I'm posting this from Accra, several days after I wrote it, because the internet on camp has been horrible lately. It has been a huge undertaking just to get my e-mail open.
Anyway...
I just heard Mr. Sandman, you know that song. How or why it is playing I can't say. I'm trying the new internet cafe next to the one I usually go to.
It has been a bit rough around the edges lately. The wall is back. So many people are leaving, I'm still feeling like heading home, but that would be quitting and in this instance as least I am too stubborn and I understand that I still have much more to learn before I return home.
Spent a decent amount of today feeling fairly ineffective. I hate that feeling. A long time ago, my Aunt Kali told me that I would not make a very good teacher because I can't tolerate incompetance. She said that if I were a teacher, I should be a professor, when I wouldn't have to deal very much with discipline. I have for a good many years thought that she was right. My experiences here have only confirmed this. Some people are absolutely amazing with at risk kids. Children who have had a hard life and as a result are tough as nails and misbehave. I am not. Working in classrooms and living around kids who (for many important and legitimate reasons) are fairly obnoxious is not my forte. My patience continues to wear thin and I find that I am getting more and more flustered regarding disipline issues as time goes on. I think this sounds pretty bad, but the fact of the matter is that I am growing tired of this aspect of life here.
Thank god for Tori, a lovely woman from Australia who is helping me to stay afloat with her good conversation skills, insight and sense of humor. We keep quoting "Strickly Ballroom" at each other. Well, mainly she is quoting it since I don't have an Australian accent and she does. "Mr. Fife! Mr. Fife!" She and I have agreed to help each other keep ourselves together throughout our third month.
Woke up the other morning just in time to hear a parent beating their child with a switch right outside my bedroom window. Rachel put it best when she said, "Just in case you forgot where you are..." Tori and I were talking today and she was pointing out that a ton of our energy and mental power goes to just dealing with all of the poverty, trauma and violence that we see and hear everyday. I think that she is right.
My dear housemate Annie, has left camp. She is the first in a long line of 9 volunteers who are leaving in the next 5 days. She is off to travel for the next few months, and I wish her a great journey! May she enjoy her time and be comfortable back in England when the trip is over.
Oh! Also, I've been meaning to communicate this to Joshua but keep forgetting so I'll put it here:
Annie went to see Pink Floyd perform 'The Wall' in concert. She said it was amazing.
The order of the day is keeping my head above water. I think things will fall back into place but for now my mind is a crazy jumble of transitions, child beatings, poor education, shady politics from the administration, living, working and hanging out with several IVs, none of whom know me that well (and vice versa) and basically day to day activities like eating, showering, using the bathroom and generally getting out of bed in the morning.
It is going to be another busy week.
Bye for now, I'm off to have some yam chips dipped in yogurt and a coke at Brotherhood (our local restaurant of choice).
Monday, November 27, 2006
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Breakthrough
Too much to say. Not enough ways to say it. A clever writer could make this work.
Let's start with the title. Wednesday during reading tutoring, one of my students sounded out the word "always". Now, sounding out words is a concept that these kids are not familiar with. So, even though she sounded out the word perfectly, she didn't really recognize it. But first things first. The fact that she was able to sound out each letter, now that is a big deal! She didn't know the word, she assigned the correct sound to each letter and letter grouping. It was so exciting! I started to cry, I was so excited. The little girls were pretty thrown off by that. One of them said, "Stop Crying-O!". When I explained that I was excited and happy, they started laughing. We kept on until I could hear her saying the word. Told her the word was "always" and had her sound it out again. Then I made them get out of their chairs come outside and we danced around in celebration for a minute. That was a GREAT moment.
My first official football practice went really well. They were very receptive to the drills that we did, and were pretty respectful. I had one player do a lap for being to fresh with me. He calmed down after that. We will have to see how it goes on Tuesday.
The HIV/AIDS workshop is sounding like it won't happen. We've really hit a wall with the CBW administration, we'll have to see how that works out. I'm not sure that the story belongs online. I'll have to let you know more over e-mail or when I get home.
Ok. The whole nagging cold thing has finally come to a head. I went to the camp UNHCR clinic on Friday due to the fact that one of my throat lymphnodes was ridiculously swollen and not good. The doctor said that I have (I'm probably misspelling this) Pharengitis. No big deal. I'm taking antibiotics, (that I happened to already have in my possession since the ones the dr. perscribed are the same strong antibiotic that was given to me by passport health in the case of horrible runs), and should be feeling 100% by tonight. Whew! Glad to have it checked out, glad that it will be done with soon.
One benefit to meeting the Doctor is that he is involved with HIV/AIDS work on camp as well. Apparently, they are always looking for more help. His organization is doing a workshop this week on Sex and Gender Violence and he invited me to come help out if I can. We ended up getting into a conversation about how NGOs on camp end up wasting effort by overlapping services and how benificial it would be to get some more multi-organization efforts going. I'm think that this will be my focus for the final month.
Tonight will be the last Sunday night drink with Annie. She and I started the tradition back in October and it is distinctly weird that this will be the last one. Thursday is the leaving ceremony so I need to start getting my thoughts together about what to say about the people leaving in Guest House #1. Simon and I will have to work on that, since we are the only people currently living in our house that will remain at the end of the month.
I have had a couple of sad encounters with children lately. Occasionally, I'll have a conversation with someone about their time in Liberia or talk to a child who is having a hard day and it is like someone has pulled a rug out from under my feet. But then there are moments like "always" and they somehow balance out.
I just read an amazing book, 'Beloved' by Toni Morrison. I think it will be relevant to my experience next weekend. I think I am going to Elmina, where I will visit an old slave trading fort. That book, the fort, hearing about war torn Liberia and living on camp, you can't help but wonder about the breadth and depth of human cruelty.
Let's start with the title. Wednesday during reading tutoring, one of my students sounded out the word "always". Now, sounding out words is a concept that these kids are not familiar with. So, even though she sounded out the word perfectly, she didn't really recognize it. But first things first. The fact that she was able to sound out each letter, now that is a big deal! She didn't know the word, she assigned the correct sound to each letter and letter grouping. It was so exciting! I started to cry, I was so excited. The little girls were pretty thrown off by that. One of them said, "Stop Crying-O!". When I explained that I was excited and happy, they started laughing. We kept on until I could hear her saying the word. Told her the word was "always" and had her sound it out again. Then I made them get out of their chairs come outside and we danced around in celebration for a minute. That was a GREAT moment.
My first official football practice went really well. They were very receptive to the drills that we did, and were pretty respectful. I had one player do a lap for being to fresh with me. He calmed down after that. We will have to see how it goes on Tuesday.
The HIV/AIDS workshop is sounding like it won't happen. We've really hit a wall with the CBW administration, we'll have to see how that works out. I'm not sure that the story belongs online. I'll have to let you know more over e-mail or when I get home.
Ok. The whole nagging cold thing has finally come to a head. I went to the camp UNHCR clinic on Friday due to the fact that one of my throat lymphnodes was ridiculously swollen and not good. The doctor said that I have (I'm probably misspelling this) Pharengitis. No big deal. I'm taking antibiotics, (that I happened to already have in my possession since the ones the dr. perscribed are the same strong antibiotic that was given to me by passport health in the case of horrible runs), and should be feeling 100% by tonight. Whew! Glad to have it checked out, glad that it will be done with soon.
One benefit to meeting the Doctor is that he is involved with HIV/AIDS work on camp as well. Apparently, they are always looking for more help. His organization is doing a workshop this week on Sex and Gender Violence and he invited me to come help out if I can. We ended up getting into a conversation about how NGOs on camp end up wasting effort by overlapping services and how benificial it would be to get some more multi-organization efforts going. I'm think that this will be my focus for the final month.
Tonight will be the last Sunday night drink with Annie. She and I started the tradition back in October and it is distinctly weird that this will be the last one. Thursday is the leaving ceremony so I need to start getting my thoughts together about what to say about the people leaving in Guest House #1. Simon and I will have to work on that, since we are the only people currently living in our house that will remain at the end of the month.
I have had a couple of sad encounters with children lately. Occasionally, I'll have a conversation with someone about their time in Liberia or talk to a child who is having a hard day and it is like someone has pulled a rug out from under my feet. But then there are moments like "always" and they somehow balance out.
I just read an amazing book, 'Beloved' by Toni Morrison. I think it will be relevant to my experience next weekend. I think I am going to Elmina, where I will visit an old slave trading fort. That book, the fort, hearing about war torn Liberia and living on camp, you can't help but wonder about the breadth and depth of human cruelty.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
I know. I know! It has been awhile since I last posted. I'm sorry. As time goes on, I'm finding it more and more difficult to explain what is going on here.
I am getting really tired. I guess that is part of it. A full night's sleep isn't really doing the trick anymore. Malnutrition is a bit of an issue. I need to be more aware of what I am eating and try to make my diet much more balanced. Tricky though, with the food that is available to me. It is weird because eating has never been questionable for me. When I am hungry, I eat. Sometimes even when I am not hungry, I eat. Apparently not so in Africa. The heat is a real appetite suppressent for me. Sometimes, I find that I have actually forgotten to eat. Or when I do eat, I can't eat much. Beneficial in the, my shorts are starting to fall off of me (no worries, they were a bit big to begin with) way, not so beneficial in the, not eating enough so that I can't get over my cold that I've had for the last three weeks way. I've recently just experienced a serious resurgence of said cold...may it leave me quickly.
My roomate, Hannah, has malaria. My cold is nothing compared to that. I feel really bad for her and she is having a horrible couple of days. She is on the proper meds though and should be feeling better shortly. By shortly I mean a week.
I'm finally hitting the groove with my reading tutoring group. Rachel and I have decided to break the kids into two smaller groups. She is working with the more advanced group and I am working with my two basic students. They are in the fourth grade and I love my girls! My favorite part of the tutoring session is the last 15 minutes, which I have set aside to read a story to them. Being read to was one of the things that made me love reading. These kids get none of that stimulation. None. It is so fun to read to them because they are pretty much enthralled in the book. They will even sit with me a little ways into recess, so that I can finish the story. In the bulk of our session, we are working on the sounds associated with the different letters of the alphabet. They are already improving in this regard, getting more confident in the letter sounds.
Labeling books in the library and emptying garbage bins with Chris remain my mainstays of sanity. These are very tangable tasks that I can start and finish within a short period of time. There are some differing ideas among the IVs about the sustainability of IVs working on projects like Water and Sanitation (WAT/SAN). Emptying bins is something that the community should be doing for itself, is the assertion. While I agree for the most part, I do think that there is a benefit to having a few bins set aside for the IVs to work. Most of the refugees see Westerners coming and stepping into positions of power or authority on the camp. It is an interesting and I think important juxtoposition for a Westerner to be emptying a refugees trash. Chis and I didn't come here with a holier than thou - look down our noses attitude, and we aren't afraid of getting our hands dirty. We are a part of the community, (in virtue of the fact that we live on the camp), while we are here. Why not participate as such. There are approx. 33 CBW bins on camp, IVs are only responsible for 10 or 11 in the zones near our houses.
HIV/AIDS is getting more interesting as well. We are currently preparing a workshop, set to take place at the end of November, geared towards women. Because of the gender inequalities in this culture, (both ghanaian and liberian) women here are more suseptable to the disease than men. When the team goes on outreach, the overwhelming majority of participants are male. So, we are setting aside a specific day to invite women to come to a workshop, enjoy a free meal and get some excellent HIV education.
I am now the official head coach of the CBW Central Office Football team which will play the CBW Teacher team at the end of the month. Practices start next week. I'm excited about playing this role. There is only one other woman on our team, so basically I was just made the boss of a bunch of grown men, who tend to think that women can't even play football. Again, with the gender inequalities, this is an interesting development and I'm interested to see how this will play out. When I told Coach Tomba today, that I will now call him Tomba and he will call me Coach Bree, we laughed and he came back into the room, shook my hand again and called me coach. We'll just have to see.
The new volunteers are great. I'm continually entertained by watching our little mish-mashy family interact. The vibe has changed considerably since last month. A bit more positive energy floating about and a much more calm vibe.
That is all for now, I'm a tired duck.
I am getting really tired. I guess that is part of it. A full night's sleep isn't really doing the trick anymore. Malnutrition is a bit of an issue. I need to be more aware of what I am eating and try to make my diet much more balanced. Tricky though, with the food that is available to me. It is weird because eating has never been questionable for me. When I am hungry, I eat. Sometimes even when I am not hungry, I eat. Apparently not so in Africa. The heat is a real appetite suppressent for me. Sometimes, I find that I have actually forgotten to eat. Or when I do eat, I can't eat much. Beneficial in the, my shorts are starting to fall off of me (no worries, they were a bit big to begin with) way, not so beneficial in the, not eating enough so that I can't get over my cold that I've had for the last three weeks way. I've recently just experienced a serious resurgence of said cold...may it leave me quickly.
My roomate, Hannah, has malaria. My cold is nothing compared to that. I feel really bad for her and she is having a horrible couple of days. She is on the proper meds though and should be feeling better shortly. By shortly I mean a week.
I'm finally hitting the groove with my reading tutoring group. Rachel and I have decided to break the kids into two smaller groups. She is working with the more advanced group and I am working with my two basic students. They are in the fourth grade and I love my girls! My favorite part of the tutoring session is the last 15 minutes, which I have set aside to read a story to them. Being read to was one of the things that made me love reading. These kids get none of that stimulation. None. It is so fun to read to them because they are pretty much enthralled in the book. They will even sit with me a little ways into recess, so that I can finish the story. In the bulk of our session, we are working on the sounds associated with the different letters of the alphabet. They are already improving in this regard, getting more confident in the letter sounds.
Labeling books in the library and emptying garbage bins with Chris remain my mainstays of sanity. These are very tangable tasks that I can start and finish within a short period of time. There are some differing ideas among the IVs about the sustainability of IVs working on projects like Water and Sanitation (WAT/SAN). Emptying bins is something that the community should be doing for itself, is the assertion. While I agree for the most part, I do think that there is a benefit to having a few bins set aside for the IVs to work. Most of the refugees see Westerners coming and stepping into positions of power or authority on the camp. It is an interesting and I think important juxtoposition for a Westerner to be emptying a refugees trash. Chis and I didn't come here with a holier than thou - look down our noses attitude, and we aren't afraid of getting our hands dirty. We are a part of the community, (in virtue of the fact that we live on the camp), while we are here. Why not participate as such. There are approx. 33 CBW bins on camp, IVs are only responsible for 10 or 11 in the zones near our houses.
HIV/AIDS is getting more interesting as well. We are currently preparing a workshop, set to take place at the end of November, geared towards women. Because of the gender inequalities in this culture, (both ghanaian and liberian) women here are more suseptable to the disease than men. When the team goes on outreach, the overwhelming majority of participants are male. So, we are setting aside a specific day to invite women to come to a workshop, enjoy a free meal and get some excellent HIV education.
I am now the official head coach of the CBW Central Office Football team which will play the CBW Teacher team at the end of the month. Practices start next week. I'm excited about playing this role. There is only one other woman on our team, so basically I was just made the boss of a bunch of grown men, who tend to think that women can't even play football. Again, with the gender inequalities, this is an interesting development and I'm interested to see how this will play out. When I told Coach Tomba today, that I will now call him Tomba and he will call me Coach Bree, we laughed and he came back into the room, shook my hand again and called me coach. We'll just have to see.
The new volunteers are great. I'm continually entertained by watching our little mish-mashy family interact. The vibe has changed considerably since last month. A bit more positive energy floating about and a much more calm vibe.
That is all for now, I'm a tired duck.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)