First week in Salone

“How da body,” is a common warm greeting here in Kabala, meaning hello, how are you? I have been warmly welcomed by Kabala Christian School, Sarah, Krissi, and a lot of other wonderful people I have met over the past couple of days. I knew that Kabala would be different than life back in the States, and even different from Uganda, but I did not expect this much difference. Sarah is from the US and graduated from Calvin with me. She is a wonderful teacher in Class III and I have loved having that familiarity in a place that is very unfamiliar. Krissi is from Canada and has been involved in the school for over 6 years. She knows the ways of the land and speaks Krio beautifully. I have enjoyed getting to know her and am excited to continue getting to know her. The people of Salone, Sierra Leone, are very kind and welcoming to new comers and especially the school staff. The school is like a small community in the larger community of Kabala, and they have made me feel at home as much as they could. I am greeted as Miss Nikki, and everyone refers my name to Nicky Minaj.

Krissi, me, and Sarah before church on Sunday, 13 January 2014

 The journey to Kabala was two very long plane rides with a layover in Paris and a quick stop in Liberia, then about a 6 hour drive on paved and dirt roads with pot holes; it was long and dusty. I felt as if I traveled for 72 hours and I was quite tired. Upon arrival to our house, I found myself feeling a little at home with Sarah and Krissi decorating the place all nice and showing me around the area. Our house is only five minutes walking distance to the school. The house has a nice bathroom with a toilet and tub, even though you still wash out of a bucket. We have a gas stove top, and water from a tub on the roof that runs through a piping system in the house. The water is retrieved from the well and then carried up into its holding place.  We have a generator that we turn on very little due to the high expenses of petrol. We rely on candles and flashlights at night for sources of light. We have our own rooms and a room for guests. We had lovely guests from Ireland, Alli and Larry, stay with us last night. They have stayed here a few nights before my arrival, but they went for a hike up Loma Mountain while I was arriving. It is nice to meet new friends and now have places to stay near Dublin if I ever find myself there. Also, we have visitors come by the gate and in the house very often: students, other teachers, friends, etc. We have had guests every night since I have been here, it is nice to have the company. Yesterday some of the kind JSS students came to fill our water tub, so we made them some dinner and they hung around for a long time. Getting internet is very difficult. We have to travel across town to the CES office which is another organization that works with the school. We do not go very often, so please be patient with the updates.

The food is very simple here, it is a lot of the same ideas over and over with different ingredient. Every meal has rice and some type of soup or sauce they put on top. So far I have tried a fish based sauce, which was not my favorite because I do not like fish, cassava leaf, and last night we had ground nut soup. Every sauce has some sort of meat in it. A lot of the locals eat a lot of fish, but we have had beef in our cassava and bush meat, deer hunted in the forest, in our ground nut soup. We also have three live chickens in our compound for when we want to eat them, but you can guess what we have to do to get some chicken meat in our sauce. Every time we want to cook a dinner we go into town to go to the market to buy food and meat, because there is no power to preserve food. We usually walk the 15 minutes to town and take the Okada back, which is the motor bike taxi. The Okada cost about 1,000 Le (Leones), which is about 20 cents in American money.

Thursday, January 8, was my first full day at school. The school has about three buildings with each classroom opening up outside with open windows. There is an office, solar power, a kitchen, a small library, classes I-VI, three classes of junior secondary school and one class of secondary school. I observed in Class I and Class III and quickly found out that this is going to challenge me in ways that I would have never thought. I am excited to start teaching my Class II students and have started to gather the materials to plan. There will be a lot of hard challenges with management and also picking up where the other teacher left off. The management style is very different from the models I have used and seen before. There is a lot of corporal punishment in the management style, but I plan on using other types of management, which will be a challenge. I also plan on doing my own pre-assessment to see where children are and then build off of that and the curriculum they have in place. I want so badly to start implementing things that I have learned over the past couple years, but I will need to gradually introduce some of these ideas because the culture of education is very different here. I have observed that the importance is to memorize everything the teacher teaches you, rather than learning the concepts and building on an understanding the students already have.

Primary School Morning Assembly: The school raises the Sierra Leone flag, along with the American and Canadian flags. 

Friday I spent my whole day in class III with Sarah. She has really thrived in this environment and made her classroom a great place. She has taken the education style here which is very lecture based and transformed it into a more active classroom with group work and more. I have liked being in her classroom because it has taught me a lot about how my class will be and has taught me different things that will work in the classroom. My first teaching experience will be Wednesday the 15^th.

All the students can speak English, but speak Krio whenever they can. I am slowly starting to pick up words and phrases here and there with the help of Sarah, Krissi, and staff and students at the school. That will be another struggle in class II because they do not know much English.

I miss everyone back at home, but just being here the past few days I know this experience will be great and worth the time away from home. Trying to go get internet has been a struggle. Nothing here goes as planned and time is not a huge importance. I have tried to get internet a few times and we have not had a chance.

This Sunday we went to my first church service. It was very loud and energetic. The worship lasted about 2 hours because we had a communion. I was welcomed into the community and introduced to the whole congregation in the middle of service. The service is led by two Nigerian pastors. The service included a lot of singing and worship of praise songs and hymns. We also went to Reverend Bahago’s house for dinner it was a delicious pasta dish.

Monday, 13 January 2014, is a national Muslim holiday so we have no school. The government and the schools follow both Muslim and Christian holidays, so the schools follow the same. I start teaching this Wednesday, so it is nice to have a short week on my first week.

I have also found out that I can put an African sim card in my iPhone so that I can have easier communication with my family and friends. It will cost me credit to use my apps and my Facebook, but it is a lot cheaper than calling home to the States.

God Bless!

Nikki