The weight of words

Here's a paradox. . . a picture is worth a thousand words, but words are sometimes not worth that much. . . so what's the real exchange rate for words? 

Case in point . . . Here's a picture with a story about gender here, one that is told on the board in our office as well as in every classroom I set foot in. Our school at last count is 58% boys.  Girls are sometimes kept home to help in the household, or because their school fees are seen as a less worthwhile use of quite limited limited household resources.  I learned when sorting out school handbooks/report cards that the girls who had to repeat a grade were far less likely to return the next year than boys were.   This is the reality. 

Here is another picture, of a shirt I see a man in the village wearing often.  One of the many development slogan t-shirts floating around.  It says (and apologies for the bad picture), "Gender mainstreaming is not a request.  It is a requirement."  I'm still not exactly sure what that means, and am pretty sure that almost no one around here really understands it either, which is to say nothing of those others who can't read English all that well. 

Reading like a champion

So without Wifi in the residence (read: a Tube-free  environment), and with a handy Kindle Fire that has become my only personal functioning gadget, I have been reading like crazy.  It has been really been nice to rediscover the joys of just reading without all of the distractions (read: all of the Internet) that have taken me off the literary bandwagon in recent years.  It’s one of the many ways that I’ve been able to get a little of growth and the peace of mind I was looking for during these few months, along with the search for service, growth in compassion, travel, and relationship-building that led me to where I am.   Thanks to my sister and fellow VIDES volunteer who gave me a bunch of reading material, and for Amazon for making so many classics available for free.

New Conquests:
Don Quixote, which has been on my list since high school
The Qur’an in English, which has been on my list since college.
Cutting for Stone:  Fantastic. Came highly recommended by my sister, and I repeat the endorsement
A Casual Vacancy:  A good read, can see the Harry Potter voice in there, a good story but from Africa didn’t really move me
The Mantle of the Prophet, about religion in Iran, which I first bought when I begin with Farsi over a year ago.  It was excellent for anyone who wants to start getting their head around modern Iran
Un-Orthodox
Little Bee (fantastic, highly recommended)
This is How You Lose Her
The Road
Behind the Beautiful Forevers
A Hearbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
The Communist Manifesto, which I’ve been threatening to read since high school.


Beloved rereads:
Life of Pi, shortly before I saw the movie, once on my kindle in transit, once with the sisters, which is a good adaptation, although goes a bit overboard with the CGI.
A Tale of Two Cities:   Had been wanting to reread since Paris. Started in Rome, finished in Juba
100 Years of Solitude
The Hunger Games
Madeleine L’engle’s Wrinkle in Time, Swiftly Tilting Planet, Wind in the Door and Many Waters
A few stories from Interpreter of Maladies, my blog title’s baby mama.

Future challenges:
Democracy in America, vol. 1 and 2 (has been on my list since High School)
The Book of Mormon


Like in other phases of life where I’ve read a lot, it’s been a joy to find the connections between the written word and life experiences, and among the different, barely-related books I’m chewing through, from Cutting for Stone that referenced the Ethiopian dish I’d eaten the night before, to shifting from the story of Noah in the Qur’an to the its novelization in Many Waters.

Anyway, am posting this in case you were curious what I can possibly do when there’s no school in a world without home wi-fi access.  And it’s good motivation to continue knocking away at my list.

Other fun assigned reading:
P8 compositions. 

Signs I may have been here "too long"

• The other day, after making what I was certain was terrible food for our watchmen, said "oh well, it is food and there are hungry children in.  . . . Oh wait" *cringe*
• I am a constellation of mosquito bites and absurd tan lines. Farmer's tan combined with v-neck, additional demarcations at he elbow, ankle, knee, neck, watchband,  and of course, a pretty stunning flip flop tan
• I have become reasonably successful at the challenging but rewarding one-handed midair mosquito grab of death 
• After developing an aversion since the age of four, am starting to kind of like bananas.   Unto recently they were, along with Korean food, one of two foods I have actually tried and hated without good reason
• <75 degrees has started to feel cold
• I am developing a new lexicon and it hardly feels awkward anymore.   Peanuts are groundnuts, I "take" water, coffee, tea, etcetera, you "close" electrical outlets and stove burners, and the strong Salesian Italian influence has made mamma mia is my current exclamation of choice 
• Half the words I use give me flashbacks of trying to explain it to my students
•  I am definitely talking more slowly.  Still not enough that the students can easily understand me but better than when I left Americaland 
• I am beginning to recognize the various Nigerian movie actors and throw roles they are inevitably typecast in
•  Our oven is kinda difficult and here, where you don't throw away dishes that don't go as planned, I am starting to weirdly enjoy the taste of burnt cake

Cake that ended up resembling a map.  At the bottom right,
see Africa and what is either Eurasia, or an elephant
climbing Africa. 

Back on Track

The pre-exam week, exams, week of holiday, and subsequent teacher shortage and stint as a sub was definitely interrupted the flow of my work, and changed the nature of my mission.  It was frustrating to have everything change an to feel so inadequate for what the school suddenly needed, as I’m pretty sure my one or two dedicated readers out there could tell.

In the past week, I’ve mentally reframed this interruption as a reset.  I have less than 7 weeks left before I head home, and now, with a more normal rhythm and a looming expiration date on my incredible opportunity to do good here, I’m rededicating myself to a slightly reconfigured mission and using the numbered days as a motivating force, driving me to give it my all.

It was harder than anticipated to improvise a
lesson on the United States for a teacherless 6th grade class.

My class has shrunk.  Many of the girls that were coming to my class before exams, being the posse of seventh grade girls that they are (even though many are older, I think that there’s something universal in being a 7th grade girl. . . a weird paradoxical mix of defining your individual identity and having a bad case of groupthink, and insecurity laced with bravado), have decided not to come in the afternoons anymore.  During the school day, they said they would come, and then I ended up sitting in an empty classroom reading a Nigerian novel Sr. Betty loaned me.   I would go every day in the hopes of having just one student, and out of the fear of disappointing someone who legitimately wants to learn.  Like I keep saying in Arabic, “Wahid kifaya.  Sifr mish kifaya.”  (One is enough.  Zero is not enough).

So now, I’m still subbing a bit and helping in the library, but my work is concentrated on three girls of one family, ranging from 1st through 6th Grade, (sisters and cousins)  that returned recently from Khartoum. . . I work with them for a couple hours during the school day, and then they’ve become my only students in the afternoons as well.  That’s 3-4 hours of Laura time a day, but such is their commitment to learning English.

I’m going to try to profile one or two of them in greater detail for a future entry, but to give a quick idea one has finished 7th grade in Arabic-pattern schools only to be placed in 4th grade here, and even then, probably not grasping a lot of what’s going on in the class.  We work on phonics, handwriting, vocabulary, and conversation. . .  a very effective teaching aid has become conversations about “where is the bottle of water?” because I always have one on hand, and nothing teaches prepositions, personal pronouns, or vocabulary like repetition and physical demonstrations.

So for now (knock on wood!), it looks like I have a bit of a new groove going.   In many ways, these girls and I are meant for each other. They really, really, want to learn.  I desperately want to teach them.  I know their individual learning styles, strengths, weaknesses (such as a mental block on the letter y and occasional confusion between b and d).  And for once in my life, I’m engaging with someone such that my Arabic is better than their English.  When gesticulations, my rudimentary drawings, and simplified definitions fail, I can often come up with the Arabic definitions for phonetically simple, but conceptually challenging words like “try,” “hive,” and “brew,”

And there’s a concrete, manageable, but challenging goal: finish two phonics book and English textbooks from grades 1-3 (or 4!).   There’s a larger goal: at best, allow them to skip a grade that better matches their ages and previous educational attainment, and at worst, stop them from being held back a grade next year due to lagging English levels.  And with several hours a day, a few weeks might just be enough.   A friend recently advised me through my frustration not to let my preoccupation with data and measurable impacts prevent me from having faith in the unseen impact to my time here, but I hope that in this case, the impact might just be a tiny bit visible.

Stay tuned for (I’m sure they’re coming) new wrinkles and results on this front .

And for the rest of my time, and the rest of my interactions with the students and the local community, I’m trying to have it be guided by a line from one of the songs I’ve been having on repeat.

“Do I make myself a blessing to everyone I meet?” (“That Wasn’t Me,” by Brandi Carlile)

I can’t always live up to it, and I definitely can’t measure it.  But I can try my best, and leave the rest up to God to the redeeming powers of faith, hope, and love.

South Sudan in Pictures, Part 2

One night we had this incredible, monsoon-caliber rain.  This is what our front yard looked like in the first light of morning after the deluge

While waiting to put the rooms back together after they’d been beautifully tiled, some of the girls in P7 and P8 play jump rope. 

I’ve come a long way from home, only to find my obscure high school mascot incarnated on Sr. Betty's desk. 

Mother and Child (they were not supposed to be here, but beautiful anyway)

My international community

Compared to my time in Geneva, I have expanded the international scope of my household.  Meet the gang (has been difficult to get everyone together in one place at the same time for a picture.  it is forthcoming).  For now, as a stand-in here's Sr. Tsige, and her favorite, Jello.

Sr. Candide, from Canada
Work here: Superior of the community, headmistress of the school
Usually cooks: “a bit of pasta.”
Fun facts: Has been in Africa for a long time, including in Rwanda, and Ethiopia, where she was in charge of all the Salesian sisters in East Africa.
Likes the cats?  No.

Sr. Celestina, from India 
Work here: Supports worship activities of local parish
Usually cooks: turns our leftovers into delightful meals for the kitties
Fun facts: Has been here in Sudan/South Sudan for 30 years.  Which is longer than I’ve been alive.  Meanwhile, my time here is just one trimester of a pregnancy.  Perspective. Also loves Nigerian TV and the news on Al-Jazeera English
Likes the cats?  Yes.

Sr. Tsige, from Ethiopia
Work here: Supervises the kindergarten classes
Usually cooks: resourceful and delicious rice dishes, fantastic Ethiopian food
Fun facts: Loves Nigerian movies/TV, and has the uncanny ability to figure out the plotline and retell in intricate detail after less than a minute of watching one. And is more excited about making Jello than possibly anyone I’ve ever met.
Likes the cats?  Doesn’t love them, but wants them to be ok.  Was the one to alert us that one of the babies was stuck in a pipe (and then yours truly got to play Fireman), and that Mama Minou may or may not have eaten a scorpion.

Sr. Betty, from here in South Sudan
Work here: Teaches English, CRE, some administration at the school
Usually cooks: Meat, rice vegetables, somehow translates basic ingredients into delicious dishes.  Even when I see what goes in and help with cooking,  she manages to make them greater than the sum of their parts.  And creates lots of dirty dishes in the process
Fun facts: She started calling me “daughter of Obama.”  I started calling her “Sister of Obama.”  Now mostly shortened to me calling her 3amati (Arabic for Auntie), and me being “her niece.”
Likes the cats?  No.

Sr. Rosaria, who recently returned from her home in Italy
Work here: Leads the women’s promotion project, and tends to the neediest who show up on our doorstep.
Usually cooks: fantastic pasta, soup, usually puts out salami and cheeses.  Tutto buono.
Fun facts: Has an identical twin. . . For me, she’s a newcomer but was actually the first one here, helping it turn from a patch of land to a real place of service.
Likes the cats?  Yes, probably more than anyone else.

And sometimes I forget. . . .

• That most come to school without eating anything, some don’t have the resources to buy food to eat at the break (10:30-11), and how hard it must be to concentrate for so many hours on an empty stomach. Or how skinny many of them are.
• That my accent is REALLY REALLY HARD for many to understand, since they don’t have access to American TV/radio like other places do. 
• That their educations have been interrupted in so many ways . . . by the war for independence, by migration to flee the war of independence, and even after the war was over, I’ve found out that the Lord’s Resistance Army (remember the Joseph Kony Hullaballoo?) was making life incredibly unsafe here thereabouts 2005. 
• That I’m teaching many of them in their second, or third languages (tribal language and Arabic), and that the lessons they learn at school can’t be reinforced in quite the same way by their parents the way I had the opportunity to. . . and it’s so hard to learn how to read when you, for example, read “cat” or “hat” for the first time and then hear that same word from a friend, family member, or on the TV.   Try explaining the meaning of simple words like “elf,” which is completely unimbedded in culture
• That tragedy looms around the corner for so many of them.  Almost daily we hear about deaths and near-death experiences from diseases like malaria, tribal violence, unsafe roads. . . suffering is everywhere.

Sometimes I forget because I don’t go home to the same situations that they do. . . in the evenings, I retreat behind the walls of the compound, so close to the village geographically and so far culturally and in terms of the standard of living.

Sometimes I forget because I misread their faces and confuse eagerness to learn and a desire to impress their teachers with actual comprehension.

And sometimes I forget because if I didn’t, the magnitude of everything these kids are up against would be overwhelming, nearly incapacitating.   It’s so hard to imagine how much they have to deal with just to learn, and if I did, am not sure that I would feel up to the challenge of teaching them anything. And so I forget, in order to keep going day after day, and give my best, even if it’s hardly good enough.

But for a little perspective, constantly “remembering” and connecting everything to deprivation can also lead to major misinterpretation.   Sometimes a little boy’s cardboard flip-flops are just his end-of-term arts and crafts project.

Sometimes you just wanna kill* them . . .

*meant entirely in the “frustrated parent” sense, not in the “proclivity to violence” sense.

So this entry was definitely when I was on an early-tenure high. . . even had thoughts like, “I could almost be a teacher.”   Seems absurd now.  Now I’m a in a little different place in the cycle, and I’ve been feeling like I’m rebuilding my work here from scratch.

Two weeks ago were exams, and so the week before then my students stopped coming, and instead I ended up supervising a study hall spanning 3-4 classrooms, and worked a little with one of the younger students who came a couple days.  Not expecting this, I had had my whole week of lessons planned out, so got the idea that the more prepared I am, the less things go according to plan.

Then a week of exams. Still study hall.  Then a week of vacation, when I tried to have class in the mornings.  That happened the way I imagined on about one day,and so during the rest of the time I helped out in the office, with cleaning, whatever was needed.  But I went every day in the hopes that there would be someone to teach, as one of my virtues/vices is that I can stand my own disappointment far more than that of others.

Now we have started up again, and I have become Laura the Substitute Teacher, as we’ve been missing teachers for a number of reasons, (and a couple without any reason at all) including illness, tragedy in the family, and continuing education.   Which has been met with mixed success.   I’ve been making up lessons on the fly, since I don’t know where I’ll be needed until I see a classroom full of students but empty of authority.  I’ve done the following lessons with anywhere from grades 3-8, at least trying to give practice in English, and maybe teach a little critical thinking while I’m at it (1-5 stars give approximate success of each lesson according to my own perspective

• taught quick phonics lessons on hard and soft "th" and the "e is silent, and the vowel in the middle says its name." (**)
• given math problems  . . . word problems, long division, giant addition, subtraction and multiplication problems (***)
• asked them to allocate and justify the expenditure of an imaginary $1 million “gift from Obama” on various dichotomies (university/hospital, primary schools/the military, agriculture/good roads, etc.) (***)
• showed them how to extract clues about a family from just a few sentences of the Nigerian novel I happened to have in my bag (***)
• tried to teach how to play Hangman  (***)
• tried to teach a version of “20 Questions,” where they have to write questions on the board and read my response to guess a mystery item of my choice. (*)

This has been met with mixed success. In the eyes of many I see the same look I remember my own school classes giving to substitutes, the look that says “I can tell you don’t quite know what you’re doing or how things are done here, and moreover am not really accountable to you, so if I humor you and listen, consider it a privilege, not a right.”

Some seem to enjoy and engage with the lessons that are generally far more interactive than what they’re used to given the different educational culture here.”

In other cases, I’m just floundering, resorting to the passive aggressive classroom management methods I used to completely despise in teachers and subs.

And it’s frustrating, for me, for them, for everyone involved. Sometimes, just a part of you just wants to kill ‘em.

Methods used to carry out my just war against South Sudan's mosquitoes

One of the sisters accused me of carrying out genocide against the mosquitoes.  Being a good Peace Studies Major, I began to list the ways in which my actions were actually a just war and NOT genocide. I feel the need to clarify for all interested parties.

• I am killing those that have intruded on my territory, in my room or in the common spaces of the house.
• By nature of having entered my home, I can be reasonably sure that they are female mosquitoes who have come to eat me. I am not harming infant mosquitoes or noncombatant adults (males)
• My methods are primarily defensive, not offensive in nature. . . I use mosquito netting, screens on the windows, close the door and block the crack underneath.   Only when absolutely necessary do I target the interlopers on my territory  with my wrath
• They pose a clear and present danger to my health and my community by spreading malaria.  I am doing a little bit of good every day, for by killing the evil pests I am protecting the health, lives and livelihoods of those unable to afford treatment.  And let’s face it, mosquito bites are itchy, uncomfortable, distracting, and a health risk.

So until mosquitoes stop feeding on humans or Bill Gates actually cures malaria, I will continue to carry out my just war by some of the following means.
1) By hand.  Can be accomplished with one hand, against a hard surface, or, if particularly lucky, two hands with a series of loud awkward claps

2) Not killing spiders.  One of my favorites, as it involves almost no work on my part. I leave the spiderwebs in my room, and have gotten weirdly attached to those occupying the corners, seeing them as my partners in crime, and kind-of-pets. Weird, I know

3) The morning reaping (yes, so maybe I just reread the Hunger Games): in the morning I usually find several buzzing around one of my windows.  Usually I close the window, get dressed for the day, open one side at a time and take care of the lot at once

4) THIS tennis-racket like
contraption, affectionately known as “the power”, that kills the them instantly with an electric charge  Typical conversation while watching a movie: [dsc4913]

Prelude: Where is the power?  In the chapel.  Can you go get the power?   Sure.

Chorus:  Do you have the power?  Can I have the power?   Yes you can have the power. Crack, crack, crack.  Oh, Mabrook! (congratulations). (Repeat several times)

South Sudan in Pictures

A few commenters have asked for for more pictures.  Here are some of the coolest ones I’ve taken so far.

One of the women in the Women’s Empowerment Program came to give Sr. Tsige an intro to beadwork.  During the lesson I learned that the beadwork is more than a pretty pastime. . . it actually pays for her children’s schooling and then some. 

Giant Mango Tree:  During a visit to homes in the village, Sr. Celestina and Sampson the Arabic teacher chat in the shade of this incredible tree, which would only have been more incredible if it were still full of mangoes.

On end-of-term field day, Sr. Betty’s sister-appropriate athletic apparel and commanding demeanor made her look a bit like a militant rebel leader. 

The school bell.  It may seem crude but is very, very effective, so loud when struck that it hurts my ears.  

Sunset over JubaTown

Acronym roundup

Just like everyone in South Sudan is fine, everything in South Sudan seems to come with an acronym. This is just what I’ve seen in the compound and village, within just a couple of square miles. It’s barely scratching the surface of the funding coming in to the country as a whole.  But was worth an entry anyway.

UKAID: most of the new textbooks for the library.

USAID: A student at the school’s T-shirt, in which I see him almost every day.

UNICEF: notebooks, chalk, tape, and pencils used mostly by teachers at the school.

A whole group of Spanish NGO’s that funded construction of the school and our home.  I’ve gotten to know the grant supervisor who’s here in Juba for the next few months, and has been very interesting to see how they work.  And that they’re willing to fund religious-run schools.

UNHCHR: Tarps that have found their way to people’s homes in the village.  A reminder of how many people here really are refugees, and how resourceful they are.

Fauna-tastic

Cats:  Minou, brought into the house by a volunteer who comes every year and is set to return shortly.  A couple days before I got here, she had 3 kittens, who I nicknamed Tigger, Pooh Bear and Eeyore.  We gave Tigger and Pooh Bear away, now are down to Eeyore and Mama==.  I’m not really a huge cat person, but it’s been really fun to see them grow up.

Giant bird: Giant stork/crane thing that was in our yard one day.  Cool, right?

Snake: Found this giant snake cadaver with the help of my students on the day I saw the crane.  Was fascinating to see, especially because it no longer posed a threat

Reptiles:  Are EVERYWHERE.  I see blue-tailed skinks that are similar to ones I’ve seen in the States, geckoes, these orange and gray iguana-things that always look like they’re doing pushups.  Here’s a tiny gecko I found in my room one day. In taking the picture accidentally took off the tip of its tail and watched it twitch around, which I’d never seen in real life.   I love science.