and walking over to spend time with them if they call me over with wa le (please come) or wa mu mehee me (come let us eat). Just fyi, the protocol for eating with people here is to accept it, but eat only a small amount leaving most if not all of the meat, saying you’re fed, and thanking the cook properly.
• “Keeping time” with key people so as to build relationships: my principle and other coworkers, the past Community-Teachers Association (CTA, their version of PTA) chairlady, the police commander and other officers, leaders of the local women’s organization, the town chiefs, the Christian Brothers, Christian Sisters, and Reverend Father at my school, my neighbors, etc.
• Visiting the local Community Health Center and getting an idea of what health care is offered here
• I attempted to start cooking lessons with my neighbor, but it took too much time to go to the market to buy everything, come back, cook, eat, and clean when I was trying to schedule so many other things. Now I pay my neighbor to make me food each day…
• Incredible times with the other volunteers, especially a trip to Number 2 River (where the river meets the beach) near Freetown. First time I’ve stayed in a beach house, danced on the beach, swam and especially watched the sunset over the Atlantic Ocean, and a host of other amazing things…
• Attended a workshop with the local women’s group about gender based violence
• Tagged along with a lady that works on a micro-loan program with women’s groups both in my town and in surrounding villages
• Biked around with one of my coworkers to introduce myself to the surrounding villages
• Continually preparing for school by getting supplies together, reading the Peace Corps guide to classroom management and doing exercises with a coworker, and cleaning, organizing, labeling, and taking inventory for our lab! That’s right we have a lab, with some actual chemicals and glassware 
• Working with the Christian Brother on making rules for the new library that is opening at the school, complete with donations of plenty of science books that the students will be able to read inside the library
• Spending time with the “Honourable” (i.e. Parliamentary representative) for these 3 chiefdoms, who is a fantastic woman and one of the few women in government here. I’ve also spent time with the woman who is the head of the 50/50 group for the Eastern Province. That group is based in Freetown and is devoted to increasing the amount of women in Sierra Leonean politics (until its equal or 50/50)
• I’ll round off this list with spending time with the Paramount Chief for my chiefdom. He is a fantastic guy who spent 27 years in America (and got his degrees there) before coming back to Sierra Leone around 2002. We took a trip to Kenema (the district capital 12 miles down the road) and got to meet the Regional Minister (the representative for the President for the whole Eastern Region), district education officials, the LUC (second in command for the Sierra Leone Police in the district, the OC wasn’t around, neither was the mayor who we were also wanting to meet)…the most ridiculous part of that day? Sitting in on the district council meeting where they make actual decisions for the district government. We were invited to the head table and listened to the council debate how much money they would contribute to a scholarship scheme in order to set an example before asking others to contribute. Then they asked my chief if he wanted to speak, and his speech was incredible. He gave me a warm welcome, mentioned that the US isn’t perfect and poor people do exist there (which no one ever believes) but that I did make a sacrifice coming. He went on to say that they should look at my sacrifice and instead of just taking what I have to offer (and trying to marry me while I’m here) they should take me as an example to search within themselves to develop their own country. He said that it should be their goal to decrease foreign aid until it is nothing and Sierra Leone is self-sufficient. He even threw in the JFK quote (super pertinent plus JFK is the founder of the Peace Corps), and I had to try hard not to cry sitting there at the head table (seriously it was way better than I’m making it sound). Mind you this is in stark contrast to how most Sierra Leoneans think. Its too early for me to make broad comments about the culture, but let me tell you a story to get the idea across:

I was keeping time with my Mende teacher talking about how teachers here don’t always get paid, comparing the cost/education system of Sierra Leone and the United States, etc. He started discussing how the government doesn’t do enough for the people (including pay salaries) but had also been complaining about how people shouldn’t be expected to pay taxes because many can’t afford them (taxes here are 5000 Le/year, which is $1.25 although the exchange rate is misleading. The buying power is about 1 meal that could feed a small family of 5 or so). I asked him where the government would get the money without increasing taxes, and without missing a beat (and even shocked that I asked at all) he said “from you people” (Cultural note “you people” is common and not at all an offensive thing to say, even though it sounds weird to us). Again its too early for me to be making cultural judgments, but the huge NGO presence in Sierra Leone is definitely doing something to develop a culture where people expect others (especially foreigners and the government) to come in and do things for them, don’t think they can/don’t want to do it for themselves, and take very little initiative in their own country’s development…now you see why the chief’s speech to a decision making body was so moving to me.

Since I don’t want to be making broad cultural statements, and I feel its too early to be saying extremely insightful things about the meaning of life or the inherent flaws in America (just kidding, just kidding), let me close off this long entry with some interesting things that people say in Sierra Leonean English or in Krio that are just ridiculous to me, and their “cultural interpretation”.

First off, there is definitely the mark of British English on Sierra Leonean English, especially in words that sound extremely formal to me like veranda, parlor, vex, and humbug. There are also words that mean something different than how we use them, and it is a debate among volunteers whether the differences come from British English or the African interpretation, like using “revision” instead of “review”, sayings like “I want to believe”, or the hardest one for me to get used to: when people use “can” to mean “do”. For example if someone says “can you eat rice?” it means do you usually eat rice, or if someone says “why can’t you go sit inside?” it is really just a suggestion, not the attack it sounds like in American English. Some other funny things people say in Krio: most greetings start with asking someone “aw di bodi?” (how is the body?), “aw yu slip?” (how did you sleep?), or “aw yu spend di de?” (how did you spend the day? – the answer to this is “fine”, not a list of what you did that day), all of which are pretty weird to us. Last but not least, and definitely one of my favorites is “how do you see the environment?” Upon first hearing this, all the volunteers wanted to answer something along the lines of “with my eyes”, but the question is closer to “what do you think about the environment?” so the answer is whatever you are thinking about the place that you’re in.

Anyway let me finish off this long long entry with a little glimpse into what’s coming ahead. School officially “re-opened” on the 13th of September, but students file in slowly for the first week or two, so I’m just hanging out at the school in my awesome African lapa suits spending time with teachers, learning about how things run in the school, making other preparations, and “reviewing” material with the small number of students who have actually come…By next time you’ll be hearing from someone who has actually been teaching her official African classes! Well I want to believe I will be teaching by then…

In another side note, I realized recently that I am now living by myself for the first time in my life. Its strange to think that I passed this important milestone while in Africa…

Ok, in the truly Sierra Leonean way, let me sign off with all my relevant titles:

Amanda Pease
Konya Dongboi (Mende name)
Paradise (travel name, I promise to explain this one next time)
Peace Corps Volunteer, Sierra Leone group 1.2
Volunteer Advisory Committee (VAC) representative
Peer Support Network Counselor
And I’m sure many more to come once school gets going and we settle into our committees at school: I’m guessing I’ll be in the Library Committee, Sports Committee, and Performing Arts Committee to start…

Or in my standard American way of signing off:

Take care,
-A