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.
