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.
