If you fear your parents...

At the Community/Teachers Association on Friday morning, Mr. Bockarie stood to make a comment. “Yes, I just want to address my fellow parents,” he said. He has an intimidating presence, tall with broad shoulders and a stern face. There is kindness and sense of humor in his eyes, but I would never dare to cross him.

“As parents, it’s our responsibility to make sure our children learn,” he was saying in Krio. “Our children need to fear the teachers. If they fear them, they will always pay attention in class.”

I kept my expression neutral, but I wanted to laugh as I remembered the previous Tuesday in language arts class. Mr. Bockarie was right, parents do play an important role in getting their children to respect teachers. His son Abubakar certainly respects me, but it’s not me Abubakar fears. He’s afraid of his father, and I use this knowledge to my benefit.

On Tuesday, I had asked Kadiatu to read aloud from the board and she accidently pronounced the word “prefect” as “perfect.” Abubakar snorted with laughter, eliciting an embarrassed frown from Kadiatu and an uproar from several of her friends.

“Miss Kenley, Abubakar is always mocking at us. He thinks he is the only one who has sense and knows how to read.”

I quieted them down before turning my attention to Abubakar. He is not the most serious student, but he can read better than anyone else in the form. Regardless of whether or not it’s well earned, his pride is a problem.

“I don’t want to hear you mocking your companions,” I said.

“Yes, ma,” he replied. His expression was completely remorseless, so I fixed an angry glare on him.

“I’m serious,” I said in a sterner voice.

“Yes, ma,” Abubakar repeated, but his voice had become quiet.

“Your father stopped by the school this morning.” I added. (This was true.) “He wanted to know if you were doing well in class. Do you want me to go to your house after school and tell him that you provoke your classmates and laugh at them when they try to answer questions?”

Abubakar’s eyes grew wider, but he didn’t speak. He has grown over the past year, but it’s still hard to believe that he’s seventeen. Gangly and suddenly afraid, he looked like a small child.

“What would your father say?” I asked.

“He’d beat him,” another student piped in.

“This is the last time I’m warning you. If you ever laugh at someone in this class again, I’m going to inform your father.”

As I expected, AbuBakar was perfectly behaved for the rest of the class. Mr Bockarie is right: having parents who are involved in their children’s lives makes a world of difference.

Give me a brick

“Give me a block,” I say to Joseph Tucker, one of my form III students, indicating that he should help me lift the heavy mud brick onto my head.

“No, Miss Kenley, please,” he says staring at me in horror, as if I have just suggested something completely awful.

To tell the truth, my request is somewhat at odds with cultural norms. I’m a teacher and carrying mud bricks is decidedly beneath me – or so I’m told. I know we are not supposed to work alongside the students on the work days, but I also know that as a foreigner I will often be forgiven to bending the cultural norms.

“I’m going to work too. I don’t like watching while other people work,” I say with a laugh to lighten the mood. Joseph, still looking slightly doubtful, lifts the brick onto my head. The form two girls who I am walking with, however, are thrilled. Salamatu Injai, Mariama Moijue, and Mbalu Kpaka are all struggling academically, but outside of the classroom I can appreciate their personalities. As we work and talk in Krio, I am able to see an intelligent side to these girls that was never tapped by the education system.

We have to walk nearly a mile with the bricks from Tuba to the school. They are heavy enough that I strain to lift one in my hands for even a minute, but on my head, the weight settles over my whole body. Sweat drips down my face and my neck begins to ache by the time we reach New Site, but I am still glad to be working. The women in my village are also pleased to see my toting bricks. They greet me with huge smiles and thanks in Mende. The teachers think I am breaking the rules of social standing, but the women are glad to see those rules broken. It means I am one of them.

Mariam, a volunteer from the NGO Restless Development who teaches at my school, sees me working with the students and decides to join us as well. She grew up in Freetown and is as unaccustomed to carrying loads on her head as I am, but if I can break the rules, so can she. When we get to Tuba for the third time, Joseph Tucker greets us with a smile. “Good, we like this when teachers work.” I’m glad we have won him over.

Having already walked nearly seven miles, we decide to rest in the shade for awhile before returning with the final blocks. Realizing how dehydrated I am, I ask one of my students who lives in Tuba to bring me water. I trust that he will give me the most sanitary water available, but when it comes down to it , I fear thirst more than giardia. After gulping down the water gratefully, I hand the cup to another student so she can drink as well.

We set out at last with the blocks on our heads. The sun burns hot and dry. Everyone has forgotten how strange they thought my behavior was a few hours earlier. I too have forgotten that I am a foreigner and this is not my native land.

But it's simple...

Teaching is a constant battle against boredom and frustration – particularly when the subject is math. Most of my students put forth some effort when I’m teaching language arts, but at least two thirds of the class shuts down mentally as soon as I start writing numbers on the board. They have somehow been conditioned to think mathematics is an impossible subject that is fully beyond their realm of understanding. This is an outlook that I am constantly fighting. I have tried every manner of getting them to believe they can learn simple math. I tell them I hated math as a kid, but now enjoy it. I try to market topics as “easy” or “fun.” But let’s face it; they know it’s all a charade. Math is difficult – particularly if you were never taught basic addition and subtraction. I’m never going to convince my students that math is simple, but I still try.

“How many of you like language arts?” I ask as a walk into form III.

“All of us.” Good answer.

“Well, today what we are going to learn in math will be simple as long as you know how to read. If you like language, you will like this math.”

Chatter. Fidgeting, Fighting over a pen. (Eh bo! Gimme di pen bo!) They’re clearly not going for my selling point. I forge ahead anyway. 

The topic of the lesson is using proportions. My goal is not even to reach the actual math, but simply to get students to thinks about what problems are asking. 

“It takes three students ten minutes to sweep the compound. How long will it take six students?”

“Thirty minutes!”

“One hour!”

“Six minutes!” 

I beg them to stop shouting random numbers and pay attention. First, I just want them to tell me if there are more students will it take more or less time to do the work. I am trying to slow down my teaching to make things clear. I try not to think about the public exam looming in the near future; it doesn’t matter if I manage to cover all the material. What matters is that the students understand what I teach them. I know this in theory, but I still lack patience. If they would only listen to me… I think, trying to push down the rising frustration.

Then one of the students chimes in: “Oh, but this is simple today. Yesterday I did not listen to anything you said.”

I wonder if my students will ever pick up on the correlation between actually listening to what I am saying and understanding the material . . .

Blessings in Disguise

Sometimes I wonder if not understanding Mende is a blessing in disguise. Of course, I would give a lot to be fluent in this difficult tonal language, but I do wonder if I really want to know everything that people say about me. I understand enough to realize that I am a continuous source of amusement. While people only laugh at me in a good natured manner, I still do my upmost to try to avoid unintended stand-up comedy routines. To be honest though, if people knew the insignificant things I agonized over, they would have a real reason to laugh at me. 

 

For example, I developed a complex about going to the river to wash my clothes. After a few weeks in Sembehun, I had gathered my lappas and bed sheets and carried them outside to go wash them. Before I had even stepped off my veranda, people were pointing and laughing at me. Nothing out of the ordinary though, considering I was constantly the center of attention during those initial days in my village. I held my head high and continued on my way. I made it about twenty feet before my friend Fatmata spotted me and pulled the clothes out of my hands. Rather than let me progress to the stream, she took my things to her backyard to wash for me. I accepted her kindness somewhat begrudgingly, and decided I would never again venture outside of my own compound to do the laundry. For the next month, I had to listen to stories about how I “didn’t know how to brook my clothes” and Fatmata had to “rescue” me. I’ve never been very good about dealing with suggestions of incompetence. 

Anyway, I eventually decided it was time to move beyond my fear of the kpaku (waterside). Washing clothes in buckets is a pain during the dry season because it requires carrying too much water from the well. After a year in Sembehun, I was no longer the center of attention that I once was, thus I felt ready to brave the stares of laundering in public. On my first trip alone to the stream, the girls nearest to me began laughing hysterically. “Njei bo tongo!” they said, meaning that I had filled my bucket with too much water, thus over-diluting the soap.  “Njei”(water) is a very common word and my form three students love to comment that the math problems I give for homework  are “bo tongo” (too much). So while I knew exactly what they meant, I feigned ignorance. Perhaps it would have been better if I didn’t understand their Mende. . .

By the next time I went to wash my clothes, the novelty of seeing me try to behave like a normal African woman was wearing off. (I was also careful not to overfill my bucket.) On the way home, I managed to walk with my laundry balanced on my head without using a hand to support it. 

“Bi gbua kulei mi lo?” people asked as I returned. (“Are you coming from laundering?”

“Oo,” I answered. (“Yes.” )

Then as I passed, I heard the appreciative laughs and the comments:

“Ah Mende yei go lo panda!” (She knows Mende well!)

“Ngewo va.” (I swear.)

I smile to myself. Maybe I should revise what I said earlier. Knowing Mende is the real blessing in disguise.

Because I want you to learn

Teaching in Sembehun has convinced me that education is not dependent on physical resources. In the absence of computers and smart boards learning will stem from a single piece of chalk as it moves across a piece of cellotex blackened with battery acid. When there are no textbooks, students will learn Shakespeare by memorizing hand copied lines from The Merchant of Venice. Standing under the shade of a mango tree, they will open Portia’s boxes, not minding that they were constructed from sheets of paper torn from a notebook. 

Having little teaches you to value what you have. A year ago, Kankaylay Junior Secondary School was nothing more than a cement building with broken desks and pane-less windows. It still has broken windows and desks, but now it holds memories as well. Kankaylay is a place where I have gone to teach every day.  I have seen the school prefects dragging broken benches outside to use a stone to pound in the loose nails. I have watched girls carrying buckets of water on their head while the boys dug into the ground to churn up the earth. They scooped up the mud with their hands to pack it on the walls of the primary school.  If having a place to learn requires building it with your bare hands, that is exactly what students will do. 

In early September before school re-opened, I spent my days interviewing the new form I students. One morning while I was at the school, Zakaria Swaray came to greet me. He surveyed the school compound which had grown into a small jungle during the rainy months of July and August when school was closed.

“We skul de opin bete lanin no go de,”he said. (When school opens, we won’t be learning much).

“Why?”I asked.

“Look how the place is dirty. We will have to pull all this grass.”

“Or we could pull it now,” I suggested, not expecting him to take me seriously. 

Zakaria stood frowning at the weeds for a moment, then he bent down and began uprooting them.

“I’m only doing this because I want to learn,” he said somewhat defensively lest I think he enjoyed weeding.

I got up and joined him, breathing in the fresh scent of damp sun-warmed earth. That’s why I’m doing this too, I thought, because I want you to learn.

Homeless

It was evening and Amara Kamara and Sannie Swaray were sitting on my veranda flipping through the pages of a thick Maryland public schools Language Arts textbook. The 900 page volume with its glossy cover had been donated to the Peace Corps and ended up in my possession. Really, it should be in my school's “library,” but since Kankaylay doesn’t even have a spare room that could be used to store books in, I keep the donated books at my house, where they get a decent amount of use from students. Primary school children are particularly fond of looking at the pictures, so they will come to my door and command in Mende “Waa bukui.” (Come with a book).   

Sannie read aloud as he turned the pages of the book. 

“Do you know why that woman is sitting there?” I asked, pointing to a picture of a homeless woman, bundled up against the cold, sitting on a street next to a cardboard sign and a plastic tray with a few coins in it. 

“No. Why?” Sannie and Amara ask. 

I explained that she was homeless and she was sitting there in hopes that someone would help her and give her money. 

“So she can buy a house?”

“No, so she can buy food.”

“Where does she sleep?”

“There,” I said, pointing to the picture. 

My students looked at me aghast. I have never heard of someone sleeping outside in Sembehun. Certainly, such a thing would never happen in a Sierra Leonean village. Here, if your friend has no food, you invite him to eat. If he has no house, you spread a mat for him on your floor. Things don’t work that way in the United States. Not everyone has family and friends to turn to when things get bad, I explained. 

“Here, we would never let someone sleep outside,” Sannie said, affirming my comments. “Everyone’s trying to get to America, but they don’t know that it’s not easy for everyone there. I have more than people in America.”

I wanted to capture Sannie’s words and impress them on the minds of all my students. I wonder if he knew how true that statement really was. It is not simply a matter of having a clean bed to sleep in and a place to store your things; it is about family and community and a boundless optimism that I cannot understand. I wish more people knew the truth about Sierra Leone. While on paper, it is one of the poorest countries in the world, it has a wealth that no economist can measure. I wish that instead of escaping to the western world, the best and the brightest would stay and carry out their successes here.

Evening

As the sun was setting, the sky began to clear. The formerly solid sheet of grey was swept into small white puffs whose indistinct borders trailed into the pale blue sky. Night fell, and the stars began to sparkle in the blackness.

I stepped onto my back veranda and switched off my flashlight. The orange glow from my neighbors’ kerosene lamp danced off the cement walls of their house. The chirping crickets mingled with the solemn sound of the azan. Together they formed a chorus that almost drowned out the distant hum of the generator across the street, the only source of electricity for miles.

Slipping off my flip-flops, I walked carefully into my gravel-covered backyard. The stones were cold, but mostly dry under my bare feet. I lay down, settling my weight so that no sharp rocks would dig into my back. I was hidden by the dark and the zinc slabs that fenced in my backyard. Invisible to the world, I listened to the chattering of children next door, the slightly crackled voice coming from a radio, and the crunching footsteps of someone passing by my house.

My eyes followed the stars, tracing Orion’s belt and the big dipper. Even in rural Ohio, I had never seen such a multitude of stars, so I felt certain new constellations must be waiting to be discovered. I formed the pictures in my mind. A giraffe stretched its neck up to the leaves of a tall tree. A child waved her legs and arms out to make a snow angel.

“Manungima?” A passing voice called. It was a question asked to the dark to see if I was still awake. It was a greeting that did not really demand a response. Nevertheless, it broke the spell; it cut through the sensation of being alone and invisible under a vast starlit sky. I got up and went inside.