.JPG)
.JPG)
Our Projects
Amy has been teaching geography for a few weeks now as a secondary project. She just had a breakthrough because word has gotten around that the kids are more receptive to her teaching style. The two other teachers (yes, there are only two for a combination of numerous villages) asked her after school if she could please teach them her methods. Teaching here is a little different than in the U.S. Amy had one class with 88 kids in a room for about 20. Somehow she continues to engage the students without any books or standard teaching materials and she does it all in French.
My breakthrough was at a recent community meeting. At around hour three of listening to everyone argue over the day/time for the next meeting I decided to voice my opinions. The frustration here is that they meet to supposedly discuss the solutions to their many problems related to agriculture and the environment. Instead they talk about meetings, only complain about problems, or say things like “we need more money” or “we need to protect the environment”. Nobody knows what they need money for (trust me, you can’t buy much of anything within about four hours from here) or that environmental protection means doing something about extensive deforestation and massive reductions in crop yields due to soil degradation. The education level of the people in attendance is incredibly low. I would guess that 80%-90% cannot read or write in their own language, let alone the national language. So I took a deep breath, stood up and gave brief explanations or solutions to some major issues. I followed with a demonstration in which I timed myself filling a tree nursery bag (it took me two minutes with soil, seed, and water) and then explained that if everyone in the room had been doing the same thing for the preceding three hours we would now have somewhere around 2,700 new trees. I explained that these trees could provide food and money, in some cases add nutrients to the soil, and begin to address deforestation. I also explained that the bags I was using were trash collected in the surrounding towns and the seeds were from trees in the village. The point being, it’s all free and readily available but we must work instead of just talk. There was a moment of silence followed by translation from my broken French into Pular and then people looking to the community leaders as if to confirm that this was all true and not just American magic. Finally, I was thanked for being so direct and given loud applause. I thanked everyone for their attention and excused myself to go eat lunch with Amy. On the way out I noticed that my heart rate was significantly higher than normal and my hands were shaking. I wasn’t sure if I had just offended the most influential people in the community and if we needed to head home and start packing. Two days later I was walking in the woods looking for more seeds when I came across a newly built enclosure. I went inside and discovered 20 women from the meeting all filling what turned out to be 550 tree nursery bags. They invited me to join them and I got to practice Pular for a little while. This whole series of events reminds me of a phrase I hear often here, “seeda, seeda”. It means something like “little by little”. We are definitely learning to appreciate these little achievements.
The most fun and simultaneously tedious project we are working on is the “World Map Project”. There is a booklet with instruction on how to draw/paint a large world map using a grid format. We got permission to paint the map on a wall of the primary school that is also conveniently visible from the market. We bought the paint and a level in our regional capital a month ago and had them sent up on the mail run. I painted the blue ocean background while precariously perched on an old truck tire held in place on the downhill slope by two rocks and Amy. We have since decided that the tire is a bad idea so I ventured into the forest again to build us a ladder. Keep in mind that the nearest Home Depot is somewhere on the eastern coast of North America. Amy is painstakingly drawing each tiny island in the South Pacific while I am continuing to draw the grid. It’s a lot of work and a half mile from our house by hilly trail but also very satisfying because we get to see our progress and the puzzled looks on the faces of the people who walk by. The goal of this project is to inspire people (mostly kids) to learn more about the world beyond their village and to want to educate themselves. We all take maps or globes for granted because we see them as early as elementary school but the concept of the outside world is limited to the large town 100km from here or maybe Conakry, the capital, for a lucky few.
Well, I have been sitting here in a shack near the market hiding from the sun and writing this blog. It’s Saturday, market day, and I have had literally hundreds of kids stop and stare in at me. Some will wave back if I wave or say hello but most will simply stare. Others will even run away if I move more than a finger or toe. Amy was frustrated with this a few weeks ago and so I said to her, “it’s kind of like you or me watching a Planet of the Apes movie and then going to work or the store the next day and there is an ape dressed in your type of clothes and talking to you.” I don’t know about you but my response would be, “what the *&% (insert your favorite expletive here)!!!
As you can imagine we have lots of free time in the evenings. Without movies, happy hours, chicken wing nights, and other common American night-time diversions I find myself doing a lot more leisure reading. Here are a few recommended reads:
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid – Bill Bryson
A story about growing up in the U.S. in the 1950s. It is laugh-out-loud funny on nearly every page.
A Long Way Gone – Ishmael Beah
A disturbing account of the life of the author as a child soldier in Sierra Leone. Hollywood couldn’t create a more gruesome, vivid, and tragic story.
Mountains Beyond Mountains – Tracy Kidder
The story of a doctor who comes from humble beginnings to tackle some of the most challenging epidemics in the third world. This book makes you wonder why you are reading a book and not out helping, educating, or empowering people to help themselves.
