Conclusion

I've been meaning to write this one for a really long time now. I'm sorry it's taken this long to get around to it. Unfortunately this is my last post.
My group was to have its Mid-Service Training (MST) in Bo. Myself and a few friends had plans to go on a week long bike trip down to the border of Liberia after MST. So, before MST began I had to transport my bicycle from my site down to Bo. This was an adventure in itself - it took me a whole rainy day of stress (I was worried for my bicycle getting stolen) to get to Yele where I met up with a few people I was going to ride with the 30 mi the next day down to Bo. I didn't get to Yele until it was dark. It was a really scary poda-poda ride! At one point a woman puked on some of the passengers in the back seat. Everybody in the car was really upset about this, to say the least, but I eventually got to where I needed to get. Paige, the volunteer in Yele, sent some children to come find me and get me to her house.
The next day was a lot of fun. It took us the whole day to get down to Bo. Yele is in Themne land whereas Bo is in Mende land. The transition was really interesting. In the border villages, it seemed like it was alternating Themne families and Mende families. I've never been able to be yelled at by children: "Oputo!" and "Pumoi!" at the same time! We went through some really cool places. This country is just beautiful. We stopped in this one village that was a big producer of pineapples - delicious! We probably ate 10 of these amazing 25 cent pineapples.
Just as we were getting into Bo and finally onto paved road, it started raining on us. We had avoided getting soaked the whole day, but we got soaked just as we got where we wanted to get. We were all exhausted but happy. The next few days we had our training. All of this training was focused on stuff we were planning on doing in the next year. On the last day we managed to meet with the representative from the CDC that was evaluating the situation on ebola. This was quite a privilege. We were told that there was very little chance that we were going to be evacuated because of the situation. The outbreak was still thought to be confined to the eastern districts Kenema and Kailahun and people were remaining optimistic. It felt to most of us to be sort of a hopeful optimism, but we took confidence in what our country director was telling us.
MST ended and we started the bicycle trip to the south the next day. This trip was just amazing - I'm so happy I was able to go on it. I got to see a lot of the country I never had seen before and spend some time in Mende land. A lot of us PCVs had plans to go home for vacation - we had more than a month off from school. So we ended up staying in houses that we had borrowed keys for from people that had left to America. So we stayed in a village called Jimmi Bagbo for a night. This place was really small and pretty isolated. There was a huge overgrown ruin of a house built by an old ambassador of China. The next morning we left for Pujehon, arriving in the afternoon. This site had 3 volunteers - it's a district capital. I chatted with a bunch of men drinking ataya. Ebola was on everybody's mind. The most we could do was to tell people that it was real and not being faked or just cholera. I guess we were starting to get close to the forefront of the outbreak, but I wasn't worrying too much about it. None of us wanted to face the idea that we might have to evacuate because of this invisible threat on the horizon none of us saw the effects of.
After Pujehon we cycled another 25 mi more south and more into the jungle. Being in Sierra Leone has made me feel like I'm at the end of the world - biking even further into the bush under a constant downpour on roads that are close to being impassible just exaggerated that feeling. I loved it - what an adventure. We eventually arrived in Bumpeh Perri, 20 miles from the ocean and the bottom of the country. Some time before we had lost cell phone reception and were fine with it. We hadn't told Peace Corps where we were going. We spent the rest of the day figuring out whether or not to spend the next day getting to the beach and possibly crossing the Liberian border. It looked like we were going to have to take a car. That night after we had our rice we went to the NGO compound who were going to run a generator. This NGO, I think World Vision, had a big satellite dish to get internet even though we were way out there. I wanted to wash and everybody else went to this compound to check emails and things. After I had washed by candle light standing on some dirt with huge centipedes crawling around, I started walking over to the compound and was told we had gotten an email saying we were getting evacuated and needed to contact PC ASAP.
It was night, so we couldn't leave the place we were and weren't able to call because of the lack of reception. We decided we would just leave early the next day. Half of us decided to get our bicycles further upline to at least Pujehon, and the others took transport. Daniel and I woke up at 5 and set off the 25 miles through the pouring early morning rain to get to Pujehon. I had the key to the house - we arrived and simply had to leave our bicycles there. We called Peace Corps even though both our phones were starting to mess up because of the moisture. They were telling us to consolidate the very next day according to district. Unfortunately, my village was on the complete opposite side of the country. I resolved to get there so I would at least have a little bit of time to say goodbye and pack some of my valuables. I was assuming I wasn't going to be coming back to Sierra Leone anytime soon. Unfortunately this has turned out to be a good assumption..
I ended up traveling for 16 hours that day. I left my bicycle in Pujehon and transported back to Bo with the group, grabbed the package my parents had just sent me, and went to see my host family. I ended up giving them a lot of things from the package. I got a car to Masiaka. This took way longer than it should have - the driver had to buy a new tire. I was stressed out. I had to get to Kambia to get a camera my parents had just sent to me (mine had been broken for ~4 months). The friend in Kambia that had my camera sent his bobo with it down to the lorry park. I chartered another vehicle to get to the junction to my village because the sun was already setting. Unfortunately through all of this hectic car hopping I left the remains of my package in the back of a driver's car. He got a bunch of good food and some cool books! I'm sure he felt blessed that day.
I eventually reached the Mambolo junction and was just really really wanting to get home - I felt terrible. I waited for nearly 2 hours for my friend to get there to pick me up. A nice family fed me and I hung out with them and snapped the kids. I had a cold and sad ride back with my friend. I told him what had happened and that this was the last time he'd be taking me. We stopped at my bobo Shebura's house and I said goodbye to Ola, his father, and told Shebura to be at my house early the next morning because I was leaving.
I didn't get to my house until maybe 9 - I had to immediately pack everything and get my house ready to be sealed up for a long time. I got everything together that I was planning to give away - again I assumed I wasn't coming back. Essentially my house looks pretty close to how it did when I was living there. I didn't pack very much besides valuables. I gave Shebura my hammock, my paints, and a bunch of other stuff, and had a lot of other things to give to all of my neighbors. The next morning all of my immediate neighbors showed up and I let them inside my house - I didn't care anymore. I knew things were going missing. I had just finished building railing on my back porch. It was really nice and I was looking forward to having a year to enjoy it. I told Shebura to take care of my garden. He took my kitten, Beans. I hope everything is going well. The Peace Corps vehicle showed up at 10 and I left everything.
We got transported to Freetown thinking we would be leaving in the next few days. Washington was working to get all 100+ of us tickets on short notice. Most of my group ended up leaving quickly - I was stuck in Freetown for a few more day with a few people left over. This sucked a lot, but they eventually got a ticket for all of us. We got out no problem. A lot of foreign organizations like ourselves were trying to get out. We flew to Guinea, picked up a bunch of Guineans, then went to Paris. I had a few hours layover there and from there was on my own to Chicago and got picked up by my parents. I felt like I was in shock - this whole transition happened so quick and under such bad circumstances.
I don't want to forget Mama Salone. What is happening there right now is horrifying. Things aren't getting better. There are dead bodies in the streets and the number of cases is just continuing to rise. My heart goes out to the whole region - this suffering I think is unlike any that the majority of the West is able to conceive. Some people are having half their families killed by this terrible disease. There's no recompense. I can't imagine the fear there right now as a faceless killer sweeps invisibly through villages and now towns and cities.
I hate to be leaving this blog on such negative notes. I have aimed to give you a real image of what my experience has been like in Sierra Leone. Despite all of the bitching I've done, I was happy the whole time over there. The whole thing was just a big adventure. This has been life-changing for me. I wish I would have had another year to explore this wonderful place and know these loving and good-spirited people. I could not have asked for a better place to have visited and worked in. I dedicate this story to my village, Mambolo, my students, my fellow teachers, and fellow Peace Corps Volunteers.

Mid-service complaining

I didn't really want to end up just writing a post complaining about things, but that is unfortunately most all that is on my mind. I haven't written a post in awhile, so I figured I should get one up. This post will mark my halfway point. I've been here for a year. I feel like I sort of have things down.
Let me first begin by saying what I believe to be the main historical source of all of this bs. The current young generation is being raised by a generation of 'adults' that had over ten years of their otherwise decent but probably still stagnant and mundane lives replaced by horrifying scenes of death, destruction and running for their lives. This is what I've gotten from people that want to talk about it which is hardly anybody. I don't really hear about the war at all. I just see it in psychology. Most people in country were displaced in some way by this stupid pointless war. The whole time, no learning and little goodness went on. Things were bad before the war, education wise, and they just got completely worse when the schools reopened after a period of a full generation had passed.
My school seems to be better than most of the secondary schools as far as corruption goes. Despite this, the students (who genuinely want a better Salone for everybody; I respect these kids more than I do the adults even though they steal my things) have told me that for the past year every single teacher besides myself and two others have asked for money for grades and promotions every term. This includes all of the people that I figured were respectable. I don't know how I can continue respecting these people when they are doing these ridiculous things and continuing to do their part to make their society suck. I can justify it a bit (they try to) by saying the government is not paying the teachers. Well, they have started to this past term (of course it is still not the promised amount because of the corruption in the government), and the problem is still going on. They say they need to eat. Hell, maybe I don't know everything. I get paid about the same as they are supposed to be paid. The difference is that I actually get paid every month. I wonder where my principal gets his money. I have not seen proof of corruption on his part so I'll continue to consider him the most respectable man I know here.
It seems like hardly anybody here is respectable, honest, or genuine. Everything is about money even for those that have it. The worst beggars, those that I just can't stand, are the big men. The man at the wharf that is supposed to be doing something about keeping track of the boats? (he doesn't; he never actually knows when one is going to come) always approaches me and asks me to give him 5000 leones. I imagine he is ostensibly on government payroll. I am writing this in a room with two of the teachers. One of them has been been doing the stupid bitching about somebody next to him to somebody else next to him thing that people do here. He is bitching about this situation with the laptops. Issa Kabba, the guy I replaced, brought 5 of these really old laptops running linux. Great. They are falling apart and not useful beyond for learning to type and word processing if you know how to type. The batteries don't work. Thank god we have a (now working) solar panel. So, we can use them. The mice sometimes work.
Issa Kabba brought these and was holding classes for the teachers. I think the story is that he allowed a couple teachers to take them to use at home but then they of course ended up not coming back when they needed to come back. He ended up putting logins on them that only he knew. I'm now the only person that knows the login. I have to be here for people to use them. It's a hassle for me, but one I don't really mind if people are using them for productive things. When I first got here, I took up the responsibility (although I'm sure with much less enthusiasm than Issa Kabba) of running the classes after school.
This went on for the first term basically. A few of the teachers came a few times. I told them that they needed to learn how to type before I would be teaching anything else. They didn't come, so they didn't learn how to type. Honestly I don't really know why people don't know how to type (nobody does) even though Issa Kabba was having the classes (apparently). One guy came most days, but all he would do is use the computer to play his music, which was really annoying. I eventually just didn't feel like wasting my time and started not having the class. I'm an American and I get really annoyed with people wasting my time. I have things to do. Nobody noticed the lack of classes, anyway. But, people still complain about how we have these computers and we aren't using them. This man next to me was bitching that we aren't using them because they don't have the login. Issa Kabba was afraid that if people were able to access them, they would just get taken. I figure that is going to be the case once I give up the login. I've tried to argue that they will be stolen, but they say they won't. I don't care, at this point. The man said the batteries don't work anyway. Seems to me that people wanting to steal them or else let their friends steal them aren't going to care about this. There is going to be a staff meeting tomorrow apparently and I'll probably just make palava because I'm turning into a themne. They want the login. I'll give it to them, but I'll let them know my mind. I've been getting progressively less respecting of these adults that are supposed to be educators helping the country. Seems to me they are just exploiting for their own benefit like everybody else. I can't believe that people here might be getting into education just because it gives them a sweet gig to exploit children that don't know any better. I think I'll incite a revolution. Last week there was almost a fist fight between two teachers because the younger one was calling the elder one only by his surname (disrespectful).
All of the time people come to my house to sell eggs to me because they know that I'll buy them (it's the best source of protein I can get here) for 1000 each (expensive for me, good profit for them). The white man nearly always buys them. I usually don't have change, so I have to give people a 5000 usually. Today for instance one of the students that lives close to me sold me 3 eggs. I had to give him a 5000 and he told me he would bring me the 2000 change. Of course he didn't. Yesterday I bought one egg from a girl. I had to give her 2000 and she said she would bring the change. She never came back. I don't understand.
Yesterday Shebora, my bobo, came to my house at 7:30 am. I asked what he wanted and he said nothing. I figured maybe he just wanted to hang out which was annoying at that time of day but whatever. He ended up doing a couple small chores for me and then saying "Ah git fo go na Kobia; yu able fo lend mi yu bicycle?" It was early morning and I didn't have the energy/presence of mind to bitch or say no. So I let him take it. Kobia is maybe 30 minutes away on a bicycle. I guess one of his brother's wives was sick or something. I figured for some reason he would only take 2 or 3 hours. He ended up never coming back.
He was at my house on Thursday asking if I could go with him on Saturday to some other village on the bicycle. I told him I had too much stuff to do over the weekend and I wasn't feeling well. The next night he came to my house at 9:30 pm (I get pissed off if any children come to my house past 7). I told him to go away. He didn't. I reluctantly paused an episode of TNG and scrambled for my keys. He ended up giving back one of the books I had lent him a long time ago that I had forgotten about. Cool. So then he comes this next morning and takes my bicycle, having been told before that I have a bunch of stuff to do and don't want to go on a trip this weekend. I guess he had forgotten that I needed the bicycle in order to get to school to do my stuff. I take it as him being a disrespectable little brat. I ended up walking to his house pissed off at 4 in the afternoon figuring on finding out where he is or if something happened. I meet him there and he has apparently had the bicycle at his house since before noon. He never bothered to bring it back.
I think he has ruined our friendship in my eyes. If I continue to be taken advantage of like this I am just looking like a fool being suckered by a stupid kid. Sucks for him, but it wasn't like he was taking advantage of the privilege he has had for the past three years of hanging out with a visiting American. Oh, besides getting money from us. He seems to know less english than all of his companions, he can't read (he's 11), and is entirely lazy with anything academic. All he wants to do is bluff (show off) to his stupid little disrespecting friends and get money out of me. I don't even know why I have allowed him to exploit me for this long. I am even suspecting that he may have stolen small money from me. My titi, MA, who is basically a much smarter, more respectable, and overall better bobo, has told me she has seen other kids riding the bicycle. I don't know how much I trust her since they dislike each other. But yeah, I can see it. It's not happening anymore. The kid is being cut off. I don't think Issa Kabba liked him all that much either. But up until now he has been useful and demonstrably trustworthy.
A few days ago I just started to not feel at all like eating rice. I think I am having like a psychosomatic response or something. I have just been feeling like I can't get much of it down. Food here sucks. I haven't thought about it much before now. I can't eat the same thing every day, and I have apparently been doing that for almost a year now. Something snapped. I became ill feeling and lacking an appetite. Not eating anything for a full day seemed to clear things out a bit, but rice still just isn't doing it. It feels like it has no nutritional value at all. My body is rejecting it because it's just useless bulk. I don't really know what I'll be doing about this. I've just been eating oatmeal, but I'm almost out of that and it's not really making me feel healthy, either. There's not really anything available. So, eggs and oatmeal until I can have an appetite for rice and plasas again. Right now my system is fragile and I feel myself becoming weaker. It was already not that strong feeling when I was forcing the rice down, and not eating much of anything isn't really helping that out.
This carpenter, who I think I have mentioned before, I decided to give another try. I wanted to have a desk made. I took measurements and drew plans so that he wouldn't have to think at all about how to cut things. I went to him and showed him the plans and walked him through the whole thing. I told him to have it done in a few days. I was hopeful that this time I would have a good experience. I figured it was fail-safe. I went to him the day after I told him I would be there (I've integrated) and he didn't have it done because he needed nails that he claims he told me I needed to buy. I give him money for the nails. I imagine he told me the wrong price and chopped the rest. I come back the next week (I went on a trip). Thinking I would have a nice desk today, I go to his place. I find him preparing a nursery for rice. He says he has made the desk and brings it out. It looks like a sort of non-functional church pew. I don't really know what anybody would possibly use this thing for. "What happened?", I ask. He says he doesn't know what happened to the plans. He had put the paper in his pocket and then I guess his woman brooked the pants and in the end he lost it. I don't really feel like making another set of plans and just tell him how he needs to re-cut everything. I need to go back but I haven't yet because the situation is just so irritating. The guy has done this to me before. It took him over a month to make for me a stool and the stool isn't actually what I want at all and I don't use it and it sucks as what it is. I think he actually had somebody else make it for him. He's incompetent. Maybe if he actually knew how to be responsible, save his money, and run a business, he wouldn't have to be turning to farming rice this year.
So, in general, I feel like 98% of my relationships despite maybe being friendly on both sides involve an aim of exploiting the white man to the greatest extent possible. In America these relationships wouldn't be considered healthy. It's what happens when you are one of the few people with steady money in an impoverished society, I guess. To an extent I feel okay so long as people don't steal from me and actually do what they say they are going to do.
I'm frustrated, but the most pressing problem is the nutritional one. I'm planning on figuring out where I can buy plumpy-nut, this nutritional supplement some organization sends over here to give to school children. It is supposed to be illegal to sell it, but people do anyway. I'm a starving school child, I guess. One of the pcvs said he eats two of these every day and that is all. I won't get that bad. I just need something other than rice for a few days.

An unprofessional sociological analysis

Typically I don't ever do many productive things on my computer while at home, but right now I am feeling a bit compelled to write a blog post and maybe a couple letters. I have a kitten on my lap and I am sitting on my back porch. It's a lovely overcast day I have spent the majority of reading this book, The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck, M.D. It's a fantastic book, I think, full of insight and interesting, powerful ideas. He is a scientist, a professional psychiatrist in the late 70s. Psychiatrists nowadays are associated with treatments using drugs. Dr. Peck takes an approach more so along the lines of a modern psychotherapist. He uses therapeutic techniques to uncover peoples' psychological issues and proceeds to treat them. It is interesting to see how psychological treatment has changed since then to be more easy (and more lucrative) for the whole industry. Throughout the book he is using case studies to talk on the psychology/philosophy that he is trying to put forward. It is all very interesting. I love books and how they can contribute to your whole experience of days while reading them.

I won't put you through a book review, but I am sure you can see the influences of what I am reading at the time from the things I want to talk about here. I wish I was more eloquent. I don't know if I have ever been too eloquent with my english, and frankly this place is making it worse. I feel I am starting to lose that instinct for what sounds right in order to speak and write proper english. So please excuse my crappy and inadequate expression. English seems to be a cumbersome and arbitrary (eg style) language for expression.

There is a big group of school children down below me. It is Sunday, but they go to a Muslim primary school and so they had school today. They are returning home. They were clearly noticing me on my computer (this is why I don't typically use my computer at home, especially during the day; it's inevitable that some children soon are going to come by and I am going to have to put this thing away). They said Shebura Kabba, seke! (some of course say Issa Kabba! and quickly correct themselves when I don't respond to them). I say seke! and they say Shebura Kabba, money! Typically they wouldn't do this or continue bothering me like they are currently doing but I have my 1.2 million leone device sitting on my lap.
Okay, so what is going on? The first couple weeks back from break (the recent last couple weeks) have been difficult. I have been in a bit of a slump for various reasons, but since have been feeling a bit better. I just need to be less lazy and establish a better routine. I've had a terrible waste of the last couple days. I'll tell you about these since not much before that was going on besides malaise of returning to the lonely and frustrating routine of teaching.
I am currently relatively poor (compared to how I typically am, not compared to everybody else in my community). So I have had minor financial distress. Here money is basically everything. If I don't have physical money, I am stuck and can't do anything. There are no assets available besides what I have in my pocket/money purse. The break depleted me quite a bit (it did everybody). So, I was needing to go to the bank but haven't really had the chance. For me, it is difficult and expensive to travel to go to the bank in port loko. It takes about 30k and two hours one way to travel to the bank. I had planned to travel on Friday after this stupid staff meeting. The staff meeting ended up commencing at 10:30, scheduled for 10, and it was still droning on when I had to leave at 2:30. These meetings are mostly total wastes of my time and in my opinion could be condensed to a fraction of the time they always take. I generally don't feel obliged to say anything in them. I feel like I work with these people but not really for them. I just do my job and try to ignore the bullshit associated with working with a bunch of Sierra Leoneans. I like everybody, but lots of stupid and incompetent things happen sometimes. I try to stay out of all of it and retain my integrity and good standing with everybody.
I feel like I need to go on a tangent for a quick story. Part of the meeting's agenda involved discussing this conflict between two of the teaches. MSK is a young and new teacher that just got his higher teacher's certificate and was living in Freetown. ISK is a senior teacher, probably about 40 or something that has the roles of a vice principal. On a previous day, a grandmother and a police officer (an uncle) came into the staff room and were accusing MSK, who wasn't present, of having come to their home at night and beating one of the students, Davida, after being involved in a love affair with MSK. There is no doubt in my mind that they were telling the truth. Right now, for progressive Sierra Leoneans, teacher-student relations is a big issue that needs to be corrected because it is just another thing undermining education (especially for girls). I won't divulge on that right now. After the family members left, we figured the issue was over.
Then I guess later the next day, some weird drama was occurring that is really confusing based on what I heard of MSK's side of the story. He flatly (clearly lying) denied absolutely any involvement with Davida. He was saying basically he didn't even know the girl without ever actually stating that. All of his statements were unemotional and trying to make himself seem the victim. I don't really know but it felt obviously fabricated. It was basically a story told without any explanation of events. I have begun to actively look for cues of people here being dishonest and his statement was full of them. Anyway, what ended up happening was MSK was beat over the head by ISK a couple times with a big heavy stick (a mota pencil/karump, the big pestle stick used to pound things like peppers, rice, cassava in a big mortar called a mota woda/kadeer). I guess ISK for some reason was furious over what had transpired with this family and Davida. It was sort of weird and random seeming, but I guess ISK has connections to the family and felt obligated to retaliate at MSK. So MSK has this big bloody bandage on his head. Luckily he's not dead or severely concussed. I'm surprised.
So that was something stupid that happened that I still don't fully understand. I haven't been that interested so I have not heard the full gossip. I left right as ISK was making his statement of events which were sounding like they completely diverged from MSK's story of humility and innocence. I would trust ISK over MSK but I myself (and I think everybody) am a bit disappointed at his lack of maturity in dealing with this conflict. MSK is an obvious philanderer and abuser of women. There was a previous thing where MSK was trying to smooth talk one of the girl students living at ISK's compound whom ISK feels to be his charge. I have seen MSK doing this with all sorts of girls. I have heard him yelling at young girl students, beating them for stupid things to assert the power he feels he has because he is a man. People here have all sorts of psychological issues.
Anyway, let me try to continue the story in chronological order. I left the staff meeting in the middle of ISK's statement of what transpired. I had arranged with a friend (another story..) to take me to Port Loko.
This friend of mine I have mentioned before. He lives down the road from me. His name is Ibrahim. He's probably 30 and a student teacher at one of the other schools in town and close to earning his HTC (higher teacher's certificate). Over the break he was having to go to Kambia to attend more classes. I didn't see him for a couple weeks after the break had ended, but he came back and told me the depressing story of what happened over the break. He was all set to graduate, but he was unfortunately stopped at a police checkpoint and heavily fined for not having a registered vehicle. I guess he is awaiting charges from a court? I don't really understand. In my opinion, I think corruption was involved and the police probably strong handed him illegally to give them basically his entire savings. He ended with nothing. He was severely depressed and I guess slept for like a week in despair. The last thing he has to do, apparently, is buy this form in order to take his final examination. The form costs 270k leones for some reason. Don't ask me why a form (which I think is just a bunch of pieces of paper with official stuff on them) should cost 270k leones which is about $50. I reluctantly agreed to help him out with 100k. He is my friend and seemingly one of the more honest people I have met. I don't like this situation, though. A friendship involving money is no way to be.
He took me to Port Loko and I arrived at the bank at 4 pm. The bank was closed for some reason. I was distraught because at this point I have wasted my entire day to stupid disfunctional Sierra Leonean things and am almost to the point of not affording the travel expense to get to the bank at all. So that was my Friday. I woke up, sat in a staff meeting for 4 hours, went to the bank and found it to be closed even though it shouldn't be (I guess they wanted more vacation time), and this weekend have been pinching leones (hardly..). I'll go back on Monday and get my wads of valuable paper.
Yesterday, Saturday, my school had to host this NPSE (National Primary School Examination). The NPSE is the standardized exam everybody takes to get promoted to secondary school. We had like 30 primary schools from the area come with a total of almost 600 little kids. I had to be at school at 8 and the thing lasted until 4. All of us teachers had to be there to invigilate (proctor) the kids taking about 8 different papers. The whole thing ran pretty smoothly and we actually ended up finishing a little early.
A couple exciting things happened. I spent most of the time reading my book. My principal once caught me doing this and said "you are reading while invigilating?" I responded "yes, I am." Later in the day people were juggling me around to go to different rooms. I didn't initially understand why and it was a bit frustrating and stupid seeming to me. I later gathered that they were juggling around the teachers they could trust to not be telling the kids answers to the questions. I got put in the hall with MSK and my counterpart, Muhammed Kargbo. The hall had 120 kids in it. At one point I was in the back and heard strange yelling/groaning sounds coming from the front. One of the girl students in the front row was slumping over and clearly having a seizure. One of her friends jumped up and supported her and we took her outside. She didn't convulse really but she was clearly unconscious. She kept trying to walk and pull us with her. Despite this girl having a seizure, the exam started immediately. She eventually seemed to come to after almost a half hour but was incapable of writing the letter and essay the exam was wanting. She seemed to be older than most of the students and I felt bad for her. The exam is very important. I don't know if she is mentally stunted. I don't know much about epilepsy, but these people took the fit in stride. The students were a bit spooked. There is a lot of superstition here with epilepsy and I completely understand why.
A bit later, MSK was walking around the room telling the room full of silent students the answers to about half of the test. It was interesting to watch the huge crowd of students just waiting and shading the answers he was telling them. I didn't immediately question him, but I went up to Muhammed and said "what is MSK doing?" Muhammed replied "I don't know, ask him." So I said aloud "MSK, what are you doing?" and he laughs and says "nothing." I start expounding on how integrity and honesty is the problem with this place. Of course he doesn't really listen to or accept what I am saying and continues. A senior teacher I highly respect later walked by and caught MSK, chastising him and saying he was giving the children poison. Which is true. Every time the children see adults acting dishonestly they further reinforce the idea that lying about everything is just fine. He continues doing it and I tell him flatly that he needs to stop and he does. A lot of Sierra Leoneans don't live in the real world. They live in this huge web of lies that stifles any progress from happening but at least benefits them in the moment. I think about how nobody can trust the majority of Sierra Leoneans and so nobody wants to invest much here. If Sierrra Leoneans were more honest, NGOs, myself, and other organizations would be more willing to help out with projects. But, honesty is not a widely held virtue here. I typically assume somebody is lying to me until I can judge them otherwise, and even then I try to be wary of agreements I make with people.
Okay, I am about running out of steam with this long post. Things are going fine. Here are my thoughts. Like I said, I just try to do my job well. I personally think I am an irresponsible teacher (by American standards), but all of my students praise me and so I think I am doing it fine (by Sierra Leonean standards). If I was a PCV that had some assignment like improving the health facilities or something, I would be super stressed out. Something that bothers a lot of my colleagues it seems is a lack of structure in our work. I think this is a problem that faces a lot of PCVs but it is least severe with educators like ourselves. I have a better situation than most. At least my school functions and I go to work 5 days out of the week. The rest of my time is unstructured though which can be difficult. Nobody besides myself is telling me what to do with my time. The most difficult thing for me has been having the will to push myself to be productive. Laziness is bad. My work ethic here has decayed to the point that two hours of work on something I don't feel like doing has become extremely difficult to get around to doing. Procrastination can be terrible when nobody and no system is telling you what to do. In this way I am growing and becoming self motivating.
MA has a toy gun she is shooting at my poor kittens. Soon they will be old enough for people to steal away from their mother. I will probably keep one of them, one of the males. I don't know how this will work out when he gets older but I think it will be better than having two females and a getting a bunch more kittens.. I guess we will see? IS, MA's little annoying sister is next to me watching me type this. She says "ehhh, ko-i adia?" I say "angcomputa". MA routinely tells IS to ask me for things. She whispers something in Themne to her and then IS asks me in terrible krio. A tray fo tell MA i no fayn fo lie, but i no sabi mi. I think dishonesty, lack of respect for truth, is one of the most pervasive and damaging issues in Sierra Leone. If people are unwilling to live in the reality of truth, society is going to be impossible. Nobody will trust each other and good relationships won't form when you can't trust somebody to not have ulterior motives. People give the impression of love, but you must be wary of selfishness.
On the other hand, Sierra Leoneans are incredibly friendly and helpful to foreigners. Many instances I have been helped out and asked for nothing in return. These times I think otherwise. My impression that everybody is just looking out for themselves and their families comes from many situations I have seen and just the feeling I get from many of my interactions. Many people recognize the problems with their society but are terrible hypocrites when it comes to correcting things. I think this is true of every society, though, and that due to psychological incorrigibility, societies only change slowly (for good or for bad) if they change at all. Ten years of running terrified for their lives and witnessing horrible scenes of evil deeds is enough time to turn society for the worst.
This is clearly a post conflict society and there is a lot of work to be done. Unfortunately everybody sees the world rushing ahead while Sierra Leone is clearly behind. The situation is bad but it could be remedied in a generation if people were actually able to root out all of this psychological baggage and raise their children to have the behaviors needed to create a proper, functional society. I am afraid though that people like MSK and the majority of uneducated Saloneans don't know what is good for them. They just know in school that you need to have the correct answer and that is the only thing that matters. They know that so long as their children get a meal, it doesn't matter how they got it. Corruption is difficult because people are just looking out for their loved ones. How can you look out for the larger abstract system when your family is suffering?

Anybody in the developed west can point out the problems here but if you spend any time living here, you won't say the reality of things is easy to fix. As far as I can tell this society is just a socially stunted version of a developed nation and the current functional nations were in the same position at some point in the past. I think they are stunted because social progress was held back by evil westerners for centuries. The current state of Africa is in my opinion a direct result of the evils committed during colonization and the slave trade. These events went to create the impotent psychological state of the people here and started the ball running for bad, corrupt, selfish decision making by the leaders that has made everybody poor. The same problem of rich people taking everything is happening in America, just there is more wealth overall and so our children have meals, we can sit in our air conditioning and enjoy our carpet, and nobody cares enough to change things.

When people are so fed up with the rich sitting around in their mansions drinking beers and getting fat that they can't get their daily meals, people will be motivated to take action. The president here is I guess the third richest man in Africa. I don't understand. People are suffering everywhere because the wealth has been squeezed out of the world and sold out by the rich and powerful who could never realistically use the wealth they are sitting on. This place feels unstable but I think most Sierra Leoneans are too jaded to actually organize any positive action (I'm not saying violent action is necessarily needed at this point, or ever.. but I don't see anything changing. This topic is for another discussion.). Poverty sucks.

Managing fayn

So yet another month has passed! I feel like I have too much to say and will end up not saying much of it.
I have been on break from school for the past couple weeks and have traveled around a lot. The first weekend there was a big birthday party in Freetown I went to. It was for one of the girls in Salone 3. T-shirts were made for the party; they are great! There was also a

scavenger hunt that everyone got to get people to do stupid things. I won't get into this too much. We stayed up the entire night walking along Lumley, which is the main beach shore in Freetown with a bunch of bars and clubs. Beaches here are pretty much perfect: decently clean, hardly anybody there, and completely lawless. We had a good time and everybody came out of it alive! The worst thing that happened I think was people doing Muslim ablutions with beer. This felt inconceivably sacriligious to me and I think could have easily gotten us all killed.
After this, I headed to Bureh and relaxed on that beach. I've said before how great this beach is. Again, nobody besides us and the beach bum surfers that run the place were there. Bureh is always paradise.
I had to go home a couple days later in order to run the chemistry WASSCE practical for the seniors. The week before I had to run the physics WASSCE practical. I electrocuted myself with 230V AC. That was pretty bad but again I'm still alive. Running these things was really stressful for me, but everything ended up going okay. The official examiners that came ended up being entirely incompetent and I was able to basically help my students as much as I wanted during the practicals (labs). In America the stuff I was doing would have gotten me in big trouble. The students told me the examiners didn't understand my english and so they didn't know I was basically giving answers to my students the whole time. I think it was pretty obvious what I was doing and they just didn't care enough to get up from their chairs.
Some people will say this was wrong action on my part but you have to try to understand how the system here is. The exams are almost less testing the students' abilities as much as they are testing how much they have been 'helped' by their schools wanting good results. In an ideal Salone, there would be total honesty involved in this hugely important examination (it decides whether or not a person can go on to university or not). I have to face reality a bit and try to put my students on level playing field with other schools. It is no fair to them if everybody else cheats and they end up with a low score just because I wanted to be the honest American. Saying this, I still did less than I think most schools do in order to give their students unfair advantages. I consulted the rest of the teachers and they all told me it would be unfair for my students if I didn't do this in the Salone style. I am a little nervous saying these things on my blog, but it's no problem.
After the exam I started construction on this big oven at this guy Otem Pottery's house. He has experience in masonry and ovens, and I had the initiative to experiment with building an oven of my own design. So now that oven is pretty well completed. I think it is probably the most architecturally advanced structure in my village. I kept in mind principals used in these ovens called rocket ovens. It basically involves making the heat flow over the walls of an insulated inner furnace. There are three layers. The furnace is floating on some bricks inside of the secondary wall which is spaced a couple inches from the furnace on three sides. The front side is sealed and has a passage all the way through into the inner furnace. The design I had looked at was using a big metal box you just set on top of some pillars, but this is Africa so we built the thing entirely out of bricks and mud. This proved to be really challenging. Otem was able to make an arched roof to seal the oven, and then he made another arch with the secondary wall that was similar with the inner furnace and allows the heat to pass over all of the furnace surface. The outer wall is just mud break, and all of the empty space inside is filled with dirt to provide insulation and support for the whole structure. It looks like a big square box with a cone. I'll put up some snaps. It seems to work as intended, but we haven't baked any bread yet. I am a little worried about how much wood it is going to take to heat up all of the inside. There is just a lot of mass to heat up, but if it is well insulated I don't think it should take too much wood.. I am thinking it is going to be something we have to warm up in the morning and then use all day because it will stay super hot and we don't want to waste the heat stored inside all of the brick and dirt. We will see. I am just really hoping it isn't a failed experiment and I have just used a lot of the guy's resources to try to improve on something they already have a design to do fairly effectively. In America it is okay to do experiments like this (it didn't cost a lot besides the clay bricks). Here, people will be upset with failed experiments.

When I left again the oven wasn't quite finished, and now I have come back and Otem has built the secondary wall around the furnace. I left for Bo to see my host family. Everything there is good and I had a good visit with them. I wish they were a Themne family (they are Mende), but it is neat to see both of the tribes. In Bo I met up with a girl in my group, Rebecca. We hung out in Bo for a day and woke up the next morning at 3 to catch a taxi going to Freetown. Waking up and being out at the witching hour doesn't exactly help our status of being witches. I walked to her house under a full moon and was tailed by packs of dogs for half the way. This was really scary. One of the packs was these four dogs, and one was nipping me on my ankle. I tried to stay calm and just keep walking quickly out of the neighborhood. I was so afraid I was going to get bit, but I gave them no reason to bite me so I was okay.
Rebecca and I left in this car and had a frigid 4 hour drive to Freetown. I've never been so cold in this country. We got to town and went to the national stadium for this west african cultural fair thing. There weren't many visitors there, just the vendors sitting around being really bored trying to get us to buy things. There were a lot of west african 'medical doctors' selling remedies for various ailments. Blindness, worms, incontinence, penis enlargement, making your man want you, etc. I tried to take a picture of one booth but the people got really upset with me. I shrugged and turned around to snap the other booth selling the same stuff and the person I initially tried to snap yelled over to them and told them I was trying to take pictures. This man was really pissed off so we backed off and I ended up with no pictures. I don't understand the taboo with pictures. The west africans we met were much more rude than most Sierra Leoneans you come across. They made me appreciate how friendly and willing to help foreigners Sierra Leoneans are. Having a girl with me helps a lot I find, too. Most of the merchants seemed pretty successful and tired of being in a place like Sierra Leone. I am only just now realizing how truly backwards, poor, and dirty this place is. Most other Africans even have a lowly opinion of it.
After the fair, we went to the downtown area and ate at this place full of white people and snobby rich Sierra Leoneans that was the closest I have gotten to a legit western restaurant. I had a delicious philly cheese steak. I bought a bunch of Themne books to hopefully learn from. All of the books, even the first level one, is entirely written in Themne, so it might be a challenge. I look forward to learning to read Themne, though. Right now I can understand just a little bit of it and have to sound the words out to recognize them, but it should be fun and I think maybe really helpful.
We also went to this place called the big market which is this two story building packed full of expensive cultural items. I've never seen so many baskets, lappas, country cloth blankets, tribal masks and other stuff. All of it is really cool. A few of the merchants travel around the country and buy these sacred objects from the chiefs to sell them to rich people. There were even very cool and artistic bronze statues that had to be at least a century old. I don't see many artistic cultural items here, so this was really interesting. I might buy one at the end of this, but it is quite an investment.
We then traveled to another town and stayed there the night with a couple other people. None of us were the volunteer that actually lives in the place. We rode in the back of a tractor. It was nice, but that is the end of my vacation outside of my village!
Now I am back. I have been running errands all day and am continuing to be busy. I want to cook some thulla and buy the pan for making the roof of the oven. I'm not really looking forward to school starting back. Easter is Sunday. I'm looking forward to partying and dancing with devils!  Independence day is the next weekend. I'm looking forward to more partying and dancing!
I have told the story without much of the feeling and inner thought. I need to stop having such separation between posts. So much happens all the time and I am always busy. All of us have really enjoyed the break. At the beginning I was excited but afraid for something bad to happen. This is a relatively common feeling. I have never felt so much fate in my life. I feel like my life is somehow in the hands of God. This place makes you more religious, I guess. I tend to think of God as the ridiculous emergent and abstract machinery of reality rather than some dude. Muslims have sayings that are highly fatalistic that seem to at surface fit the situations faced in this place. Why are some people at the absolute dirty bottom and others are able to have a good life? I don't really know why, but these thoughts come into mind when you see the disabled beggers here living in the horrible slums of the major city of one of the poorest countries in the world. The slums are unimaginable by American standards. Many people here are living lives unimagineable by Americans. You should feel lucky! You were randomly 'selected' to be one of the few humans to have enough valuable paper to have access to my blog!
How do I speak about things without using the vocabulary of fatalism? Transport here is dangerous. Every time I get into a car I think today is the day I might die. If I get out of this place without a scratch, it must just be because the universe (God) just doesn't want me to die yet. I even feel more okay about dying. I see death almost every day. A dead puppy in a dirty gutter, a dead chicken in my backward, standing around a still flaming crushed taxi on the side of the road silently with a large group of people.  It doesn't really make too much sense to the human brain desperately trying to rationalize everything. It must just be because God wants it to be that way, right? I am okay dying tomorrow; I'll just try to live well with what I have been given today. If God says yes, which mortal man can say no? I'll survive, Inshallah. I won't be traveling for a little while, so unless God decides it's my time to randomly contract a terrible disease and die a miserable death tomorrow, I'll probably keep you posted on my life. I'll be trying my best to take my life out of the hands of a cruel and unfair God. I hope he won't get me for a good number of decades.
What else? I'm happy, but pondering whether or not I should be given my situation. I have always been a resiliently content individual able to be happy even without people around and that is proving to be of great benefit for me here. A lot of the group seems to be falling into a bit of pessimistic malaise, especially now that we are having to go back to our jobs. I'm trying to stay strong and keep doing cool things. It's been almost a year. I can do another year, no problem. A nice girl would help me get along, but I can survive without one. This job doesn't seem conducive to having a happy and healthy relationship. Everything seems to drive one to find outlets and attachments.
I think everything about my life has changed. I don't think the same about life at all. I have been exposed to a different way that people live. I always knew it was there but I was too busy encased in my own phenomenal experience. Life is less valuable here. I still want to do what I am good at, but I won't be able to shake Africa from my mind. Everything that happens to me in America will be a blessing. This place is ridiculous, beautiful, sad, exhuberant, energetic, full of change, hopeless, all at the same time. We are surviving by the love of our brothers and sisters.
I am headed now to go get my bobo to tote a few sheets of pan for me so we can finish this oven before the rains come and dissolve all of the mud brick.
I ought to mention the current water crisis. I don't even really have enough water to wash dishes and I am struggling to have enough water to drink. Bobos have to walk like an hour to fetch water for me. I hope it rains soon!

Mi pus don bon!

Amoos ami po koor!

Sorry for the unflattering image of my puss.

Further odysseys of Shebora Kabba

Things are going pretty well. Doing lots of science. I think the best way to enjoy yourself in situations like this is to have something to focus on.
Yesterday I had a distillation apparatus set up in order to make distilled water for the chemistry WASSCE exam. We can probably manage with regular well water (it's fairly visibly clean, but I imagine it has lots of salts in it) but yeah it sounded fun to make a distillery. I have lots of fun with all the fancy glassware I have. Every 'experiment' I do has the students pretty interested, and I am usually happy to explain things and satisfy their curiosity. It's a shame this lab has gone to waste. Like I've said before I think those Germans must have thought they were going to do publishable research here or something. The only thing I don't really have is butane for the bunsen burners, but I plan to buy a tank the next time I get a chance.
The students were so interested in the distillation apparatus (it looks pretty cool) that they wanted to present on it for the L&DS (Literary? and debate society). So we took it outside to where the L&DS was going to be and got it set up. I had one of the students go buy a couple packet double punch (http://babygotsauce.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/pouch-e1332905621395-224x300.jpg). Everything went pretty smoothly, but it was a little bit windy and my tiny alcohol burner was struggling. Fortunately, the apparatus was dripping the alcohol during the presentation. The student is really good and knows a lot but sucks at presenting. That is kind of frustrating for me. So we made super concentrated (~160 proof I think) double punch rum in front of the whole school. It was so concentrated with alcohol it evaporated in your mouth and was really terrible. Double punch is bad enough as it is. The flavor was more soluble in alcohol apparently, so it was just stronger (worse) than usual packet liquor. I had the students take the equipment back to the lab and the solution was gone by the time I saw it again.
I am trying to pick up again with the Themne. I really want to be speaking it. I can understand what people are saying half the time and sometimes can make decent responses, so conversationalism is slowly coming, but I haven't been working very hard with it lately. I have just been really busy. I plan to hit it hard this coming break. My initial goal was relative fluency by the end of May, but that is probably unrealistic, but not entirely. I just need to study more even though it seems like it doesn't help (but it obviously does).
It's stupid how 'clean' chemistry needs to be.
The Bangura family is building a new house with mud bricks. Mud bricks are kind of cool. I find it amazing you can build a house that lasts like 30 years with dirt. They seem to turn back into dirt eventually, unfortunately, but it doesn't cost anything besides labor. I spent a little bit of time shoveling some dirt yesterday. Every time I do any sort of work it's like, theatrical or something, which is kind of annoying. I enjoy doing work, since I have the energy to do it. It is another component of being a celebrity, I guess. I'm not expected to be doing the work the common man does, so when I do it's some sort of deal that needs to be recorded. It goes a lot to boosting my PR. People are like, oh, he understands how to work (oh tara mupanth)! and tell me to have somebody take pictures. Soon after starting people always ask if I'm tired, or offer to take the shovel or whatever. I say no, I gbilly!
While shoveling some man named Abu Kamara came up. He wears these huge super magnifying glasses that sit off kilter on his nose. He says he is a pharmacist and plans to come teach at my school next year. He seems to know science and he's sort of really cool. He's probably 40 or so. He wants to live alone near the school and open a pharmacy and do research or something. He says he wants to have a peaceful place to work on his projects. He wants me to be his research partner. I am really hoping this guy is legit because it would be awesome to work on a real project. I am hoping I can learn things from him. He went back to Freetown and said he'll bring back a paper he wrote. I don't know if he is actually published or not. I'm looking forward to working with this potential chemist.
I feel like the title of my last post has become more and more true: I just want to do science. I enjoy teaching, most of the time, but I love just spending time in my lab. There is so much work to do with it. Right now I am just trying to make a decent enough volume of distilled water to make clean solutions with. I feel somewhat blessed to be the person I am and to have this lab. I can't afford to not take advantage of this (very short) time. I am hoping when I leave the lab is well organized and again operational.
Today they were again working to build the mud brick house. MA (that little girl who is my titi, like Shebora, my bobo) has been wanting to make some butterscotch. It's really easy. I bought everything we needed: Condensed milk and 'butter' (margarine). After taking my time waking up, I went over to their house and one of the auntie's made it in a pot over a three stone fire with all the kids around. After it was cooked down I got to roll it into balls. It was incredibly hot and painful. I took a small portion and gave the rest to MA to sell. When people here make things to sell it seems like they don't do any calculations to find out how much they ought to sell things for. I'm afraid most of the time people probably lose money by making things to sell.
Not all of the condensed milk was used and there was a small bit at the bottom. I guess her father, I-Tal, dude I've talked about before (his nickname means he's tall), had told her to give the remainder of the condensed milk to him. People doing things like this piss me off. It feels like people are trying to get everything they possibly can out of me. He didn't ask me. He just assumed he could take it. The habit of people here is to take and ask later instead of the other way around. Before I went to make the butterscotch I had to buy some soap for Isatu, his woman (wife), to brook my clothes for me. He told me to come over and proceeded to explain that he was hungry, in Themne (oputo, I yema di!!). I understood what he was saying because I hear people all the time telling me they are hungry. I didn't really say anything because it's hard for me to actually express upset/resentment in a difficult foreign language. I need to learn to tell people I'm upset in Themne. So he assumed I didn't understand and said it in Krio. I think I just walked away. I do too much for that family, and their father is the reason they struggle to have money to eat every day, IMO. He smokes and drinks his family's money away. So I don't like him too much. He's just trying to exploit me.
Shebora and I fixed my bicycle yesterday. I don't know if I mentioned, but my rear shifter broke and so I've only had three gears for awhile now. It's been manageable but I stopped loving my bicycle so much. Fortunately for me, I have Issa Kabba's bicycle in my storage room. So we took the shifter off of his bike and put it on mine. It works well and I'm really happy to have gears again!
So, things are going fine. It feels like I could be doing more of course, but I feel like the community liking me and me feeling comfortable is probably already more than I could have asked for. I never have enough time to do everything I want to, but the things I am doing are just fine. It is a day to day process. Now I am going to go run.

I just want to do science..

I know. It's been awhile, again. Time flies here, and sometimes I don't feel much like writing. That's pretty much it. I'll try to catch you up.
Themne is hard. I think any foreign language is hard to learn. Especially when you don't know what to learn to advance and have no guide to tell you. My friend Muhammed Kargbo is still trying to help me out with it. Most of the time these days I can get people I meet to say 'oh tara kathemne!' (he understands themne), and so that is pretty good I figure. It doesn't take much usually though, beyond being able to greet correctly. I'm striving on. People love it when you take the effort to learn their language. It's a sign that you respect and value them and their culture. It's fun, too.
We had 'sports' a couple weeks ago. The school divided into four houses - red, blue, yellow, and green. I was one of the house masters for yellow house. It was pretty fun, but I had developing tonsilitis the whole time and basically exhausted myself, resulting in a pretty bad throat and ear infection that took a week of sitting in my house to go away with antibiotics. Five of my friends came to see me run the 100m race against house masters from the other three houses. I lost really badly, but it was okay. I think the hundreds (a thousand maybe?) of people watching appreciated that I was not a sore loser, and I at least tried. In Africa, when you try, you are a winner!
After sports my friends and I were invited to the former minister's mansion for drinks. This guy, A. P. Koroma, used to be minister of works in Sierra Leone and was responsible for all of the road system. He was sacked by the president even though he was democratically elected. It's pretty sketchy. I guess him and the president used to be pretty close and were the founders of the political party that is currently in power. The guy is totally loaded. Now, he is just spending lots of money. I don't think I have ever been treated more 'big'. This guy in a suit came up to us when we got to the place, I think his butler of sorts, and guided us in. We were let into this air conditioned side room with fancy couches and an expensive television. All of the chiefs and paramount chiefs were there and some guy introduced us to them. Then we just sort of hung out with A.P. I felt terrible the whole time. I figured if I didn't get antibiotics then I would probably die from the infection in a couple weeks or something. My friend Jeff was able to get some from his house, I thontho kuru (praise be to god).
Uhh.. Just now, I came back from a small patrol to Kono district for a get together. It was nice to get out of my village for a couple days, but now I am pretty stressed out. It took 8 hours both ways. I felt like I was more in the middle of nowhere than I usually do, and that is saying a bit. The area is mountainous and pretty much jungle. You see a few villages along the way, but other than that, you just see lots of jungle and horrible road. The germans did a terrible job.
I have been working in my chemistry lab more and more. I'm trying to get everything working, making apparatuses, doing cool stuff. I made an apparatus to produce light gases, like hydrogen. It's fun to blow it up! I made an electrochemical cell a little while ago. I've also put together an electrolysis apparatus to produce oxygen and a battery pack so we are able to do circuitry now. I am planning to build a radio and maybe eventually a transmitter. I don't have any pressurized butane (I don't think I can make it and pressurize it myself; I'm going to have to buy a tank somewhere), but I made an alcohol burner. It's just hot enough to be able to bend glass rods with it. I just bought a glass file in the city, so I basically now can make nice chemistry apparatus to my design. For any future Salone group that might be reading this, I would say to not expect to have most of these facilities. My school is unusually well equipped. But, there are a lot of ways to manage. You can do electrolysis just with some batteries and mayonnaise jars, basically. If you want to talk about managing with limited resources, you can send me an email. I've also found The Golden Book of Chemistry, free online, to be super fun and helpful!
I am starting to feel like making my students realize science is cool, useful, and making them enthusiastic is the best means to getting them a good result on the WASSCE (standardized test that decides their future). Most of my students have been doing well on my exams and I think this is because they actually are enthusiastic about studying and learning the material. To learn something you need to be motivated, first and foremost. They see all of the cool stuff you can do knowing how things work, and how important chemistry and physics have been in creating the modern world they all admire. I've heard them say man, I want to be a scientist! but it's hard. I want them to know it's hard but that they can learn it if they want to bad enough. Others say they want to be engineers. I think it's all great; I really like that class.
I am desperately looking forward to the two week break after this term. Something that has been pretty characteristic of a lot of my time here has been a level of constant exhaustion. I don't really know what it is. I'm just busy all of the time and it's difficult. It's hot, my lungs suck, I rarely get enough sleep (ideally need like 10 hours), I'm yelling over noise a lot (getting better at that), living in a foreign culture seems to be fundamentally stressful, etc etc. It is nice to go for a get together with the other pcvs but it does not really relieve my exhaustion, especially when travel time is 5+ hours one way in terrible conditions. Traveling here, it no easy. Going to Kono, I managed to get into this car that had a dead battery and a broken radiator. Not only could we not start unless we were on some hill and pushed, but we had to stop a few times at villages along the way so the driver could go get somebody to get water and cool everything down. I thought the engine might blow up. The time I traveled before that, one of the back tires popped and went flat and we had no spare, so the driver decided to just drive slowly on it for the 5 miles or so to a place we could park and he could go get a tire. It took the guy over an hour to come back with a new tire. The old one was all tied up with the rear axle. We had been riding on the rim basically, mangling the rubber the whole time.
I'm writing this instead of doing the work of typing up this mock exam for the WASSCE for the senior students to take next week. There's like 50 questions and then two other parts I need to type. I think I am having to type the exams for the other teachers too. I'll basically be typing this whole week it sounds like. I forgot my headphones today and I am pretty upset about that.
Since I haven't written in so long you've missed out on lots of things that have happened. So, sorry about that! I'll try to be better.