War Don-Don

I always knew I was raised privileged. My parents had good jobs, I always had what I needed, and had it in abundance. I knew I was lucky. Even compared to a lot of my friends. And in some broad way, I think I knew I was lucky to be an American.

But not really.

Not like I do now. We began today by watching a documentary about the war, and the indictment of war criminals of the RUF (Rebel United Force). This sobering experience had us all wide-eyed and really made us see how remarkable this country was that we had come to.

A massively complicated war, I’ll try to explain it as simply and well as I can. There are still pieces that I’m unclear about:

Pre-1990, a 1-party, corrupt government ran Sierra Leone. After a poor investment bankrupted the country, the value of the Leone plummeted overnight and the people were thrust into a state of abject poverty. The Rebel United Force (RUF) comprised of a group of Sierra Leoneans who wanted to overthrow the government because they weren’t taking care of the country. The initial intent of the RUF was good and they were necessary to change the way the government was run.

Over the course of the war however, criminals, both from Sierra Leone and other countries who wanted control of the diamonds and wanted to help build their own country’s economy, infiltrated the RUF. This was where the violence escalated, and this is the only part of the war that most people know about. Eventually, with help, the Sierra Leone Armed Forces forced the RUF to lay their weapons down, but the war had devastated the country. The war ended in 2002.

Those are the facts of the war, the textbook definition that a historian would tell you. The stories that the Salone people tell are the real stories. The heart-breaking, gut-wrenching ones. We learned all these stories and facts, realizing simultaneously that the Training Staff, all of our LCFs (Language and Cross-Cultural Facilitators) had lived through this war. Some had lived through it as children and some as adults. I can’t imagine which one was more terrifying.

We’ve been joking and laughing with them for two weeks now. They’ve been teaching us how to be safe here, and how to speak Krio and they have become our friends. We dance together, they trounce us in football and we taught them how to play Frisbee.

I don’t think any of us realized the reality of their lives outside our training compound. That the happy people we hang out with every day were a product of the Salone that we Volunteers all fell in love with. They were separate- there was the Sierra Leone that claimed too many lives and changed too many stories, and then there was our Sierra Leone. The one that had nonstop music and dancing and people that care about one another and love to laugh. The reality hit that these worlds weren’t two separate things, and this war wasn’t textbook to our LCFs. This was a part of their story.

The way that Sierra Leoneans talk about the war amazes me. They all have a story. They all have lost someone. They speak of them in almost a detached way, as if it’s simply a fact rather than anything devastating. It reminds me of the way that some survivors of the Holocaust talk, with a factual tone and unconnected eyes.

They want so badly for the war to just be over. They want to forgive the people that devastated them, they want to rebuild their country and they just want to be happy again. The Salone nationalism is beautiful, and they are so proud of their country. They’re proud enough to take any help that is offered to them, and why they welcome the Peace Corps with such open arms. They want more for their kids and their country.

Our students will be students who were born in the bush. That’s just a fact. Children of war, whose parents had to fight for them. The fact they’re in school means their parents beat the odds and made sure that the war didn’t define their children’s lives. They persevered to make sure their kids had more- an education that the war robbed so many people of.

In the quiet wake that followed all of these realizations, amid my feelings of horror and pity for this country, I felt something else- a seed of shame, deep in my stomach.

My focus has definitely not been where it should be lately. I’ve been doing a little too much chatting, far too much flirting and not enough of focusing, focusing on why I really came here. My American, over-extroverted, social self took over and I’d been focused on the same things that I was in America. My biggest concern for placement was how close I was going to be to another Salone 4 volunteer, nothing really about the students I would be teaching.

This morning picked me up and shook me, basically slapped me in the face. The fact that I’m in this country and can make a difference is the most important claim I can make about my life so far. I need to remain focused. I owe that to my students. I owe that to this country that I already feel ownership of and have a fierce pride in.

I owe it to myself to be a person who cares about what’s really important. 

The Ugly American

Kushe-o!

It’s day 7 here in Salone. That’s right everyone, I’ve officially survived my first week as a PCV. I’ve eaten so many foods that neither my stomach nor eyes can identify, I've learned to speak broken Krio ( mi Krio small-small) and I’ve learned how to dance wherever I go.

What I’ve not done is look in a mirror.

I didn’t realize it until just recently. I was sitting and talking with a good friend about the fact that my mother was overly concerned about my eyebrows. Then I realized that I had no idea what my eyebrows looked like. In fact, I hadn’t seen my face in over a week.

The American shock value hit me, and I really thought about what the reality of that was. In America, you're practically accosted by mirrors everywhere you go. If you have a day where you look shitty, you’re going to be reminded often. Constantly when I'm going around guys I find attractive I’ll find myself smoothing and plucking, checking to see if there’s anything that I can fix, because of course, if my hair is mussed, he’ll just keep on moving.

So much of the American values are set in looks. How thin you are, how sleek your hair is, how well you put on makeup. Here in Salone, things are beyond different.

It’s a whole new world where beauty is something totally different. The Salone people love a good smile and ‘Owbibodi?!” (How are you) in the morning. I've never felt more beautiful than I do here. And I’ve gotten 5 marriage proposals thus far, so apparently I look fine too.

But the thing that I value the most is how much people in my groups could care less. When I came to the mirror realization, my friend reassured me “ You look good. You always do.” And I believed him. Because it didn’t matter that I as pouring with sweat or wearing my tres-attractive zip-off hiking pants. What did matter was how much fun I’ve been having and how much I simply enjoyed being with everyone.

This is a good lesson for me to bring to my girls. Both in the classroom here and back in America, but the other girls I care about too- my sisters, particularly. I spent too much time dressing to impress and not getting what I wanted in return. But when I let myself be who and where I was supposed to be, I found myself surrounded by 42 awesome new friends (Some, let’s admit, are totally hot and don’t seem to be turned off by the fact that no girl here wears makeup).

The experience seems strange to me. Like there's something that I'm missing. But then I think that maybe America is the place that’s backwards. That maybe Salone knows something about being happy that we simply don’t. We think they have a lot to learn from us, but really, there's so much more that we don’t know. Feeling comfortable in our own skin is only part of it.

But it’s a start.

Kushe, Bo-Town!

Kushe-o!

As I sit in an Internet café in Bo, drinking a beer and waiting on a pizza, it hardly seems like I’m in Africa. Then I glance outside and see all kinds of chickens and children and women in Africana selling all kinds of things from magi (Spices) to Rubba Fak (rubber bands) and realize that I’m further from home than I realize.

The Peace Corps does a great job of integrating us in slowly so that we don’t get overwhelmed.  The idea that we’re in Africa hasn’t quite hit me yet. Why that is still baffles me because in my day-to-day life, I am very much in Africa.

Every morning I wake up with a bucket bath, which is much more refreshing than it sounds. A cold shower was never something I enjoyed in the States but when it’s an average of 90 degrees every day, you start to warm up to the idea. Then on goes the long skirt, I grab bread and walk to school.

I’ve been told my walk is only about a mile, but it takes me about 25 minutes on average to walk there because I’ve gotten to know people along my route. There are the numerous numbers of schoolchildren who always grab your hand as you’re walking by. There are the men at the edge of my village who always correct my Krio (I go na skul) but always tell me I’m pretty to make up for it. There’s the very pregnant woman who gets very upset if I don’t call out to her in Mende, wishing her a good morning and countless other people. Sometimes the best comparison to Africa is that bar from Cheers, you know, where everybody knows your name? Every morning, “Konya! Konya! Konya!” (Konya is my Mende name)

Then school happens. We learn all kinds of wonderful things like how to have proper relations with members of the opposite sex, safe medical practice for when there’s no doctor, cross-cultural training and most of all- Language. Language, language, language. Language is the crux of the PC, the do or die of it all. If you can’t hack the language, you can’t make it through training. My Language teacher, Saio, is the best in the business, though. He’s ordinarily a teacher in Freetown and knows English inside and out, so he’s able to translate the Krio into my English Major-ese (“This is the present perfect tense”, “This is where the subject goes”, etc.)

My Host family is wonderful, but a bit confusing at times. I’m the only PCT in my villiage, so I’m sort of running the show. It’s nice and not nice at the same time. I’m definitely the celebrity and I love the warm welcome I come home to every day, but in exchange I have tons of grabbing hands pulling on my water bottle and my skirt and I’ve been felt up (I’m going to assume accidently) far more than once. My family doesn’t know much Krio at all and even less English, so we’re left with Mende, a tribal language that they’re DYING to teach me. The only word I’ve managed to pick up so far is gari, which means ‘sky’ (Which is GORGEOUS here).

Alas, alack, we had to come to the negative eventually. The food is most definitely not my favorite. I’ve been existing on bread and prayer really. I realized rather quickly that I’m not a huge Cassava Leaf fan and realized even quicker than that this could potentially be a problem, because it shows up every which way. I’ve been mostly compensating with water and a (hopefully) positive attitude. Dropping a few pounds most definitely couldn’t hurt.

The volunteers always end the day with something. We play soccer or Frisbee or do yoga or go for a hike, just something physical together. Cooping up 43 outdoorsy people inside all day makes them more than a little stir crazy. I’ve learned to live with constant sweating and not to worry so much about shaving my legs. The people here are so focused on important things like humor and character, you never feel self-conscious.

I’ve not fallen out of love with the volunteers in the slightest yet. It’s just been compounded by many more crazy happenings. From wild chases through the marketplace to extremely sweet descriptions in Krio, we all just become closer every day. So close that I wonder how we’re going to say goodbye to each other in a few months.

We hit the bars on the weekends and have shut them all down systematically. It’s a given that when our group gets there, we will blow the electricity and drink all the beer. More than one of us had turned to street moonshine (which really just tastes like flavored vodka). We all love to dance and do it quite frequently. And we’re all more than just a little in love with each other.

I admit that I wasn’t sure what to expect, but every day has surpassed my expectations. I’m in love with this country, with its beautiful rolling hills and red dirt roads. I’m in love with the people and their crazy outpouring of love every day onto everything. It’s amazing how many people just care about us. I love the kids, with their eagerness to learn and work on new things and their readiness to help me with the language. I think it’s pretty clear that the volunteers all get along. Basically, it’s more than I ever could have hoped for.

America withdrawals happen occasionally, mostly at mealtimes or when someone brings up something like apple picking or going to the movies. But we’re learning to help each other through them and try and refocus ourselves on the task at hand.

I miss you all a ton. Thank you for all of your support and prayers and I’ll try and get back here sometime soon to post again (Let’s be real- I’ll be back for the pizza)

Wi go si bak!

(Krio for “I’ll see you later!”)

Above Africa

Looking out my window seat, above me is God; the guiding force behind this adventure, below me sits the Atlantic, which will separate me from everything I’ve ever known for the next 2 years. Somewhere in between I sit, really thinking about the journey ahead of me.

The past 2 days have been taken up with overwhelming bonding with my group, too much beer and not enough sleep. All of a sudden the people that I have only imagined surround me and they surpass anything I could have dreamt up on my own. It’s a rousing group of twenty-somethings, all ready to leave everything behind and already so in love with Sierra Leone.

Everywhere we go, the talk centers on our impending adventure. Finally we have someone to swap war stories with, compare experiences and inspirations and finally, FINALLY we are with people who understand us. No more skepticism, no more raised eyebrows, no more tears. There is this essence of camaraderie that amazes me. In a group of 43 people, you can sit down with anyone and get along.

Already scenarios are forming in my head. Which couple that paired off right away are going to be the ones who get married first? Will the best friendships we formed right away follow us through the next two years? How different will everyone look once we get over to Africa? Forgive me for saying so, but we really are an overwhelmingly attractive group right now. In 3 months however, we may be a little worse for wear.

I feel so blessed to be a part of this group. The more I get to know people, the more that I like them. As I look around to the people that were chosen for the same journey as me, I'm amazed at how special they all are. All of them are on fire for helping people, genuine of heart and kind-spirited. It reflects a positive light back onto myself, hoping that maybe since I was chosen to go with them, I might be a bit of those things too.

I’m looking forward to these next two years more than anything I can remember. After a long weekend of saying goodbye and crying at the slightest provocation, it feels amazing to finally be just happy. The life I had is behind me now, the life I will have ahead of me, and while things are still up in the air, I’m going to watch movies and laugh with my new friends.

“Today is the day! Your mountain is waiting! So, get on your way.”

~Oh, The Places You’ll Go, Dr. Seuss

My very first view of Sierra Leone from the plane!