It's thursday, 26 February at 11:26 and I'm writing this on my laptop in my house. First of all, I'd like to point out the change of my mailing address on the right. I bought a postbox at the post office in Tchamba, and suposedly my mail will get to that one much faster.
Anyway, the last week or two in general, and today specifically has been extremely productive. This morning I went to a middle school called Tchamba CEG Ville II on the outskirts of town to ask about doing a map project. This is a project wherein you have a map of the world on a sheet of paper divided up into a ton of little boxes, like graph paper. Then you draw a much bigger grid on the wall, and copy the map box by box up on the wall. At CEG Ville II, they didn't have a one big wall uninterupted by windows, except for on a new building currently under construction that hasn't been painted yet. So they asked me if I would come back in September.
Then Heather and I went to the library to ask if we started an English club for adults, could we hold it there. The guy working there gladly agreed and actually wants to be in the club. A lot of people have asked Heather and me if they can practice speaking English with us. They would like to get better at speaking English, but don't have anyone to talk to. So if we get everyone in the same place at the same time, we can have conversations in English, and they can practice.
From the library, I went to the highschool to ask if I could do a world map there. The director was really enthusiastic about it, and I asked if I could work with a teacher, like a geography or math teacher. The geography teacher was in the office when I asked, and he was excited too. And the highschool has a huge, smooth, blank wall that would be perfect. This map is gonna be huge.
After the highschool, I went to the hardware store to inquire about the price of paint. It turns out that it's not too much, I may even pay for all of it myself. But after you count buying brushes and stuff, it could get expensive, and I don't know yet how I can subsidize the cost. Maybe I could ask the school if they could help or even ask the students to each chip in a bit. Ironically, at the hardware store I met the guy who helped a previous volunteer paint a world map on an elementary school a few years ago. I asked him where he lived and he said “do you know where EPP Watuwa is?” It's an elementary school in town, yeah, I know where it is. “Just go around there and ask where the rasta mon lives, they'll tell you.” So I'm gonna try to be friends with that guy.
All of this stuff happened today, and it's not even noon yet. Life out here is completely unpredictable.
Also, earlier this week Heather and I went to CEG Ville I (the other middle school) and asked about starting a club. We asked the director to get together 40 of his most motivated kids, 20 girls and 20 boys. We don't really know what direction this club is going in, but she's a health volunteer, and I'm a Girls Education volunteer, so health, nutrition, etc and gender equity will definitely be on the agenda. And we figure if we get 40 motivated students in the same room and ask them “What do you want to learn about?” we'll get somewhere. Ask them what projects they're interested in, what problems they're having, and what they want more of that they're not getting enough of and we can supplement that.
And last week a guy from an NGO called ADIFF, whose goals are exactly the same as the Peace Corps GEE program, came from Sokodé to visit me in Tchamba. He took me around to the 4 different elementary schools that his NGO sponsors and introduced me to all the kiddies. Sometimes when people introduce me, I feel like they slightly misrepresent me, but I don't have the french to correct them in their subtleties. But Français introduced me to the kids exactly as I would have, had I the ability. And he made sure to tell them to call me “Akilou” instead of “anasara”or “blanc”. ADIFF sponsors certain kids who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford school dues, notebooks, or uniforms. And they hold extra study sessions two days a week for the kids that they sponsor. So I think tomorrow (which will be yesterday by the time I post this) I will go to one of the schools and greet the kids again and sit in on one of the study sessions.
And Milo is doing well. I can tell he's getting bigger because he can't hide in the little places he used to be able to. And he spends a lot of time in my mango tree out front. He hasn't killed any vertibrates yet (mice, lizards, birds) but he's been feasting on insects and spiders. I guess he'll just have to hunt the little stuff until he levels up and can kill bigger, faster things.
So things have been going well, but that's not to say I'm not missing America a ton. The other day I realized how invaluable drive-thrus are. Not that I even used them that often, but just the idea of getting absolutely anything you want, steaming hot or freezing cold, without having to cook it, or go find someone selling it, or waiting for it to be in season made me long to be in the United States. Then I tell myself stuff like, people have lived this way for all of human existance save for the last century or so; I don't need a drive-thru. Aw, but man, they're so nice to have...
Saturday 28 February 2009
Monday 9 February 2009
The answer to life, the universe, and everything
I believe that the key to life is moderation in all things, even moderation itself. Without the harsh bite of a winter wind biting your ears and nose, you could never appreciate a soft breeze in May. Without ever having your heart broken, you can never truly fall in love. If you've never been hungry, you don't really know what a full belly is. Without pain there is no pleasure.
I believe that the key to life is finding a balance. A balance between being extremely rich and poverty stricken, between being over-stressed and over-relaxed, too connected and too isolated.
I believe that every aspect of life can be set at a perfect value called “enough”. It's located precisely between “too much” and “not enough”. But therein lies the trick. Without ever fiinding yourself surrounded by too much or not enough you don't know where to find that happy spot in the middle. And even if you do find that spot perchance, you wouldn't know how to appreciate it, not fully at least.
This is where finding moderation within moderation comes in. Without ever pushing the limits, you don't know where the middle is. If you only stay in the middle your whole life, you'll miss the point. It's necessary to first find the extremes, then happily settle in the middle. It's necessary to experience extreme loniness and to feel over-crowded. It's necessary to be dirt-broke and to have more money than you know what to do with before you can appreciate and be happy with having exactly “enough”.
I do concede that there are no constants when it comes to that perfect value somewhere in the middle. The perfect value undoubetedly varies from person to person, and I hold that that perfect place can even vary within one individual over time.
So I guess there's nothing left to do but get on with it. I'm off to find every extreme in every facet of life, and then to settle down happily in the middle. It's going to be an adventure. I'll let you know how it turns out.
I believe that the key to life is finding a balance. A balance between being extremely rich and poverty stricken, between being over-stressed and over-relaxed, too connected and too isolated.
I believe that every aspect of life can be set at a perfect value called “enough”. It's located precisely between “too much” and “not enough”. But therein lies the trick. Without ever fiinding yourself surrounded by too much or not enough you don't know where to find that happy spot in the middle. And even if you do find that spot perchance, you wouldn't know how to appreciate it, not fully at least.
This is where finding moderation within moderation comes in. Without ever pushing the limits, you don't know where the middle is. If you only stay in the middle your whole life, you'll miss the point. It's necessary to first find the extremes, then happily settle in the middle. It's necessary to experience extreme loniness and to feel over-crowded. It's necessary to be dirt-broke and to have more money than you know what to do with before you can appreciate and be happy with having exactly “enough”.
I do concede that there are no constants when it comes to that perfect value somewhere in the middle. The perfect value undoubetedly varies from person to person, and I hold that that perfect place can even vary within one individual over time.
So I guess there's nothing left to do but get on with it. I'm off to find every extreme in every facet of life, and then to settle down happily in the middle. It's going to be an adventure. I'll let you know how it turns out.
i couldn't make this stuff up
4 February
So over the last couple of days people have been saying some great stuff to me. Here are some clips.
While eating lunch. Enter two girls wearing some nice dresses. One of the guys I'm eating with says to me (in English): “Ah, yes. The African girls. You are wanting to send one home?”
In a tchouck stand (think grass hut with people drinking beer-ish stuff [tchouck] out of half-cocoanuts [calabashes]) Monsieur Walla, as he told me to call him, and I are discussing life in general. After a long conversation and two calabashes of tchouck he concludes with: “Les belles femmes sont tres dangereus”
And last but far from least. This one goes out to Dave, Eric, and those Canadian kids we met in Prague.
Guy: “Tu viens de où?”
me: “America”
guy: “you are coming from America?”
me: “yes”
guy: “you are an American man?”
me: “yes”
guy: “you are coming from Washington?”
me: “no”
guy: “Chicago?”
me: “no”
guy: “Los Angeles?”
me: “no”
guy: “Canada?”
Yep... America's hat.
So over the last couple of days people have been saying some great stuff to me. Here are some clips.
While eating lunch. Enter two girls wearing some nice dresses. One of the guys I'm eating with says to me (in English): “Ah, yes. The African girls. You are wanting to send one home?”
In a tchouck stand (think grass hut with people drinking beer-ish stuff [tchouck] out of half-cocoanuts [calabashes]) Monsieur Walla, as he told me to call him, and I are discussing life in general. After a long conversation and two calabashes of tchouck he concludes with: “Les belles femmes sont tres dangereus”
And last but far from least. This one goes out to Dave, Eric, and those Canadian kids we met in Prague.
Guy: “Tu viens de où?”
me: “America”
guy: “you are coming from America?”
me: “yes”
guy: “you are an American man?”
me: “yes”
guy: “you are coming from Washington?”
me: “no”
guy: “Chicago?”
me: “no”
guy: “Los Angeles?”
me: “no”
guy: “Canada?”
Yep... America's hat.
Et le travail?
Written 1 February
Last week was my best week at post to-date. I was busy every day and now I have three different project ideas.
The first project idea came about after talking to a guy who stopped by my house. He has worked with Peace Corps volunteers in the past and wanted to meet me and see if he could help with any projects I wanted to do. But through talking with him I realized that I have no idea what kinds of problems the girls of Tchamba actually face. I went to the highschool a few weeks back and asked for the enrollment breakdown: how many girls/guys are in each class. I found out that only 14% of the highschool students are girls and there are only 11 in their final year out of 91 total.
So my idea (well, I can hardly call it my idea because it's nothing new) is to start a girls' club. I figure I would invite some or all (haven't decided yet) of the girls enrolled in highschool to come hang out for a bit one day a week. We can play games, or they can bring homework, maybe I could teach a life skills lesson or two. I'll just ask them “hey, what do you you wanna do for the afternoon?” But through this club I can get to know them individually and start to ask questions that get at why there are only 11 girls about to graduate. After the problems are diagnosed, I can then start to take the necessary steps to alleviate said problems. Then, I took it a step further. Maybe in a year or two I can get the girls from my club to go back to whatever elementary school they attended and start their own girls' club as kind of a role model. This may not end up working out anything like this, but it's a spark, and it's exactly what I needed to get some stuff started.
Also, Emily, who lives in Wasarabo about 35 kilometers away, and I were talking about doing a project together. We both want to get some kids to paint a world map on the side of a building. The way it works is you take a map of the world printed on graph paper, and transfer each square individually onto a much bigger graph on a wall. And there are a ton of ways to spin it: I could illustrate the math behind it: longitude, latitude, the difference in scale between the paper, the wall, and the actual planet; or I could talk about the different geographical regions meteorologically or politically or whatever. Anyway, Emily and I figured we'd buy a bunch of paint together and I'd visit her village to help her get this project off the ground, and then she'd visit here and we'd do the same, learning from our mistakes the first time around.
And this last project idea is not my idea at all, but it's the one I'm the most excited about. Last week I met a guy at the internet cafe, and then earlier this week, he called me and invited me over his house. He said that he talked about this with a previous volunteer, but his service ended before they could get it off the ground. This guy, Kougbada, is a teacher at an elementary school. He wants to start a computer lab. He has a room, kind of like a shed in his compound but with an external door. He wants to try to get 10 computers to get students to learn how to use them. What he doesn't know is where to get funding or where to buy them and the technical stuff like that, which is what I can help him with. I figured if we get a computer lab up and running within a year, I can spend a second year teaching a computer literacy course. Stuff like how to type, how to use a word processor (bold, italics, indenting, fonts and sizes, etc...), how to do a google search or if I'm feeling really ambitious how to use stuff like excel. I know some other volunteers who have done computer literacy courses and they said you have to start at the beginning. The very beginning. Things like how to double click, what a folder is, what “delete” means.
Kougbada is a really intelligent guy. He invited me back to his house for lunch to which I went earlier this afternoon. He speaks really good English, and our conversation was about the American credit crisis and how much change I thought Obama is really going to bring. And stuff like how the grammar structure of English is Germanic but the vocabulary is very Latin-based. It was really nice to not only be able to speak English past “How are you? I am going to the market.” but to be intellectually stimulated and challenged. Hell, even if this computer lab thing falls through, at least I have a guy I can hang out with and talk about some stuff I normally can't talk about.
On a completely different note, I've been feeling great. I'm not sick or losing a ton of weight or anything like that. Although, my left big-toe nail has turned black for some reason... Meh... C'est comme ca.
Last week was my best week at post to-date. I was busy every day and now I have three different project ideas.
The first project idea came about after talking to a guy who stopped by my house. He has worked with Peace Corps volunteers in the past and wanted to meet me and see if he could help with any projects I wanted to do. But through talking with him I realized that I have no idea what kinds of problems the girls of Tchamba actually face. I went to the highschool a few weeks back and asked for the enrollment breakdown: how many girls/guys are in each class. I found out that only 14% of the highschool students are girls and there are only 11 in their final year out of 91 total.
So my idea (well, I can hardly call it my idea because it's nothing new) is to start a girls' club. I figure I would invite some or all (haven't decided yet) of the girls enrolled in highschool to come hang out for a bit one day a week. We can play games, or they can bring homework, maybe I could teach a life skills lesson or two. I'll just ask them “hey, what do you you wanna do for the afternoon?” But through this club I can get to know them individually and start to ask questions that get at why there are only 11 girls about to graduate. After the problems are diagnosed, I can then start to take the necessary steps to alleviate said problems. Then, I took it a step further. Maybe in a year or two I can get the girls from my club to go back to whatever elementary school they attended and start their own girls' club as kind of a role model. This may not end up working out anything like this, but it's a spark, and it's exactly what I needed to get some stuff started.
Also, Emily, who lives in Wasarabo about 35 kilometers away, and I were talking about doing a project together. We both want to get some kids to paint a world map on the side of a building. The way it works is you take a map of the world printed on graph paper, and transfer each square individually onto a much bigger graph on a wall. And there are a ton of ways to spin it: I could illustrate the math behind it: longitude, latitude, the difference in scale between the paper, the wall, and the actual planet; or I could talk about the different geographical regions meteorologically or politically or whatever. Anyway, Emily and I figured we'd buy a bunch of paint together and I'd visit her village to help her get this project off the ground, and then she'd visit here and we'd do the same, learning from our mistakes the first time around.
And this last project idea is not my idea at all, but it's the one I'm the most excited about. Last week I met a guy at the internet cafe, and then earlier this week, he called me and invited me over his house. He said that he talked about this with a previous volunteer, but his service ended before they could get it off the ground. This guy, Kougbada, is a teacher at an elementary school. He wants to start a computer lab. He has a room, kind of like a shed in his compound but with an external door. He wants to try to get 10 computers to get students to learn how to use them. What he doesn't know is where to get funding or where to buy them and the technical stuff like that, which is what I can help him with. I figured if we get a computer lab up and running within a year, I can spend a second year teaching a computer literacy course. Stuff like how to type, how to use a word processor (bold, italics, indenting, fonts and sizes, etc...), how to do a google search or if I'm feeling really ambitious how to use stuff like excel. I know some other volunteers who have done computer literacy courses and they said you have to start at the beginning. The very beginning. Things like how to double click, what a folder is, what “delete” means.
Kougbada is a really intelligent guy. He invited me back to his house for lunch to which I went earlier this afternoon. He speaks really good English, and our conversation was about the American credit crisis and how much change I thought Obama is really going to bring. And stuff like how the grammar structure of English is Germanic but the vocabulary is very Latin-based. It was really nice to not only be able to speak English past “How are you? I am going to the market.” but to be intellectually stimulated and challenged. Hell, even if this computer lab thing falls through, at least I have a guy I can hang out with and talk about some stuff I normally can't talk about.
On a completely different note, I've been feeling great. I'm not sick or losing a ton of weight or anything like that. Although, my left big-toe nail has turned black for some reason... Meh... C'est comme ca.
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