Exam Revision

 It was revision week before exams, which meant that no one was really teaching (or reviewing for that matter). The school dissolving into chaos usually makes my want to go crazy myself, but at the end of term three, with the JSS III students busy sitting their mock final for the public examination, things felt slightly different. With JSS III occupied, I had five extra free periods which meant I could go into any class I felt like and teach. By some miraculous twist of fate, I had actually managed to cover almost all the review material I wanted to get through in JSS II by Tuesday, and I still had a double period scheduled with them on Thursday morning.

After lunch on Tuesday, many of the students began sneaking away from the school. I had spent the morning bouncing between the JSS I classrooms and another teacher had spent all morning making form II copy the periodic table into their notebooks, but other than that no one had been inside a classroom.

“Are you going to teach form two now?” I asked the science teacher, knowing that he was scheduled to teach them sixth period, but figuring that they had already had about all the science they could handle for one day.

“No, they’re all starting to leave,” he replied.

“We’re going to get off early then?” I asked, verbalizing the assumption that no one seemed willing to voice.

“I think so.” A definite yes.

“Okay, I’m going to teach form two for a few minutes then before we go,” I said. About half the class was present so teaching didn’t feel like a waste of time.

As the lesson was starting, it began to rain. The rain steadily increased as we reviewed perfect and continuous tenses. When I had finished everything I wanted to cover, I asked if the students wanted to go home. I knew full well that the answer would be no. Asking students to walk in the rain would be like asking them to eat hot coals.

“Let’s stay here first,” they replied.

“But Miss Kenley can balance the rain, so you will go and bring us an umbrella yes?” Betty Swaray joked, meaning that I could dodge raindrops.

“I’m too tired to balance the rain now, otherwise I would. But if we are going to be here, let’s try to translate stories into English,” I said. I figured translating stories from Krio to English was a good way to keep students occupied and help them understand the verb tenses I had been trying to teach. One student was elected to tell a story. His story was about a wild animal in the bush who killed dozens of people a week, a chief who promised to give his daughter in marriage to the man who killed the beast, and some twins with magic powers. Drawn to the expressive voice speaking a language they could understand, some of the form one students began to slip into the back of the class. When the tale had come to a close, I asked them to explain the story again in English.

“Okay, let me try,” Abdul Rahman said. As he talked, the others occasionally assisted with a word of interjected with a correction. The translating of the story eventually dissolved into the students trying to explain a word to me that they only knew in Mende.  

“That thing, it looks like dirty but it’s not a dirty.”

“Just say rock.”

“But it’s not a rock.”

“Look, look! There’s one there,” they pointed out the window.

I failed to see anything out of the ordinary despite their incessant pointing, so Osman ran outside in the rain and pointed to a small mound of dirt that I assumed was an animal’s burrow. Everyone had gotten out of their seats to stand by the window, and when Osman returned to the class no one bothered sitting down again. Instead they stood around Abdul Rahman’s desk, while he resumed his translating.

“Snake!” Sannie Swaray suddenly shouted, pointing out the window again. “There, there! In the tree!”

A long brownish-green snake was wound around a palm tree. It’s thick body encircled the tree several times and it stretched its head out in the rain like the arched neck of a swan. We abandoned the story-telling to watch the snake, because clearly a beast twenty yards away is more fascinating than the man-eating creature of an imaginary tale.  

If not for the rain, the students said they would go and kill it for me. I smiled to myself, thinking that it would be a shame to kill the snake, which was strangely fascinating. I found myself admiring its slow poise, the still power in its long coiled body.  Then again, my interest in saving the snake was not at all practical. They say snake meat is “sweet” and I’m sure it would have made a lovely addition to the evening plasas. Come to think of it, I probably should have demanded that the students go out in the rain and kill it, just so I could say that I ate a snake in Africa.

               

Toting Sticks

The wind sweeps across the ground. Window shutters clang. Doors swing on their hinges. The branches of the coconut trees wave violently like yellow-green tails of a kite. Avocados fall with a clang against my zinc roof. People are rushing inside to escape the coming rain, but I sit on the railing of my veranda, smiling like a crazy person, thrilled by the imminent arrival of the storm. In a matter of minutes the dusty path running along the side of my house will become a river of sweeping red-brown water. Some of the children from next door will run and jump in it, letting the water carry them along for a few yards – their own natural slip n’ slide. I would love to join them or at least stand directly under the runoff from my roof and wash my hair, but out of deference for what my neighbors think of my sanity I will refrain.

I have always loved rain – beating in steady torrents, driven in gusts of uncontrollable wind, stirring up the smell of earth and grass. After the first storm of rainy season, I discovered my fence had fallen down. I surveyed the damage with Amara Kamara, one of my JSS I students. He told me that he could fix the fence for me. I could have called a carpenter of course, but I figured that fixing fences was probably one of those talents that everyone over age eight in my village seems to possess. The first step to fixing fences is gathering the sticks – a task in which I insisted I was capable of assisting.

We set off one morning to gather the long slim branches we would use to build the fence. We snaked off the Suleihun Road on a footpath leading into the bush, heading towards the place where Amara’s father was clearing land for a farm. We wove our way over the uneven ground, skirting pits where people had once dug for diamonds. The trees would open up to a large burned clearing where people would soon begin to plant cassava, then the forest would swallow us up again. Finally we came to the site of Mr. Kamara’s farm. The recently cut trees lay on the ground, their leaves beginning to turn brown. Amara selected several long straight branches to cut and tie together with a piece of vine. I wound the head cloth that I had brought with me around my hand to make a “cata” which I would place on my head so I could carry my portion of the sticks comfortably. The branches were light and easy to lift. After we had walked a little ways, I got used to balancing them. I pleased to discover that I could drop both my hands and walk along the uneven path without letting the branches fall.

When I first arrived in Sierra Leone, I would watch people carry things on their heads with a sense of awe. Their necks and backs are perfectly still. Their hips swing with a graceful motion. Never once do they falter or let their loads wobble. I will never be able to tote things like a Sierra Leonean, but I am still pleased by my minor accomplishments. I find it quite satisfying to be able to carry a bucket of water on my head and only use one hand to steady it. Granted, I do not have many opportunities to practice carrying water considering that everyone offers to do it for me…