Finding Salone

"I don't see it!" "I think it's over here..." "Wait, that's it there!" Scrutinizing the recently painted map, some of the junior students at my school attempt to find their homeland. They point towards Asia, then towards South Africa, and then after one more futile point at South America, they give up. "Show us! Where is it?" After, some of the senior students point Sierra Leone out to the younger ones, they start to get upset. "Our country is so small!" "Why did you paint it so small?" The senior students just laugh at their silliness and then look to me, hoping that I will explain everything. I go over in my head what answer I could possibly give that would satisfy them and it comes down to this simple explanation that every other Sierra Leonean gives: "God made it so." Should have I given them the correct answer, that colonialism and greed gave shape to their country, instead of allowing them to remain ignorant to the truth? I probably should have, but that will wait until another lesson on another day. Regardless, my students contented themselves with the fact that our painters distinguished Salone from the rest by painting it the colors of the flag: green, white, and blue. "I'll never forget now! Our country has more colors than yours!" I remember my search on the map for Sierra Leone after I found out my Peace Corps placement. Where in the world would I now call home for the next two years? My reaction resembled that of my students, "So small!" But now, after a little over 9 months here, I realize that geographical size of this country does not matter. Sierra Leone seems huge! The fact that a nearby town, only 15 miles away, can take an hour to reach in the dry season (almost two in the rainy) stretches this country out. When that drive in the U.S. can be so brief and insignificant, going that distance in Salone seems like a grand achievement. Sometimes after a journey to another volunteer's site, you look at the map and find yourself shocked and in disbelief that such a short distance took you at least four hours to accomplish. Rough roads and rusty vehicles make Salone big. The small geographical size of Salone also deceives in other ways. In the United States you can drive throughout one state and stop in almost every city, town, and village and you will typically hear English. Salone does not always have that convenience. Most speak the lingua franca, Krio, but you could stop in one village and hear Themne, and then go a little further and hear Mende. The list goes on with Limba, Kono, Mandingo, and so on. The United States may have a diversified population, but this small country with a number of different languages spoken once again makes it seem bigger than reality. Yet, I cannot deny the things that allow Salone to appear as small. No matter where you go, you will never fail to see people preparing rice, cassava leaf, petete leaf, kren kren, and so on. In every village, town, and city, women will wear their lappas around the waist and the men may be enjoying a cup or two of palm wine after a day in the field or work at the shop. Young girls will make their line at the pump or well, and boys can be seen enjoying a game of football. As you pass by in the car, it never fails that children will start yelling "oporto" or "pumoi" at the stranger. It can seem all too similar. No matter how small or how big Sierra Leone might feel, it has started to feel more like home. A home far away from the original one that I know as much more comfortable and familiar, but a place that I slowly come to understand more and more each day. I can no longer look at Salone as just a place on the map. It's become too big for me to ever overlook it, and so big that I can never explain every experience I have. Like my students, once I found it, I'll never forget it.

"I have a dream..." for Salone

In celebration of Black History Month at my school, my Senior Secondary 3 English class (the very rough equivalent of a junior in high school in the U.S.) wrote their own version of MLK Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech.

Here are two speeches written by my students:

"I have a dream for Sierra Leone" by Major General A.S.K.

Let us say no to violence, nepotism, and tribalism. I tell you brothers and sisters. Even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream for this nation. 

I have a dream that one day Sierra Leone will live in peace, unity, and harmony. I have a dream that someday Sierra Leone will be a place of justice or place where there is justice for both poor and rich people. 

I have a dream that some day Sierra Leoneans will live like people in America or even people in heaven. 

Even though we are sweltering with injustice, I still have a dream that is deeply rooted in Sierra Leone. 

I have a dream that one day Sierra Leone will rise up and show the true meaning of its creed "We hold this on our hands" that all mankind are created equally. 

I have a dream that even my four little children will one day live in a nation that they will not be judged by the colour of their skin nor their tongue or language. 

I have a dream today.

"I have a dream for Sierra Leone" by H.S. aka 2019

I pray for my sweet Sierra Leone that one day my children or the people of Sierra Leone will stop and be aware that all mankind are equal, either rich or poor we are all the same. And also we are to forget all political affairs and try to develop Sierra Leone as a nation. 

And the development of Sierra Leone is in our own hands, we the citizens. And if we work as a nation my dream tells me that Sierra Leone will become the best country that we are thinking of in the world. If we forget all of the corruption, dishonesty, lawlessness, and stealing in our country, the country be as developed as all other countries. 

The tears that run down from my eyes are showing the sign of peace, love, unity, and freedom to all of Sierra Leone that will one day in the future come. I hope that one day my dream will come true. 


These two speeches are only a couple of the many speeches that my students wrote. One thing to note is that English is the third language for many of my students, so while these speeches might not be very lengthy or the most eloquent, they get across the message that many Sierra Leoneans hold onto: a message of hope.

"MISTA JOSUWA, YU NO SABI SWIP"

Yes, it's true, Mr. Joshua does indeed the lack the skill of sweeping like a native of Sierra Leone. Maybe the way I arch my back fails to reach the correct posture or I do not hold the small broom in a suitable and efficient way, but it never fails that every morning, once I start to sweep the layers of peanut shells and dust off of my veranda, I receive this biting criticism.

"Mista Josuwa, no sabi swip," my neighbor girl, Sule, giggles. 

"Fayn, yu tek am," as I sullenly give the broom to her losing self-confidence in my ability to complete the most mundane of household chores.

"OOOoohhh, Mista Josuwa." 

Good thing my service in Sierra Leone does not include janitorial work, I clearly am sub-par at that. 

Luckily, at school I hear a different story. 

"Mista Josuwa, yu sabi tich." 

What a relief, people can still have some faith in me.

But do I still have faith in myself? The answer to that question does not always come easily. Throughout my service so far I questioned myself whether what I do here actually has an impact. The moments come more often than I would like in which I teach a lesson that does not come across clearly, or my students do not achieve the mark I hoped they would on an exam, or I just feel like no one pays attention to what I say. In other words, I feel like the most ineffective tool in the toolbox. 

When thoughts like these fill my head I realize I need to take a deep breath and a step back. Sometimes people come into the Peace Corps with this superhero mentality and think that they will solve every problem out there, but that only results in a overwhelming feeling that crashes down on you after your first failure. As we like to say in Salone, you need to take things "small small." Change does not happen in a day and you can't solve every problem with one action.

In my service so far I have only completed one term of the school year. That's a small chunk of my time here, meaning that there will come more time to see small change and personal growth, not only in myself but also my students. I can't deny that more setbacks will happen during my service, but many more successes will happen along the way.

My neighbor girl, one of my students at school, likes to tell me. "Mr. Joshua, when I am older and have money I am going to give you back what you have given me." What I have given her and her family seems so feeble, some money to cook rice or reading lessons before we all go to bed, but these small things are the things that she cherishes. It turns out the small things can have much more worth than the big ones, and I need that reminder often.

I do not how to put it into words sometimes, my life here in Sierra Leone. When people from home say, "Tell me everything!", nothing can compare to the level of difficulty in finding an answer to that statement. The number of differences between here and the United States of America increases reaches a point that I do not even know where to start explaining.

So for that reason, I will just tell you the short stories. Let's try and keep it small, ya?

LOOK, I wrote something.

So, this is a blog post. I said I would do these before I left for Salone, but have I been doing them? No. Di internet no de. Or in English, the severe lack of internet in this country greatly limits my ability to tell you about the thrilling life of a Peace Corps Volunteer in Sierra Leone. But, as it turns out, when it comes to writing about the glamorous life of a Peace Corps volunteer I just find it hard to put it all into words.

So here are my daily activities:

1.       Running in the morning with everyone in town yelling at me in Temne and asking me if I am running. Apparently the white sweaty man puts on a good show.

2.       School: The place where I teach teenagers how to read, write, and speak English. I spend a lot of time sitting around with the other teachers and talking about America, religion, and the frustrations of life in Salone.

3.       After school: The period of the day where I spend time reading on my verandah, sitting and staring on my verandah, sitting and staring on my neighbors verandah, and then the occasional walk to my site mate’s school which has a library with solar power and satellite television. Pawn Stars and Storage Wars still manage to captivate me here in Sierra Leone. I also sometimes go on walks around town which includes people yelling at me in Themne, people offering me their baby as a wife, children grabbing my hands to walk with me, and then more people yelling at me in Themne.

4.       Night: Once the sun goes down I go and after listening to the BBC to feel like I know what’s going in the world, I go into my tiny house and call it a day.

All in all, life is good here. My neighbors make sure I am well fed and healthy. There are days where they keep on giving me food that I cannot possibly eat so I end up feeding all the children in the area. They also help me wash my clothes and get water. In other words, they are some of my best friends here.

 Occasionally students from my school come to visit me and ask me questions about English, but most of the time I hang out with my friend Obay, a female chief that lives across the highway from me. She lives in a house with a number of other women and they all spend their day making Kill Drayvas (a sort of African sugar cookie) to sell to people that pass by their house. If I ever want to get away from all the craziness that can happen during a day, I go to hang out with Obay because I know the same will always be happening there. She tells me a lot of stories about her life as a chief and life during the war, but most of the time we entertain her five-month-old grandson Kasim while she teaches me Themne.

I don’t know what else to write about but I’ll end it by telling you a short story about Pizza making and then possibly angering my whole town.

One Friday afternoon my site mate and I decided to make a Pizza in his amazing clay oven. While we were gathering the ingredients for this Pizza around town, one of the bobos (small boy) that frequents my house for food spotted us and followed us back to my site mate’s house. The bobo then joined us and helped us to prepare the pizza. By the time our pizza was cooking, it was about 8 o’clock and the sun was down so the bobo (Ibrihim) thought it was best to lie down and fall asleep by the oven. My site mate didn’t want the Ibrihim to die from smoke inhalation, so he moved him onto a yoga mat in another room. When the pizza was finally finished, Ibrihim was out cold. We attempted to wake him up but he just refused to wake up. So we ate without him and then I finally decided that I need to take Ibrihim home. We once again attempted to wake him up, but he kept his eyes closed. My site mate decided that carrying the bobo on his shoulders would be the best idea… but it turned out to be the worst. While my site mate and I were walking back to my house everyone so my site mate with this small child around his shoulders almost looking like a corpse. By the time we were halfway there people were freaking out and wanted to know what the two Opotos (What they call a white person in the northern part of the country; for a small history lesson the word refers to the Portuguese who were the first Europeans in Sierra Leone) did to the small child. We were then confronted by a group of young men who started accusing us of drugging the child or getting the child drunk. By this point I was furious and was not happy that I was receiving these accusations. It then lead to an argument in krio and then finally the waking of the child who managed to state that the two Opotos indeed did nothing to the him, he was just tired and did not want to wake up.  The whole crowd then left us and Ibrihim made it home okay. So the lesson we learned was that you must never carry a sleeping bobo unless you want to anger your town and have them think you do terrible things to children.

Alright, well na in dat. I hope you find this blog post satisfying to the recent drought my blog has been experiencing.

More Vital Information

So I do not have much time to update this but I have some information for all of you that read my blog

1. On Wednesday August 28, 2013 I become an official volunteer in Sierra Leone. The Swearing In Ceremony will be that day and I'll be decked out in my best Africana clothes.

2. Thursday August 29 I go to site. Basically, all my internet usage will decrease substantially so the best way to contact me is via phone. If you want my phone number email me or facebook me.

3. I'm terrible at blogging.

4. I'm so happy training is almost over.

5. Send me a package!

Who's too cool for summer school?

Not me.

Yes, summer school has started and what a wonderful experience it is. Well, I mean it's a change of pace from the usual day of training in the compound, but it really is great. I have two periods in which I teach English to Senior Secondary 1 students and then Language Arts to the Junior Secondary 3 students. I have started teaching the joys of nouns and sentence structure and the students are just loving it (well, in an ideal world they are). All in all, it really is awesome because I finally get to do what we are being trained for. This week was also nice because we had Thursday off because it was Pray Day or the end of Ramadan. As-salaam alaykum!

Pray Day was awesome. I basically spent the day hanging out on the veranda with my host family and greeted a million people who stopped by after praying at the mosque. Also, all the Muslims families around us were bringing food because it is tradition to give gifts on Pray Day. In some ways it is kind of like Christmas because apparently for Christmas all the Christian families makes food for the Muslim families. In the afternoon I went to a play put on by an Islamic youth group. I attended with two other volunteers (Taylor and Annie) and had a great time. The play was supposed to start at 4, but instead we watched a dance party for children 8 and under. And let me tell you, children in Sierra Leone have all American children beat when it comes to dancing. They were putting on all their best dance moves for us. Even though all the dancing was very entertaining, we were wondering when the play would actually start and we only seemed to be the only people attending. By 5 the dancing started to wind down and finally some people were coming in to sit down. But did the play start? Of course not. Instead we watched a skit, listened to some Islamic songs put on by the teenagers, and then finally at 6 the play started. But by that time we could not stay much longer, so only got to see a small portion of the drama, performed in the Krio language, titled "Rich men rarely worship god in the truth form."

Speaking of Krio, I'm really starting to pick it up now and I am also starting to pick up the local language in Bo, Mende. I am also now taking Themne classes, which is the language I will be speaking in Masingbi.

Well, that's it for today. I'm still getting fat according to my host family, so in other words I am very good!

We only have two more weeks left of Summer School/Training and then on August 28th we are officially sworn in as Salone 4 volunteers.

Love and miss you all!

Just kidding

My last blog posts haven't been the most informative, so I will try in this one to inform you all a little better.
My daily life during training can basically be summed up as this. I wake up at about six in the morning and start the day off with prayer with the family. I then take my bucket shower (with hot water!) and then eat breakfast which is usually a small loaf of bread with two hard boiled eggs and a ton of Mayo (apparently Sierra Leone beats the U.S. in mayonnaise consumption). I then go on my 30 minute walk (greetings included) to the training site. Then we sit in training until 5:30 and then I go on a jog with other volunteers, go to a bar for a drink, or go home. I then spend the rest of the evening eating, hanging out with the family, taking another bucket bath, or reading. Sounds exciting, right?  I guess I'll let you be the judge.

My host family is awesome. I really cannot emphasize that enough. The keep me well fed, well taken care of, and tell me that I am fat all the time  (which is a major compliment). I am already planning on coming down to spend Christmas with them when the time comes.

One quick note about Salone culture: You have to greet everyone on the street. No matter who you pass and even if you do not know them you better greet them or you offend them. So that is why it takes me forever to get to school. I also am grabbed by about a million children on the way to school as well. If you ever wanted to know what it is like to be famous, come to Sierra Leone.

I've also learned how to eat fish and chicken bones, I do not complain when my pineapple is covered with ants, and I crave rice like none other. I also no longer know what cheese tastes like and I dearly treasure my peanut butter.

Sierra Leone loves Rihanna, Chris Brown, and Celene Dion. No joke, everyday on the radio there is one hour dedicated to Celene Dion.

The rain comes hard and sporadically. Feeling cold is anything below 75 degrees. And I've finally gained the ability to sleep with a sheet.

Mosquitos attack my feet and talking about poop with other volunteers happens more often than one would want.


To sum it all up, life is good and a tel god tenki.

Love and miss you all!

Josh