"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?