Dust off those mosquito nets

I was recently speaking with someone close to me about malaria in Guinea, explaining that I had gone door-to-door to hang mosquito nets that had been sitting under peoples' beds, unused. He asked, "Malaria isn't actually that widespread in Guinea, is it?" I'm beginning to realize how much I take for granted the fact that malaria is the number one killer in this country; to me, that's common knowledge. The disease accounts for 34 percent of all consultations, 31 percent of all hospitalizations, and 14 percent of deaths in Guinea. Essentially all Guineans have had malaria by the age of 2; considering how dangerous the disease is to children under 5, this is a staggering statistic. 

I've found that combating this disease isn't easy. The simplest and most effective way to prevent malaria is to sleep under a mosquito net. Luckily, last year the Global Fund and President's Malaria Initiative (thanks Obama!) funded a country-wide net distribution. Ideally, this means that every family in my village received brand spanking new insecticide-treated nets, enough to cover all individuals. (In practice, of course it didn’t end up perfectly – but they still did a damn good job.) So, after receiving a new net, obviously you hang it up, right? Not necessarily. On my house visits this year I’ve found a lot of nets collecting dust under peoples’ beds.

Sleep under your net, and you won't get malaria. You'll protect your children and pregnant women from death, you'll save a lot of money that you would have spent had you or one of your family members gotten malaria, and you'll be able to continue to go be productive in the fields or doing whatever work it is that you do. Simple enough? But that small act of hanging a mosquito net and tucking it in every night before you go to sleep is a behavior change that has to be learned. Simply telling people once to sleep under a net isn't going to do it. Malaria is such a fact of life here, it's accepted. Hence why I say, combating the disease isn't easy.

That being said, it's not impossible, either. This month is Malaria Month in Guinea, and volunteers all over the country are partaking in malaria-related activities and projects. The momentum we've gained this month is amazing, and seeing other volunteers working hard to stomp out malaria is inspiring; this is definitely the good kind of peer pressure.

I've been happy to dive into malaria work. The school year is winding down and the motivation levels of even my 10th graders is so low that it's a little painful for me to go to school everyday. In addition to helping my community, selfishly these projects have helped me out, too. So, what have I done to STOMP out Malaria? I've worked with a group of ten of my best and most enthusiastic 9th graders to make them experts on malaria. While it may be hard to get people to sleep under their nets, I've found simply giving the facts about the disease and dispelling myths can be incredibly effective. NO, malaria is not caused by mangos, or milk, or dirty water. After these 10 students became experts on the disease, we went to the health center on "vaccination day" to speak with pregnant and nursing women and explain to them the facts about malaria and the importance of sleeping under a net. They did a fantastic job, pairing off into groups of two and speaking one-on-one with 29 pregnant and nursing women throughout the morning. 

The most enthusiastic of the students, a boy named Bakary, then invited me to his village to go door to door and hang nets. Most of the nets were covered in dust, so we took this as an opportunity to teach how to effectively wash mosquito nets without destroying the insecticide. We told each household that we'd come back in one week to check and see if the nets were washed and hung; if they were, we'd take a picture of the net's owner and hang the photos up in the health center. We'll be going back this Tuesday to see if they've hung their nets -- although, Bakary has told me he's returned to their houses everyday to see if their nets are hung, so something tells me we'll have no problems by Tuesday! 

This past week, Tess and I organized a soccer match between our two villages, hosted in Cissela. During the game's half time, both of our schools performed malaria-themed skits. These were a HUGE hit. My students (those same 10 ninth graders) dressed a boy up in drag as a pregnant woman; the play essentially explained the importance of mosquito nets, especially for pregnant women. Tess' students' skit had a great message: if you don't sleep under your net and you get malaria, you'll have to spend your money on treatment; if you do sleep under your net, you can spend your money on something cool like a new phone or clothing (I think this hit home with the middle school crowd). I was so pleasantly surprised with the work the students had put into the skits, not to mention the audience's reception.

The cast of our skit -- with a pregnant woman and four mosquitoes

Malaria month is only halfway finished, and I've got lots more planned, including a bike tour with Tess to 5 villages; we'll teach lessons in primary schools in each village. Like every month here, Malaria Month is flying by! My time in Guinea is quickly disappearing, so I'm trying to make the most of it.

Still in Guinea.

So much has happened and I’ve had so little internet since December that I haven’t been able to post.

What to write about? My parents’ weeklong stint in this beautiful country? The Peace Corps organized regional spelling bee hosted at my school? The nutrition conference that three of my students attended on an organic farm? The ever-persisting battle between me and my 10^th grade students about their work ethic? The departure of two of my best friends from my village, and the ensuing cry fest I had?

The short of it: the second year is inexplicably different than my first. When I first arrived in Cissela, every day was a hurdle. When I got back to my hut in the evening, it was a relief. The highs were unbelievably high and the lows lower than low. This year, the days are hard but for reasons that are more normal. School days are challenging: of course there is the issue of discipline, compounded with differing opinions with other teachers on appropriate punishments. We have received so many new teachers this year that I, the foreigner, have seniority. My principal even went so far as to promote me to assistant principal (although I think he did this mostly because I do all the paperwork without complaining). My relationships with my students this year are intense. I spend so many hours in my 10^th grade each week that we certainly have what can be described as a love/hate relationship. They’ve started coming to me with problems beyond the classroom; typically social issues they are having with other students.

Outside of school, things have become somewhat strained with my host family. Hawa, my dear friend, moved to Conakry to join her husband. She was the link between me and the family; the day she left I was a tearful mess and the family didn’t quite know what to do with me. I still try to spend time with them, but it’s a lot of me sitting and reading while they move about me. On the flipside, I’ve been spending a huge amount of time with my principal’s wife. She and I are the same age, but we have had very different lives. When she was 16, having never gone to school, she was living in Conakry as an apprentice for a tailor. Her parents contacted her to say they had found her a husband, a man she had never met: my principal. Both my principal (who I respect greatly) and Nansira (his wife) have confided in me in the difficulties in their early marriage.  He was in love with another woman, but his parents arranged the marriage with Nansira and would not accept the other woman. As a Guinean man, he could have married Nansira and then taken the other woman as a second wife, but he knows that polygamy comes with problems. He and Nansira have learned to love each other in their own way, but it’s still tragic for me to hear their sides of the story. Regardless, Nansira is a goofball, and has filled the Hawa-filled hole in my life.

The highlight of the past few months was a 2-day conference that I led for young women students from 4 villages across Guinea. The event, called the Young Women’s Nutrition and Leadership Conference, took place in Kindia, a town that is known as the agricultural capital of Guinea. Four PCVs were involved; myself, along with three close friends from my training class. We each selected three of our best female students to bring along. Tess and I, living not too far apart, traveled to Kindia together.

I woke up at 5:30 – before even the first call to prayer – strapped on my headlamp, and biked to my principal’s. Fortunately, the three girls had spent the night at his house since they did not want to be sleep through our departure. Shortly after, Tess and her girls showed up in a 9-place taxi that they had hired from Tess’ village. We spend 10 long, sleepy hours in the car to arrive finally in a small village outside of Kindia. The girls were thrilled – they were constantly calling their friends and family on each step of the journey to give updates, feeling special for being selected among their peers. By 6PM we had finally arrived at the farm, a beautiful setting in tropical Basse Cote. The manager of the farm is a young man named Chico, a Guinean who spent many of his formative years in the states. His family has created an impressive farm; it is a semi-organic, experimental farm that grows a variety of species of plants and raises animals that are not typically found in Guinea but could be easily adapted to diversify Guinean farming and increase nutrition intake (for example, he experiments with different species of bananas and distributes seeds to his community; he also raises fish and rabbits to increase protein availability). The family has also constructed a training center, where they bring in Guinean agricultural groups for information sharing. It was at this center that we held our conference.

The training had two major themes. The first was to inform the 12 participants on basic facts of nutrition and how to improve nutrition using ingredients that are readily available in all Guinean communities. The second was to equip the young women with effective communication strategies and to inspire them to reflect upon their futures. We led sessions on fundamentals of nutrition, nutrition of children under 5 and pregnant women, and a cooking class. We discussed the difference between passivity, aggressiveness, and confidence in communication, and at the end of the conference we had each participant practice giving a mock sensitization, where they taught a food preparer with a specific family situation what they had learned about nutrition that would be relevant to that family. When each participant arrived in her respective village, she was then responsible for visiting three families and giving the cook in each family a nutrition sensitization.

Beyond this information sharing, the highlight of the conference was a panel of two successful Guinean women who came to share their stories. One, Chico’s mother, named Hadja, is an older woman who has had an incredibly rich past. When she was younger, she pushed the boundaries in Guinea and entered the world of politics in the capital. After several years, she chose to leave politics and return to her community, where she began her career of service, starting up the farm and eventually founding an organization called AGUIDEP (Association Guinéenne pour le Développement) in the nearby city of Kindia that continues to do important work today. Through her story, she highlighted the importance of pushing through despite obstacles and discouragements. She went against all norms as one of the only women in the realm of Guinean politics, and she explained to the girls that while it can be incredibly difficult to be the only female in a sea of men, but that perseverance allowed her success. The second panel member was a much younger woman named Mariame. She works for Hadja’s organization AGUIDEP. When she was a high school student, her parents told her they had found her a husband, but she explained to her parents that she wanted to finish her studies and be financially independent before marrying, and her parents respected that decision. Upon graduating university, she visited dozens of businesses, offering to intern for free of charge, until finally her persistence paid off. After several unpaid years at AGUIDEP, she was taken on as a salaried worker, and within a month she married (she explained that men were constantly knocking at her door, but she insisted on being financially independent before marriage); she now has one child. Mariame made a huge impression on the girls: she is young, attractive, married and with a child (which is certainly a dream for Guinean women), but working and financially independent. To see that both of those dreams are possible to attain at the same time was a novel idea for most of the young women. Coming from rural areas, this may have been the first time for many of them to see literate, salaried women. Despite all we as PCVs can tell our female students (“yes you can do it!” or, “stay in school!”), nothing has the effect of actually seeing that it is possible, as both a Guinean and female, to achieve one’s goals. The looks on the girls’ faces said it all.

The conference has made me think a lot about the lasting impressions Peace Corps Volunteers can have on their communities. Many volunteers come in with hopes of building a new health center or creating a new pump, creating a lasting imprint of their two years spent in village, but we as Education volunteers have it a little differently. One thing I can safely say is that those girls will not forget that trip we took together in January 2014. They kept journals, documenting every moment of everyday, and I’ve seen changes in the way they interact with other students and teachers at school. My expectations of what difference I can make in my students’ lives is by no means grandiose, but I’d like to say I’ve expanded their horizons and made them think in a different way. Who knows, considering that’s impossible to measure.

I’m now in Kankan for another Girls’ Conference, this one much larger, for our entire region. There are 27 participants; the conference does not have a theme but is instead aimed at educating the young women on social issues such as environment, sanitation, reproductive health, and nutrition, among other topics. There is something very meaningful in taking young women out of their homes, bringing them into a new place with a group of new faces, and allowing them to see that while they may be one of the few female students at their school, there are many other young, bright, and motivated females in Guinea.

Spring break is coming up; I will be traveling to the capital for a food security training, then taking a few days of rest on the tropical island off of the coast of Conakry. A quick note to those who are worried: I DO NOT have Ebola and am at essentially zero risk for acquiring it. Let’s hope that soon the outbreak will be over; Guinea has had enough trauma for this year. Thank you to all those who asked about my well being!

Til next time. Hopefully that will be sooner than 4 months from now.

Reflections of a Second Year Volunteer

Top five reasons school is easier the second time around:
5. Smoother transition. My relationship with my students overall is much, much better. I don't have to spend time learning their names, figuring out who has behavior issues, who I can rely on to be class leaders. Also, they're used to me: my rules, my accent, my zaniness. We're all a lot happier this year!
4. We got teachers! My school's personnel issue has improved vastly. Last year, on a good day we had 4 teachers, including myself and my principal. In reality, it was more like 1 or 2, with my flaky Directeur des Etudes (assistant principal) who hated my principal and pushed the students to wage a war against him, and my principal leading the national legislative elections for my region and therefore traveling at least once a week. That left just me and Monsieur Kamano, the school's chemistry and physics teacher. This year we have been so incredibly lucky. First, the village managed to pool together some resources and to hire two community members, unemployed college grads, to both teach part-time this year (more on that later). Then, the government sent two new teachers: a history/geography teacher, and a French teacher (which we so, so desperately needed). Therefore our numbers have jumped up to 7 teachers including the principal! He is so elated, he doesn't know what to do with himself, having a real faculty. The other day he invited all of the teachers over to his house, where he provided us with a chicken dinner (a huuuuge delicacy in Guinea).
3. ... And those teachers are motivated! Because of this jump in the number of teachers, I've been able to carry out some projects I'd been wanting to do since last year. A few weeks ago, we hosted a Journee de la Sante (Health Day) at my school. There were four themes that we covered: malaria, tobacco and its health risks, hygiene, and sexual health. Two of the other teachers at my school helped out, Tess (the volunteer 12 miles away) came and taught a lesson, and the rest of the faculty assisted in carrying out the day smoothly. Afterwards, they were thrilled with how it went, and suggested every other month we host a conference for the students on different themes. The best part of the day was the evening, when several students came over to my hut (unprompted) to thank me for providing them with the information they'd learned that day.
2. I've been promoted. Since I've been here for a year, I have a lot more pull with what goes on at our school. My principal now looks to me to give punishments to students for misbehavior or tardiness, which is good because I can steer him away from unjust punishments like whipping (yes, that does happen here). Hilariously enough, with the disappearance of my Directeur des Etudes, I have been promoted to Madame la Directrice. Yes, that means I am the assistant principal at my school. Nuts.
1. I have 22 children. In total, I spend 14 hours a week in 10th grade alone. It's the smallest class (22 kids), they are certainly the most motivated (they are facing the high school entrance exam at the end of this year), and if my matronly side has ever come out, it's with these kids. It's definitely tough love...I'm hard on them... but they know I care about them. Also, I've given them all American names that they have fully embraced. Many may or may not be named after some of my friends back at home...

But there are some things that really have been hard this go around:
During vacances not one, not two, but three of my female students (one in 7th grade and two in 8th grade) were married off. These are great girls: some of the more active students in my girls' club, attended school regularly, and actually studied. One story is especially upsetting. An older man from Kankan was promised to marry one of my 10th grade girls. When he came to Cissela to fetch her, she ran away. After expressing his anger and disappointment with the village for promising him a young wife, another man in my village offered up his daughter (Mariame, one of my best 8th graders) to take the place of Tidanke, the girl who fled. With no say in the matter, Mariame was immediately taken away to Kankan. I haven't seen or heard from her since last year. This all happened when I was away for the summer, but when I came back my principal angrily told me the story. Similarly, just this past week my 16-year-old 9th grader, Hawa, was promised to a 60-year-old man. She was horrified and confided in me in tears that she didn't want to marry him. My principal got the local authorities involved and tried to convince Hawa's parents to let her continue with her schooling, but they were enticed by the hefty bride price that was offered. She was essentially forced into marrying a man; she is his 3rd wife and his fourth child is the same age as Hawa. Things like this make me so angry and force me to fight back tears.
Additionally, I'm beginning to question how much the general population of Cissela sees the importance in education. My students' parents are incredibly hands off; they very rarely ask their children for their grades and 90% of them do not attend the award ceremony we hold at the end of each trimester. They also don't seem to care whether or not their children show up to school on time or at all, which makes tardiness and absence a huge issue. One of my 10th graders literally comes to school twice a week. However, when it comes to complaining about the functioning of our school, parents suddenly care a whole lot. Many complain incessantly about how our school lacks teachers and that their kids are not getting all of the subjects they need. I'm sure you can imagine how thrilled we were when we got word that the government was sending 2 new teachers. It's up to the community to provide their housing; my principal informed the village chief a month in advance and he promised that he'd find a hut for each of the new teachers. However, when they arrived a full month later, the chief acted like we'd never asked him to help us out.  My principal himself had to pull many strings to find housing for both of them, so fortunately they didn't flee. Similarly, the village signed a contract with the 2 community teachers to pay them each 200,000 Guinean francs/month (about $30), yet at the end of the month they couldn't (or wouldn't) come up with the money. Again, it fell to my principal to call a big meeting with the authorities, teachers, and parents of students (1 of whom showed up), to figure out a payment plan for those teachers. It's lose-lose: either we don't have teachers and everyone complains, or we get teachers but they are unwelcome.

I guess these difficulties are made a whole lot harder by the fact that it's my second year, so I feel really invested in the success of my school and my students. It's particularly frustrating to have so many things completely beyond my control.

Well, ca va. I can currently take a break from constantly obsessing over school, since it is December break! I'm in Conakry, here to pick up.... MOM AND DAD! They are visiting beautiful Guinea for one week. I can't wait to show them around, but it's a little terrifying to consider all of the things that could go wrong! Keep your fingers crossed for me. I'll be picking them up at the airport Christmas night.... talk about a holiday treat. :) Merry Christmas from Guinea!

Standing Fast

Each time I get online, it becomes harder and harder to write blog posts. Living in Cissela for over one year now, life really has become routine. That said, I'm going to try something new for this post.

September 12, 2013

Tess and I had an excellent day. We set up a booth in my market, amidst the market ladies selling oil, sugar, eggplant, and fried sweet potatoes. The point of the booth was not financial gain, however, it was to educate people about malaria, the number one killer in Guinea. We made a huge banner that said, in French, "I sleep under my mosquito net." My friend Lancine, a senior in high school back au village for vacation, helped us explain to everyone what we were doing in Malinke. We got over 100 people to sign a pledge stating they'd sleep under their mosquito net every night.


In the evening, we went to Moussa's boutique, the one shop in my village. It's also a café, where men sit around smoking cigarettes and drinking Nescafe, and probably engage in other taboo activities after the sun goes down (aka, drinking). We hung up the banner there since it's one of the busiest spots in my village and left Moussa with a marker so people can add signatures. Many grown men added on while we were there! Moussa was excited about having some decoration for his shop, so it was a win-win situation.


September 14, 2013

I’ve always joked around with Hawa about going to help her out in the fields, but this morning I decided to bite the bullet and do it. Once my host family heard I’d actually be accompanying Hawa au champ, they all shouted in protest, saying things in hysteria like “but the field is so far,” “you will bit by insects,” and “it’s too tiring!” I laughed their warnings off – if the Guineans here are able to do it, then I should, too.

At around 9AM Hawa and I walked through the village to another family’s house whose is field is next to ours. Mballou, the mother of this family, would be joining us. We ate a quick breakfast of corn porridge out of a communal bowl (my favorite meal here) and headed off. Walking through the village with Hawa and Mballou, people continuously shouted at me in Malinke, asking if I was really going to help in the fields. Yes, I responded! This always ended in them breaking out in laughter.

Before we could even begin the farming, we had to actually get to their plot, which was a feat in itself. It’s approximately three miles on a dirt path by foot.

We walked…

And walked…

And walked…

And finally arrived at their field, which was beautiful and green with a view of mountains in the distance.

Mballou went off to work in her family’s area, and I went with Hawa to her peanut plot. Today’s work was to weed around the peanut plants, which we did by hand with no gardening gloves, which resulted in my hands looking like this:

Hawa worked barefoot, which I will never understand. While we worked we talked and talked, me with my broken Malinke that really she only understands. I’m so grateful to have her in my life.

Finally, after about four hours of weeding, it was time to go home. I had walked my bike out there with Mballou and Hawa, so I was able to get home quickly, leaving them to slowly trudge back. Once my host family took one look at me they exploded in laughter – I did look like a dirty, sweaty mess, I will admit. But I did seem to gain some level of respect with them – yes, I went, and I actually did the work, thankyouverymuch. I cleaned up in time for Hawa to get home and join me for lunch.

September 28, 2013

Today was the day that Guineans have been awaiting for far too long…Election Day! National legislative elections were supposed to occur after the presidential election in 2010, but they’ve bene pushed back so many times for so many reasons. As Peace Corps volunteers we’ve all been wary of the elctions, because unfortunately in countries like Guinea, they tend to lead to trouble that could get us evacuated. I by no means am an expert on the Guinean political situation, but I will say that there is a lot of tension between parties and that these parties tend to be divided on ethnic lines.

Because Peace Corps is aware that elections can spark problems in country, we have to take many precautions and know our “emergency action plan” – basically, where to go and how to get there if things escalate. From September 14 to October 11, we are on “standfast,” meaning we can’t go further than 10 kilometers from site and we have to communicate our location to Peace Corps everyday.

Everything I saw today indicated that the elections went smoothly. I’ve heard that it was calm across the country, even in Conakry. In my village, there were three polling stations, including my host family’s house. In total, approximately 500 adults voted here. The results are to be announced in 72 hours. Let’s hope that everything remains calm!

September 29, 2013

To avoid sitting around, twiddling my thumbs, and awaiting the election results, today I biked to a neighboring village to visit one of my students and to meet his family. The student is Ibrahime Fofana, one of my best 10^th graders last year who passed the brevet and thus will be headed off to high school in the coming weeks. The bike ride to Somokoro is beautiful, through rice paddies and peanut fields. Once I arrived, I stopped at the cluster of boutiques and cafes in the center of town, where a group of people were sitting around eating breakfast and drinking Nescafe. Everyone stared very confusedly at me, until I greeted them in Malinke and sat down next to them. They relaxed and immediately began chatting me up.  Very quickly word must have spread that a toubabou was in Somokoro, because within minutes Ibrahime appeared in front of me to take me to his family’s compound. Their cluster of huts is incredibly scenic – surrounded by an orchard of mango, cashew, and orange trees. We sat under a mango tree and I met the whole family: Ibrahime’s 65-year-old father who has lived through __ regimes in Guinea’s history (including the French), his mother, aunt and uncle, and many of his siblings.  We ate cassava, drank tea, and chatted. After a few hours, I decided to head back home. The family gave me a giant bag of peanuts and a chicken – yes, a live chicken! I told them I couldn’t accept but they insisted; they said it was so rare for a teacher to travel to meet their student’s family. They wanted to tie the chicken to my bike, which I protested, then they suggested that Ibrahime would drive to Cissela on his motorcycle the coming week. So I guess I’ll have a new pet!

October 4, 2013

Hawa’s baby, Saran, is not well. I’m so worried.

The day before yesterday, she came down with a fever and was refusing to eat. Yesterday she was no better so Hawa, Diama and I took her to our health center. It was very crowded – full of pregnant women and babies coming to get vaccinated. Also, that morning Moussa Kalle, one of the respected elders in our village, was in a serious motorcycle accident; essentially the entire village kept stopping in to check on him. Eventually, the doctor saw Saran. Diagnostics aren’t really possible here – they didn’t even take the baby’s temperature – so he prescribed a whole slew of medicine, including malaria medication and vitamins.

The past 24 hours, Hawa has been trying to give Saran the medication, but she keeps vomiting it all up. Then, this evening, she took a turn for the worse. My entire host family rushed off on motorcycles to the health center, leaving me sitting on the porch alone and freaking out. Eventually they all came back; Saran was asleep but was clearly suffering. We put her tiny self in a giant bed and all uf us ladies sat around in the dark with a flashlight pointed on her, watching her fitful sleep. Tons of people from around the village, upon hearing about Saran’s malady, stopped by to recite blessings and well wishes.

I stayed with the women until 10PM, when Hawa was finally calm enough to step away for a few minutes and eat dinner.  Now I’m in my hut stressing out. I can’t imagine I’ll be sleeping a lot tonight.

October 7, 2013

Oh, I am frustrated! Over the past few days, the Guinean government has announced three different dates for the first day of school. Yes, three: October 3, October 7 (today), and October 21! Confusion ensues, of course. Naturally no one showed up to school today. The elections have added so much confusion this year. Not to mention, Tabaski, a huge holiday, is the 15^th, and many of my students won’t be back in Cissela until after then.

The results of the elections still haven’t been announced. There is a lot of tension/uncertainty right now. The only way for me to get news is through the few text messages Peace Corps sends each day. Currently the government and opposition are in negotiations, trying to come to terms they can both agree upon. Peace Corps suggests that regardless, once all of the results are announced, they will be contentious and there will be unrest, it’s just unclear to what degree. It’s all quite stressful, yet it’s interesting because life in Cissela seems like the elections never happened. No one is talking about them!

I’m really worried about my school this year. One of the teachers quit, so right now we only have three employees: me, my principal, and the chemistry/physics teacher. We’re hoping to get at least one more teacher through the community, but that is difficult because the village has to come up with the money to pay them. The ministry of education has promised to send us more teachers this year but I’m not holding my breath. I’m just hoping school actually starts soon; otherwise there is no way I’m going to get through the curriculum.

In other news, it seems Saran is doing better. A few days ago she still was not improving, so Hawa took her to Kankan to go to a real hospital. They are still not back but I’ve been talking to Hawa a lot and she says Saran is doing a lot better. Phew. At least there’s some good news these days.



It's now October 17, 2013. I'm sitting in Kankan, the first time I'm getting out of Cissela in 5 weeks. Standfast has been called off (there was a question for some time about whether it'd be extended since election results remain unannounced), so I'm taking a weekend break. School still hasn't started, but I'm hoping it will actually begin this coming week. Tabaski, the big holiday where each family sacrifices a sheep or a cow, was this past week. I had a great time -- got all dressed up in Guinean clothes, grilled meat with friends, drank tea, attended the evening village soccer game, and went out at night to the "soirée," where we danced til 2AM. I was blown away by the generosity saw on Tabaski. Many families in my village didn't have the means to buy a sheep to slaughter; my host family paired up with the neighbors to buy one. Within an hour of its butchering, my host father had handed out 95% of the meat to the rest of the village. This is a huge deal, especially because we almost never have meat since it's so expensive.

Me and Diama on Tabaski

Hawa is still here in Kankan; I saw her and Saran today and the baby is doing much better, Dieu merci. I'm going to spend the day with her and our family friend on Saturday and I'll hopefully convince her to come back to Cissela with me on Sunday; to be honest, the past few weeks without her have been incredibly lonely. I always knew that she was a huge part of my village life, but I didn't realize to what extent. First of all, however, I need some serious R&R. In fact, I'm now going to get into bed and watch a movie. And maybe eat some cookies. It's the little things!

Round 2

Rainy season again. Ramadan again. A new training class has come in to start their 11-week pre-service training. I guess that means I’ve been here for over a year. Part of me feels like it’s only been a few months, while another part of me feels like it’s been years. I guess that’s natural; some weeks go so slowly I can’t believe it, while other weeks feel like a day. It’s certainly a feeling of accomplishment (I’m halfway there!) but doing it all over again is a daunting (yet exciting) prospect. Thinking about all of the things, both good and bad, that have happened to me this year, and the giant question mark that this year brings actually puts butterflies in my stomach. G-20, the group that helped train my stage, is finally headed home after their 27 months of service. It’s sad to see them go, but I’m happy for them – it is relieving to see them actually finish up! (Guinea hasn’t had a group complete their 27 months in years and years, with all of the interruptions and evacuations that have occurred.)

In any case, summer is flying by. I had an incredibly rejuvenating trip to France; I spent time in Paris, Toulouse, hopped over to Barcelona for a few nights, and just felt generally spoiled by all of the food and beauty. I was a bit nervous coming back to Guinea (at that point another year seemed more daunting than exciting) but things have been much better than I could have hoped for. It’s amazing how comfortable I am in Guinea now, and how much it does feel like home. I flew back into Conakry, only to find that my luggage had been lost (of course), so I had to wait a few days and come back to the airport to look for it (no delivery service here). To my relief my bags made it, and I ended up spending 20 minutes talking to the security officer there. He was from a village neighboring Cissela; he was so incredibly excited that I knew his home that he proceeded to call all of his family and tell them to protect and watch out for me. They knew who I was having seen me riding my bike. Small world, small country; it was good to be back.

I came straight to Dubreka, the city where PC Guinea trains its volunteers, to spend a few weeks working as a volunteer trainer; in other words, to help out with getting the new stagiaires accustomed to living in Guinea. It was great to be back in Dubreka. I lived in a house with several of the other volunteer trainers, got to catch up with the Guinean trainers that I adore, and I worked on my Malinke with a language trainer. I was able to do many of the things I did last year doing training without realizing how lucky I was: eat salads everyday, bike to the waterfall, visit my host family…

The new stage is great. They are much smaller than my group (only 17, whereas mine was 27) but they have an awesome outlook on things. Honestly, it’s been nice to be around such optimism and it helps to reaffirm why I am here. Being halfway through has definitely led me to question my effectiveness and rational for being here at all. In addition to being a trainer, I’m also a semi-trainee, as I’ve been sitting in on the technical sessions for the math teachers. Next year I’ll be dropping English and teaching math and biology.  I’m looking forward to it, especially because my school doesn’t have a math teacher and it’s a huge component of the national exam.

Speaking of national exams: we got the results for the high school entrance exam! My school succeeded the most of any school in my prefecture, with around 50 percent passing (I think the national average is about 20). So, while I’ll still have half of the same 10^th graders that I had last year, I’m really happy for the 16 that will be moving on to high school.

After about six weeks away from site, I finally went back. I was only there for a few days but it felt wonderful to be there. My hut was completely swarmed by children upon my arrival. I visited all of my neighbors, gave gifts to my host family and friends, cleaned out the school’s direction (where the offices are), met up with a young woman teacher from the primary school I hope to have work with my girl’s club this year, and relaxed. The village looks beautiful and green during the rainy season, although my backyard was truly a jungle that some of my 8^th grade boys had to come over and help me fix up.

After not even a week at site, I left again (boohoo) for the regional capital, where I met up with the new stagiaires after their site visit. We cooked great food, I helped show them around the city, and we threw our annual toga party.  Now I’m back in Dubreka to continue math training. I will be here for a few more weeks; I’m hoping to be back in village by the start of September. That way, I can have a month at site to work on projects, lesson plan, and study Malinke before the school year starts. Then, I’ll be ready to do another year all over again. Only better the second time around.

School is OUT

Well it’s been a while, I know. I’m sorry. The past few months have been crazy BUT I am happy to report that I survived year one of school!

Where to begin?

At the end of April, I had a nice treat: Jessie, one of my friends from study abroad in Mali, came to visit. I went to Conakry to pick her up at the airport, which was interesting as it was my first time since swearing in last September. Our trips to Conakry are very regulated now because of unrest surrounding the upcoming elections (more on that later), so getting in was a bit of a maze. To avoid a major artery in the city that can be “hot,” I had to wind through taking three separate taxis and kind of guessing where I was supposed to get out of each one. Taxis in Conakry are the major mode of transportation; they are not, however, what you’d picture when I say “taxi.” Each takes its own fixed route, picking up passengers along the way and dropping them off when they ask, kind of like a bus. And, in true Guinean fashion, passengers are nice and cozy inside: two sharing the passenger seat, and four in the back. Fortunately, over the past 11 or so months I’ve gotten really good at asking Guineans for help, so many helped me find my way to the Peace Corps office.

In any case, Jessie arrived; we spent a day in Conakry exchanging money and relaxing, and then headed to my village. I kind of forgot just how awful traveling in Guinea is as I’ve become numb to it, so I felt pretty bad putting Jessie through a tortuous 12 hour bush taxi ride on horrible roads, but arriving to my hut and falling asleep under the stars (sleeping outside due to hot season) made it worth it. Jessie spent a week in Cissela. She came to school with me everyday, which was fun for me and for my students and the other teachers were thrilled, announcing her presence at the raising of the flag with such pride. She came with me for all of my daily duties, collecting water at the pump, going to Banko (a neighboring village) for market day, and meeting with my girl’s club. My host family (especially the petits) is still asking about Jessie everyday, saying, “When will she come back?” All in all, she definitely fit in very well.

The one low part of her visit was when Mariame, one of my 10^th grade students, passed away, which was certainly not easy. She’d been sick for some time and had missed the past several months of school, but I was still shocked and upset. Jessie accompanied me to the funeral, wearing a borrowed headscarf from my host family, and she got to hear the utterly heart-wrenching screams coming from the mourning mother’s mouth. Once one person starts to cry, others begin, and there’s no shame in it at all: they are wailing. Not an easy sound to hear. Mariame’s body arrived in a taxi from Kouroussa, a town 90k away where she’d been sent to the hospital the night before, and several of my male students carried her out on a board covered by a sheet. She was buried in Cissela’s cemetery, on a road out of town. The next day, our entire school went to the mourning family’s house to pay our respects, sitting on benches within their circle of huts. A number of people gave speeches in Malinke: our assistant principal, the village chief (my host father), and the village doyen. We collected money from the students to help the family pay for the funeral costs, which can be really expensive. (For example, the family had to pay for a taxi to drive her body back to Cissela. No hearses in Guinea.) My principal and the other teachers are heartbroken. Although sickness and death are certainly more commonplace here than in the U.S., they did not take the death of a student lightly. Just a few weeks ago I was with my principal in his office; we came across Mariame’s file and he began to cry. There were three I.D. photos of her inside, and he said we must give them to her family because pictures are so rare here and they’d need a way to remember her.

In any case, Jessie was there for all of this, which was certainly a cross-cultural experience for her (and for me, of course). After her week in Cissela, she bid farewell to my village and we headed to Dalaba, a city in the mountains. It happened to be my birthday and it was really lovely – we spent the day with several other volunteers eating ice cream, playing mini golf on a very old and crumbling course built by some French folk, and going out to a few bars in the evening. The next day, we headed to Doucki where I’d spent spring break. We did the K.A.H. (kick ass hike) yet again, which was equally as exhausting but also as beautiful the second time around. I think Jessie especially liked the guide, Hassan; he may just be the most eccentric Guinean I’ve met. After Doucki, we went back to Conakry and I bid Jessie farewell. Taking her to the airport was weird, she was about to head to Germany and all I wanted to do was jump into her suitcase and go eat cheese and drink beer and be in Europe for a little. But my time will come.

I finally made it back to my site and swore I would avoid traveling for several weeks; two Conakry trips in one month equals 48+ hours in a car. That week back was my last week of classes. (Well, it wasn’t supposed to be but they moved the national exams to 2 weeks earlier due to elections at the end of June, so we had to quickly finish everything up.) The finale was a bit of a rush with no closure, since both the students and the teachers were surprised that everything ended so quickly.

The following week was the beginning of national exams.  In Guinea (much like in France), there are three week-long exams: the entrance exam into collège (middle school) for 6^th graders, the brevet for entrance into lycée (high school) for 10^th graders, and the bac for entrance to university for terminale (final year of high school) students. The first week was the exam for the youngest level. Cissela’s primary school was a testing center for the surrounding six primary schools, so we had an influx of youngsters, several of whom stayed in the living room of my host family’s house. My principal asked that I help out with the three-day test, either as a surveillante (proctor) or with paperwork in the office. When I showed up on the first day, he pulled me aside and told me the delegué, sent from the Ministry of Education to run the exam, decided to not have me proctor, because I was not a “Guinean national” and may have “moral problems” with how they run exams. IN OTHER WORDS, he was saying I’d be too strict with cheating. Well… more on that later, but I said okay and went to the office to help out with all of the paperwork. Really makes you appreciate excel when you have to calculate hundreds of averages and make spreadsheets by hand.

During the moments when work slowed down in the office, I was able to walk around and see what was going on in the classrooms. Honestly, what I saw was really upsetting. I always knew that cheating was a problem in Guinean education, but I did not think it would be like what I saw. I was expecting the proctors to turn a blind eye to students cheating off of other students, but what I saw was proctors writing the answers to every question on the board. For every subject. Everyday. In every room. The first day, I tried to pull my principal aside and tell him what was going on in the rooms, and he said, “Oh, that is really not good.” Yet… he did nothing about it. The problem is just systemic. Even the delegué was in on the charade. The rules for proctors written by the Ministry of Education are clear and what you would expect: they are not allowed to help or explain the questions in any way, they are not to read the answers students are writing, they are not to sit down or stand by the door of the classroom, etc….yet I saw each of these things occur multiple times. Needless to say, I was really upset by the end of the week. I just felt like this system of education is so broken and it’s not going to change anytime soon, because even the people at the top (like the delegué) are closing their eyes to fraud. On our last day, while we were cleaning up, the D.P.E. (the head of education in my prefecture…basically, my principal’s boss) stopped by to check in on the exam to see if had gone well. The moment he saw a Peace Corps volunteer was there, he was upset that I wasn’t a proctor and insisted that I would proctor the brevet the next week. My principal told me that this was a huge honor and that he was so excited on behalf of our school that I’d be working for the exam.

Well, I was very, very worried about this situation. I couldn’t turn down the position because it was such an honor, but I was not about to stand by while such obscene cases of cheating went on in the exam. I told myself that if I saw anything I was really uncomfortable with, I’d walk away and tell them I couldn’t continue proctoring for the rest of the week. The brevet was in Sanguiana, a village about 50k east of Cissela on the route nationale. I was planning on going there even before the proctoring position was offered, because I wanted to accompany my 30 10^th graders for the week. Getting there was… interesting, to say the least. My school teamed up with a neighboring village to charter a giant, American school bus to take us. About 80 people piled in, with three to a seat, people sitting on the aisles, and two on the roof with our luggage. The bus needed to be pushed to get started, which was quite a feat of strength by the men pushing. While the drive is only 30 miles, it took about two hours because the road is awful, and we arrived while the sun was setting.  All of my students and my principal stayed in a big, abandoned house, sleeping on prayer mats on the floor, but fortunately I was able to stay in another volunteer’s hut for the week.

As for the exam. The delegué this time around was young and meant BUSINESS. Let me just say that my faith was restored in the Guinean education system. He was really hard on us proctors, if only because he knew many among us would try to “help” students on problems, or would allow cheating between students. So really, I was allowed to be as strict as I wanted, and it was all falling under the delegué’s wishes. I developed a bit of a reputation amongst the students, who knew that “madame” was very strict and watched me like a hawk to see which room I was assigned to each day, shrieking if they saw me go in their own. It was a bit tricky working with the other proctors, as we were assigned two to a room, and they weren’t very accustomed to my way of working. Of the fifteen proctors, three of us were women, and I was by far the youngest. Regardless, I was happy to be part of an exam that I can say was done, for the most part, legitimately. The other proctors definitely allowed a level of cheating between students (chatting and showing their neighbors answers), but it was certainly an improvement from what I had seen the week before.

Aside from the exam itself, I had a really wonderful time in Sanguiana. I spent my days after the exam at my students’ lodging, helping them study for various subjects, answering hundreds of questions about America, and taking my meals with them. It really made me appreciate them; they are a really sweet and fun group. Every evening at around 10PM a huuuuge group of boys would insist on walking me back to my hut. I’m really sad that (hopefully) most of them will be off to high school next year; the closest high school is 50 miles away but most of them go to Conakry.

Now the school year is officially over. And for the best part: I AM GOING TO FRANCE ON JUNE 25!            My whole family is flying out and we are spending a week in Toulouse, I’ll have some time in Paris, and Ethan and I are taking a bus to Barcelona for a few nights. Also, the political situation in Guinea actually had a turn for the best; the opposition and the president finally made some compromises, but now the elections will probably postponed til the fall. I’m not convinced these elections will ever happen, but for the sake of Guinean democracy let’s hope they do.

I will be eating cheese and drinking wine for my year anniversary with Guinea, and I can’t think of a better way to celebrate!

Spring Breaking

In many ways, Guinean and American middle schoolers really aren’t all that different:

Over the past month, I’ve started my unit on reproduction and sexual health in my 9^th grade biology class, only to be met with nervous giggles, sheepish questions, and painfully embarrassed girls who refuse to answer even the simplest questions.  I’ve met with the girls separately to discuss issues specific to them and passed around an anonymous question box with the whole class.  Sometimes I feel like Mrs. Staples at Wheeler back in the 6^th grade.

Also in my 9^th grade, we’ve started a letter exchange project between my students and Dana Tatlock’s 6^th grade class at The Wheeler School in Providence, RI, my alma mater. It’s been really fun to see the similarities and differences between the students’ letters. Both are incredibly curious and excited to be hearing about another culture from a real student across the world. Upon receiving our first batch of American letters, I had to answer a LOT of cultural questions: What is lacrosse? What is a hamburger? What is snow? What is skiing? Why are American families so small, since here our fathers can have up to 15 kids? Etc, etc, etc. Letters coming from the states had lots of questions for my students about after school activities, favorite foods, amount of homework, and sports. One thing that both batches had in common: knowledge of, and love for, Justin Bieber. All in all, I think it’s been a really fun project on both ends.

The girls club has continued to be a success. We’ve done a few art projects, including one where we brainstormed adjectives to describe women, which sparked some interesting discussions: despite the fact that women here do basically all of the heavy lifting, “strong” was not a word they tended to think of, as they all said it was too masculine. Afterwards, they selected from our list to create a collage of words and images on construction paper, coming together to represent themselves. We are now making beads from paper, which we’ll use to make bracelets and necklaces. So, quick plug: for those of you amazing people that send me packages, good craft projects or other ideas for activities would be greatly appreciated!

I suppose one way in which students in the states and students in Guinea differ is over the matter of vacation: Guinean students simply don’t get excited for it. I think for a lot of my students, going to school is a break from doing house work, so vacation is just a time where they’ll be spending even more time cleaning, cooking, getting water, going “en brousse” to gather wood, going “au champ” to gather straw for making thatch, etc.

Despite their lack of excitement, spring break finally did come! In typical Guinean fashion, the expected one week of break turned into two since people stopped showing up before the break officially started and came back long after the break officially ended. Sigh.

My spring break was a success. I traveled to the Fouta, the mountainous region, for a week of hiking and relaxing in the cooler weather! I started out with a trip hitchhiking to Labe, the regional capital of the Fouta. The car I found was a nice air-conditioned truck, with two ridiculously nice guys working for Orange, the cell phone company. One was from Cote d’Ivoire, and made for a great converser as we wound through the mountains, distracting me from freaking out as we sped around every curve (did I mention there are no guard rails?).

We stopped in Dalaba, a somewhat magical city in the mountains (there is a forest of pine trees!) to pick up my friend Kelsey, who waited for us on the side of the road next to some ladies selling bean sandwiches. Our kindly chauffeurs dropped us off right at the Peace Corps house in Labe, never asking for money until we insisted on pitching in for gas. We spent three nights in Labe, relaxing, watching a disgusting amount of movies, and hanging out with a handful of other volunteers who came to meet us. One night, we cooked enchiladas: YUM. (Granted, the cheese was Laughing Cow, but you take what you can get here.)

After becoming a vegetable in Labe, we traveled to Doucki, a tiny village in the mountains, 50 kilometers from the paved road. Our taxi driver had no idea where we were going, and literally every time we passed a tiny village he stopped the car and asked where Doucki was. This was particularly comical, since the car we were in was almost a tin can, and the front door kept popping open, with poor Kelsey up in the front seat. Hilariously enough, after stopping about a dozen times to ask for directions, we stopped in front of an old man, rolled down the window, and the driver yells in Pulaar (the language of this region), “Excuse me, do you know where um…um…” (turns to Kelsey) “Where are we going again?” Needless to say, we all exploded in frustrated laughter…our cab driver didn’t even know the name of our destination. Despite these minor blips, we finally made it there, to find a wonderful man named Hassan (fluent in French, English, and Spanish) with quite the set-up. We stayed in really adorable huts in his compound, ate meals in a gazebo filled with bamboo furniture and hammocks, and slept under THICK blankets – it was coooold! The main purpose of our trip was to see what this Doucki place was all about, since so many people had told me that it is stunningly beautiful. Well…they were right. Our first day there, we were fed a delicious Guinean meal of corn mush and peanut sauce (yes, it is tasty), and headed off on an afternoon of hiking. It turns out Doucki is on the top of a cliff perched over the largest valley in Guinea, which looks a little bit like the African Grand Canyon. Because of this, all of the hikes start with a descent and end with an ascent, which is the opposite of what my mountain-climbing self is accustomed to! The first day of hiking, we were all just blown away by the scenery. Hassan took us to two separate waterfalls where we could go swimming, had us lie on our stomachs to stick our head over a cliff (sorry Dad), and showed us the hilarious rock formations that he’s named: the pregnant woman, the boat, and my favorite one, our favorite extra terrestrial, ET. We got back from the hike just in time for dinner, ate some rice and sauce, and slept amazingly well.

The next day, we did what Hassan called the K.A.H., or Kick-Ass Hike. Its more official name is “Chutes and Ladders,” because during it you climb up hand-made ladders right next to a waterfall. The hike was a looong day, a full 9 hours, but never had a dull moment: we saw three more waterfalls, ate lunch while little fish ate the dead skin off of our feet (yes, gross), drank lots and lots of spring water (don’t worry, we had iodine), and climbed up nine ladders made of vines on the face of a cliff. The hike started with a loooooong descent into the valley, including one part where we literally climbed down through a rocky, slippery stream, most of which we spent on our butts. We hiked through the valley for a while, enjoying the view of the cliffs and coming quite close to a group of baboons, stopped for lunch at a stream at the base of the cliff, and climbed ladders back up. After the ladders, we climbed and climbed some more, stopping at yet another waterfall to swim, then once we reached the top, worn out and sweaty, we had to cross back over to the base camp. All in all, it was exhausting but wonderful.

The next day, we were all sore but Hassan insisted he’d take us on a nice and easy hike, and he was true to his words. He took us down into these incredible rock formations, where you climb on vines. (Fittingly, he calls this hike the “Indiana Jones.”) It was a gentle but stunning hike, and literally did look like a movie scene.

We made it back to the compound by noon, signed Hassan’s impressive guest book, and headed on out.

One of the many waterfalls we swam in

Ready to rock the KAH

ET rock!

Climbing up ladders

Indiana Jones! Aka, Hassan

I spent two more nights in Labe, and it was a bit of a reunion for our stage since about 16 of us were there. It was fun, but by Sunday I was ready to get back to my village, where I was planning on spending the second week of break.

Getting back to site was, as always, really nice. I was happy to see everyone and give them the expected gift from the Fouta: potatoes. I spent several days relaxing, going on bike rides to neighboring villages, working on my grades for the trimester, studying Malinke, and hanging out with Hawa, my best friend in Cissela. Another volunteer came to visit for a few days, and we made pancakes and ate them with care package maple syrup: YUM.

However, quite unfortunately, I got really sick that week, with all sorts of scary symptoms: chest pains, high fever that wouldn’t go away, and GI issues. Finally, this past Sunday, after being sick for 5 days, the Peace Corps doctor told me to go to Kankan, my regional capital, where I am now. Getting here was not pleasant: I needed to find a way to get the 2K from my hut to the paved road where I hitchhike, meaning a car had to come and get me, which was very embarrassing since cars are nearly never in my village and I had to draw so much attention to myself. I was dizzy and weak and feverish when flagging down cars, but luckily I found one pretty easily, although I don’t even want to remember what it felt like driving on that awful road in the state I was in. BUT: I made it here and once I got here the Peace Corps car drove me around, got me some antibiotics and pain meds, although I still never really found out what was wrong with me I’m finally better today and I’ll be going back to my village tomorrow. Despite how awful traveling was, I think I needed to get out of my village: yes, I love it, but after spending several days in a ridiculously hot one room hut with a high fever, I needed a change of scenery, and although here I continued to sweat and have a high fever, I also had Peace Corps support if I needed it, and running water so I could rinse off whenever I wanted.

So…back to my village tomorrow! This weekend I have lots and lots of activities planned for malaria month, which I’ll write about more in my next post. That’s all for now, thanks for reading!