So, life in my village is going pretty well. I thought I would have to kill my dog the other day, but I changed my mind about going through with it and my dog is still happy and alive, and I am happy he is alive. He bit some kid on the butt and my principal had to pay a hefty price for a rabies treatment. He doesn't have rabies. He just likes to chase and play with children because they either provoke him or enjoy being chased. He apparently had bit some kid awhile back, and so now I was feeling like he was a problem that had to be taken care of. Everyone agreed that he had to go, pretty much. All the children love the dog, and I love his company and security. So basically I decided he just needs to be trained. I've started throwing things at him when he does bad things - hopefully this will make him realize the things are bad. He's a weird dog without much training. I don't think he understands how to sit down with only his front legs up like I always see dogs do. I noticed he is either standing on all fours or laying down. He also doesn't at all understand fetch. I think he's afraid of sticks.
I played some football with Shebura and the neighborhood kids yesterday. Shebura told me I sabi (understand/know how to) play, and I even actually made one of the goals. So that was nice, and I'll probably keep occasionally playing with them and hopefully come out decent at football.
Today I made a trip to Port Loko to go to the bank. It took most of the day, but it was pretty fun. I ended up going by myself because the friend in the village on the international highway was given some ridiculous should be out of his responsibility job to do at his school because his principal was out of town. I took a taxi down the highway with this rich woman and a few other people. I could tell she was rich because she had a nice google smartphone. The guy next to me wanted my phone number because he wants to be my friend and go to America and thinks I could talk to the ambassador and somehow negotiate it for him. The rich woman and I basically spent most of the ride telling him how America isn't perfect; you have to work hard and there are plenty of people poor and suffering there. People have a lot of grasping misconceptions here.
So now that I'm rich again I've been able to pay off all the people that have been doing work for me or selling things to me. I bought a big long iron pipe for 55k. I'm going to buy some concrete and other things that will allow me to put the pipes in on my back porch so I can put a railing there, and extend the roof a bit. I'm going to get some gutters on that bit and I'm wanting to create some bucket filling thing but I'm not sure yet how I'll do it. Piping/plumbing hasn't really come here as a trade quite yet, I think. They make houses, so carpentry, masonry, and all that is around, but indoor plumbing is mostly just found in the cities, if at all, so the materials for piping seem rare. Then I gave Shebura 60k to give to his brother who is making a nice bookshelf for me. I'll get that tomorrow. Then I paid my neighbor Mr. Bangura the 10k I owed him for sewing up some holes in my bed sheet. I'm pretty sure I hadn't given it to him yet. I figure he wouldn't tell me the truth even if I had. You can hardly expect honesty when it is perceived that the system is against you and you have family to take care of. I think people just have too many kids. But then there are good reasons for that, I think. Now I'm having Muhammed make me a work table, and that will probably cost me at least 100k.
The current exchange rate is I think 4300 Leone/1 USD. Five block (500 Leone) can buy you lots of stuff. You could get 5 butterscotch candies, or a big scoop of boiled granats (ground nuts, peanuts, which are tastier I think than how we prepare them in the states), or a cup of pepe (peppers), or a bunch of MSG cubes (maggi cubes, supposed to be bouillion that they put in a lot of dishes), or a bon-bon chocolate candy thing, and lots of other things. So 20 cents is quite a bit here. But then some things are still pretty expensive, some more expensive than in the states, but these things are mostly just found in the supermarkets (leb marts) in the cities for rich people. People are poor, so they mostly just stick to eating traditional dishes, which are pretty cheap to prepare. Rice is really cheap, and you can get a big bushel of cassava leaves for five block which will cook at least a couple large portions of plasas. I can buy five crabs for 2000, so I guess that is cheap. I can get lobster here too, and I bet you it's under a dollar.
I've stll not managed to make a traditional dish that is actually tasty. Shebura says I no sabi cook. I haven't even been able to cook decent rice yet. I've really started enjoying the traditional dishes, so hopefully I can start making them decently, because otherwise I'm just eating the little things my parents have sent me and expensive things I bought in the city, and these things will be gone soon. When people feed me cassava, or petete leaf, or other delicious dishes, I'm really grateful because it's all tasty and nourishing. I don't know if I would be able to prepare these dishes in the states really, because a lot of ingredients are just here locally. The cassava, which I'm surprised we don't grow because it's really good for you, the petete leaf (potato) which we don't eat, the palm oil, maggi cubes, etc.
This orphan kid that lives with his grandmother in another village and comes to my town to go to my school just came to talk to me more about living in a spare room I have on the side of the house. He has no money at all. My salone 2 had paid for his school fees and let him live here. I think he's terrified of me, because I'm being a little difficult about letting him stay here and committing to helping him go to school. I don't even know the kid. I didn't want anyone else living here, but I am sort of being forced because this boy will not go to school if I don't help him. It's not very expensive, and I guess I'll have yet another person to help keep outside the house clean. I am okay with him living in the house so long as he is quiet and everything. Where he is living in the house means he probably won't be in my business too much if at all. I am starting to become the part of the powerful, respected, scary guy. There is a hierarchy and I am at a decently high spot simply because I'm the only white dude in town (besides that Swiss guy traveling around Africa in this van he has parked in town for the rainy season): something I feel a bit bad about but may as well make the best of.
Update since last night: Shebura woke me up at 7 this morning to bring my shelf to me from his brother. I'm not sure how he got it here, since it's huge and heavy. Somehow he managed despite being a small boy. The shelf is really great. I want to polish it.
Shebura is telling me that this kid that wants to move in and says he's a poor orphan is lying about it. I'm going to talk with my principal and my Salone 2 and figure it out. I almost look forward to telling the kid to go away. I haven't really taken kindly to somebody I've never met showing up at my house essentially forcing me to give him a room by guilting me.
Jo-Jo, another friend of mine who is Shebura's age is leaving today to move to the district capitol with his family. I'm fairly sad about it because he was a cool little kid and spoke English.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Monday, September 2, 2013
Swear-in and site
I'm sitting in my parlor breathing kerosene and paint fumes. I figured I should try to write a long post about everything that has gone on in the past few days.
Let's start with.. swear-in I guess? Swear-in was a lot of fun. We had a ceremony at the biggest building in Salone. We took many pictures, listened to many speeches, and it felt a lot like graduation and prom put together. Afterwards we changed and got driven to the beach. The beaches here are fantastic. Clean, for the most part, empty, the swells are good, and the water is warm. Basically, this place is totally great for a vacation. Freetown is a little intimidating, but I would recommend most adventurous people to come to this place if they want to travel and have a great and interesting time. We stayed on the beach, getting some delicious, expensive food (schwarmas, burgers, etc) and danced a lot.
After swear-in, we started to do installations. I waited around in Freetown for a couple days and we explored and shopped at a couple leb-marts for things. Freetown feels a lot like any other city at times, and the development that is going on is pretty impressive. They are building new things everywhere and trying to improve the roads. Drainage is a real problem because it rains so much, and Freetown is sort of nestled between some mountains so the runoff is really bad. It's a beautiful city, really. In the morning on the day of my installation it was raining heavily. I hopped in the truck taking us to the hostel with all my small bags, and knew that these were terrible conditions for a travel day. We loaded up our car with three peoples' things. Each of us had a bike, a large metal trunk that weighs over 50lbs, and at least two large duffel bags and a couple small bags. I had a huge mattress. The bikes, mattress, and trunks had to be lifted up onto the back of the car, tarped up, and tied down with a bunch of rope. In the rain.
Once on our way, we had to drive the mountain road to go get gas at the US embassy. The US embassy is extravagant and set on this hill up on the mountains overlooking the city. We drove through the university area up in the mountains, and down the side of the mountains overlooking Freetown and the bay. It was really awesome and I had wished that my camera wasn't in the back stuffed somewhere. It took us awhile to get out of the city, but eventually we reached port-loko, the area where the junction for my village is. The road had a bunch of forks and I was wrong most of the time on which one to take. At one point we had to pick some guy up to show us the way. Mambolo isn't a small place, so it's surprising the road to it is so bad. I think one of my projects will be to make signs and put them up at the turns, if just for my own benefit.
The road was really bad, it was raining, and there was tons of weight on the top of our landrover. I was pretty afraid we could flip, but our driver, Paul, was awesome and got us to my village safely. At this point it was pouring, Paul was running out of time to drop us all off at our villages, and we still had to unload all of my things. So we just stripped down and Paul and I got on the roof to untie everything. Getting the trunk off the car was pretty scary, but everything went well. One of my neighbors, Mr. Santiti Bangura, helped a bit, and all of my other neighbors (children) were watching. I'm sure it was fun to watch the oputo in the rain.
Yup, now I'm at site. My name here is Shebura Kaba. Shebura is a chief title, and Kaba is the surname of the Salone 2 I'm replacing, Issa Kaba. Everyone here speaks Themne, and some people either refuse to speak in Krio or just don't know it. I thought coming to Salone meant I could speak a lot of broken English and get by, but nope, I've got to learn a language completely different from English. I'm picking it up slowly. At least I can greet, and that's what is most important.
There's this little boy, probably 11 or so, named Shebura that is like my apprentice, or something. His father told him to take care of the pisko, so that's what he's doing. He speaks Themne and Krio, and I guess I'm trying small to teach him some English. He's really hard to understand, but pretty helpful. I can tell him to do all sorts of helpful things. He carries things for me, helps me with chores, shows me where to buy things, talks to people for me sometimes, tells me what to say, etc. I have an awesome bike, and he rides on the back of it. So, that's pretty interesting. People have asked me if he's my boy, and I said yeah I guess so. He thought that I had asked for a monkey for some reason, so he took me to this house where I got sat down and they brought this baby monkey out and asked me if I wanted it. They really wanted me to take it, but I said no. I have a crazy dog and he'd probably kill it or something, and I just don't feel comfortable owning a monkey.
Today, I went to the school, talked a bit with the principal and teachers and read in the library. School 'starts' this coming Monday. I'll probably be teaching chemistry, physics, and further maths to the SSS students. I think I'll enjoy all of this, and hopefully I'll be decent at it. I'm still a little anxious about teaching, and I know it's going to be totally exhausting. I just hope my students are old and serious enough with school that I won't need to do much with discipline besides be a respectable fellow that teaches well. The library is sort of there. I'll spend some time getting it cleaned up and organized with tables and chairs. Apparently students don't use the resources that are there, and there isn't really much of an understanding of libraries and lending books here. I might just make it a nice place for productivity and open it up for students after school to do their work.
After the rain stopped, I went back home, ate a quick meal I bought from some kid in front of my house, and then my friend Muhammed came and complained I hadn't called him, since we were supposed to paint. I bought two gallons of paint in Bo and some brushes. He brought some old rice bags, his roller brush, and other things. I went and bought some kerosene from this old ma that seemed to not want to talk to me if not in Themne. I don't know if everyone appreciates my fresh presence and my lack of instant knowledge of Themne. We mixed the gallons of blue and white together with some kerosene and started painting my massive parlor. We managed to paint the entire thing, and then some. Shebura brought me some coconuts and helped a little bit. Everything is now this really nice happy light blue, including my outer doors. I'm really happy about it. My house is starting to feel like my own. I bought some yellow curtains to put up on the huge windows. Basically, my house is going to be awesome.
Then, Muhammed knocked the big bucket containing the remaining paint off the table he was standing on and onto the floor. So, now I have this big blue spot on my floor. He cleaned up all the excess, and tomorrow his son is going to come clean it up for me with some kerosene. It was fun washing myself in kerosene. I gave him quite a bit of money for the work, and he was really grateful. He has four kids and a wife and I think he struggles a little bit. So, I'm glad I can employ him and his family a little bit. His wife is going to brook all my dirty clothes tomorrow. I'm having him make me a table and I'm having one of Shebura's brothers who is a carpenter make me a book case. I also mentioned to Muhammed about tiling my parlor, which would make it super great. We'll need to buy a machine to cut the tile, but I'm pretty excited about doing it. We'll need to figure out something with the price of things, because it might be expensive. It would be a machine that he could use to do more business though, so I'm hoping he can help invest a good portion of the cost and I'm not just buying it for him.
Let's start with.. swear-in I guess? Swear-in was a lot of fun. We had a ceremony at the biggest building in Salone. We took many pictures, listened to many speeches, and it felt a lot like graduation and prom put together. Afterwards we changed and got driven to the beach. The beaches here are fantastic. Clean, for the most part, empty, the swells are good, and the water is warm. Basically, this place is totally great for a vacation. Freetown is a little intimidating, but I would recommend most adventurous people to come to this place if they want to travel and have a great and interesting time. We stayed on the beach, getting some delicious, expensive food (schwarmas, burgers, etc) and danced a lot.
After swear-in, we started to do installations. I waited around in Freetown for a couple days and we explored and shopped at a couple leb-marts for things. Freetown feels a lot like any other city at times, and the development that is going on is pretty impressive. They are building new things everywhere and trying to improve the roads. Drainage is a real problem because it rains so much, and Freetown is sort of nestled between some mountains so the runoff is really bad. It's a beautiful city, really. In the morning on the day of my installation it was raining heavily. I hopped in the truck taking us to the hostel with all my small bags, and knew that these were terrible conditions for a travel day. We loaded up our car with three peoples' things. Each of us had a bike, a large metal trunk that weighs over 50lbs, and at least two large duffel bags and a couple small bags. I had a huge mattress. The bikes, mattress, and trunks had to be lifted up onto the back of the car, tarped up, and tied down with a bunch of rope. In the rain.
Once on our way, we had to drive the mountain road to go get gas at the US embassy. The US embassy is extravagant and set on this hill up on the mountains overlooking the city. We drove through the university area up in the mountains, and down the side of the mountains overlooking Freetown and the bay. It was really awesome and I had wished that my camera wasn't in the back stuffed somewhere. It took us awhile to get out of the city, but eventually we reached port-loko, the area where the junction for my village is. The road had a bunch of forks and I was wrong most of the time on which one to take. At one point we had to pick some guy up to show us the way. Mambolo isn't a small place, so it's surprising the road to it is so bad. I think one of my projects will be to make signs and put them up at the turns, if just for my own benefit.
The road was really bad, it was raining, and there was tons of weight on the top of our landrover. I was pretty afraid we could flip, but our driver, Paul, was awesome and got us to my village safely. At this point it was pouring, Paul was running out of time to drop us all off at our villages, and we still had to unload all of my things. So we just stripped down and Paul and I got on the roof to untie everything. Getting the trunk off the car was pretty scary, but everything went well. One of my neighbors, Mr. Santiti Bangura, helped a bit, and all of my other neighbors (children) were watching. I'm sure it was fun to watch the oputo in the rain.
Yup, now I'm at site. My name here is Shebura Kaba. Shebura is a chief title, and Kaba is the surname of the Salone 2 I'm replacing, Issa Kaba. Everyone here speaks Themne, and some people either refuse to speak in Krio or just don't know it. I thought coming to Salone meant I could speak a lot of broken English and get by, but nope, I've got to learn a language completely different from English. I'm picking it up slowly. At least I can greet, and that's what is most important.
There's this little boy, probably 11 or so, named Shebura that is like my apprentice, or something. His father told him to take care of the pisko, so that's what he's doing. He speaks Themne and Krio, and I guess I'm trying small to teach him some English. He's really hard to understand, but pretty helpful. I can tell him to do all sorts of helpful things. He carries things for me, helps me with chores, shows me where to buy things, talks to people for me sometimes, tells me what to say, etc. I have an awesome bike, and he rides on the back of it. So, that's pretty interesting. People have asked me if he's my boy, and I said yeah I guess so. He thought that I had asked for a monkey for some reason, so he took me to this house where I got sat down and they brought this baby monkey out and asked me if I wanted it. They really wanted me to take it, but I said no. I have a crazy dog and he'd probably kill it or something, and I just don't feel comfortable owning a monkey.
Today, I went to the school, talked a bit with the principal and teachers and read in the library. School 'starts' this coming Monday. I'll probably be teaching chemistry, physics, and further maths to the SSS students. I think I'll enjoy all of this, and hopefully I'll be decent at it. I'm still a little anxious about teaching, and I know it's going to be totally exhausting. I just hope my students are old and serious enough with school that I won't need to do much with discipline besides be a respectable fellow that teaches well. The library is sort of there. I'll spend some time getting it cleaned up and organized with tables and chairs. Apparently students don't use the resources that are there, and there isn't really much of an understanding of libraries and lending books here. I might just make it a nice place for productivity and open it up for students after school to do their work.
After the rain stopped, I went back home, ate a quick meal I bought from some kid in front of my house, and then my friend Muhammed came and complained I hadn't called him, since we were supposed to paint. I bought two gallons of paint in Bo and some brushes. He brought some old rice bags, his roller brush, and other things. I went and bought some kerosene from this old ma that seemed to not want to talk to me if not in Themne. I don't know if everyone appreciates my fresh presence and my lack of instant knowledge of Themne. We mixed the gallons of blue and white together with some kerosene and started painting my massive parlor. We managed to paint the entire thing, and then some. Shebura brought me some coconuts and helped a little bit. Everything is now this really nice happy light blue, including my outer doors. I'm really happy about it. My house is starting to feel like my own. I bought some yellow curtains to put up on the huge windows. Basically, my house is going to be awesome.
Then, Muhammed knocked the big bucket containing the remaining paint off the table he was standing on and onto the floor. So, now I have this big blue spot on my floor. He cleaned up all the excess, and tomorrow his son is going to come clean it up for me with some kerosene. It was fun washing myself in kerosene. I gave him quite a bit of money for the work, and he was really grateful. He has four kids and a wife and I think he struggles a little bit. So, I'm glad I can employ him and his family a little bit. His wife is going to brook all my dirty clothes tomorrow. I'm having him make me a table and I'm having one of Shebura's brothers who is a carpenter make me a book case. I also mentioned to Muhammed about tiling my parlor, which would make it super great. We'll need to buy a machine to cut the tile, but I'm pretty excited about doing it. We'll need to figure out something with the price of things, because it might be expensive. It would be a machine that he could use to do more business though, so I'm hoping he can help invest a good portion of the cost and I'm not just buying it for him.
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