Malheureusement, Je n'ai pas de parapluie

I'm back to write another post and it's not raining outside, but if I sit here long enough, it probably will. And then the rain will come heavy, and then lighten, and I will have to make a decision on whether I should ride my bike home now as the rain is falling somewhat lightly before it potentially goes torrential again, getting a bit muddy in the process, or I could wait and see if it stops completely. This week I've been deciding wrong most of the time, but last week I was on cue. This week I've been deciding to go home when the rain lightens, and I get wet and muddy riding through puddles and torrents, and my bike chain gets all nasty. I'll arrive at home and the rain will stop completely; wrong decision. Last week I would do the same, but the long torrential downpours came. Yesterday I just said to hell with it and I just jumped on my bike in the middle of a downpour. It's a good feeling to just accept how muddy, wet, and cold you and your clothes are about to get and just run into the downpour every now and then. I've been keeping a plastic bag in my pocket ever since the rains started coming to protect anything that I don't want wet.

Summer classes started on August 1st and end tomorrow, and then we will have a week break and some teacher workshops. School will start again on August 10th. This past month I've been teaching or at least trying to teach my students MS Excel. I only have 2 more terms left to teach. This fall we'll focus on Excel, Powerpoint, and the Internet. I was horrified to find out none of the grade 12 students have ever researched or done a report on anything in their lives, so the 2nd and final term for my students will be focused on doing research and presenting a group report with Powerpoint to the grade 12 class. I'm hoping that it will become a yearly presentation; kind of a capstone computer project. The students won't have computer class during the 3rd term (a school year is 3 terms) because they will be focusing on their West African Exams.

Besides school, I've just been helping a couple internet cafés to get going, which is turning out to be more difficult than I imagined because the people running them have less experience on computers than some of my students. Believe it or not, a lot of things can go wrong with a small network of 5-10 second or third-hand computers. Also, we have internet at the school once again, so expect to see more frequent blog posts, and I'll be trying to get caught up on my e-mails.

Sierra Leone: How da Body?

After a couple weeks in Sierra Leone, I have returned. It was a great time to get away from The Gambia for a while. Quite the interesting trip. A Peace Corps friend and I stayed with the family of some friends of mine in Basse. Our plan was to stay in Freetown for a few days and then go up-country to Kenema. Unfortunately, the family's residence we were going to stay at filled up from villagers frightened of the up-coming presidential election on August 11. They felt vulnerable living in the smaller villages and fled to Kenema for the time being until the election is over. Most of the people in Sierra Leone have been through a lot, and that became more apparent the longer I stayed there.

We stayed in a part of Freetown called Calaba Town. This part of Freetown was one of the many areas the RUF rebels terrorized during "Operation No Living Thing". The house we stayed in was one of the few that wasn't completely burned down in that area of Calaba Town. I never really asked anyone much about that time period, but the people there didn't hesitate to bring it up a few times. I heard some horrible stories, but the people (at least the ones I talked to) didn't sound as bitter about the war as you might imagine. Most of them were frustrated with the government at the time as well; many said it was just horrible how it ended up turning out. It's pretty complicated and horrible, and I don't think I should get into it much on this blog.

From the start of our trip at the airport in Banjul to the end of the trip the Sierra Leoneans were some of the nicest, friendliest, and most helpful people I've ever met. It was refreshing to go to an African country where tourism hasn't spoiled much of the local population. Yes, of course tourism benefits The Gambia and SOME of it's people, but like I've said in other posts, a lot of tourists come here and throw out money and candy, which makes it a bit difficult for foreign workers trying to preach and teach sustainability. Anyways, it was nice to experience genuine kindness from the people of Sierra Leone.

Freetown is a beautiful area with great people, but it definitely has some problems. There hasn't been electricity in Freetown for about 6 months, and no running water in most of the area I was staying in. Traffic is absurd in the downtown areas, mostly due to way too many poda-poda's (taxi vans). One of the biggest sources of Freetown's problems is the flood of people that came to Freetown during the 10 year war; they haven't left yet and don't plan to. My prediction is as long as this election goes smoothly, things will begin to get much better there. I think a lot of investment and aid is probably waiting to see what happens. Totally unofficial information, but I'm guessing Peace Corps will probably open up there again not too long after this election.

Here's just a few pictures until I get a constant internet connection again:

When you land at the airport in SL, you actually land across an inlet from Freetown. After you land you need to cross the inlet to Freetown on a ferry. This is what Freetown looks like when you're crossing.

While we were in Freetown we met some people that were making a local film and we hung out with them for a few days. These pictures were taken from where they were shooting in the film in Allen Town, which is the far west of Freetown. I think it has the best view of anywhere we went around Freetown, and it's not even a wealthy area!

The man in the picture with me above is the director of the film. During the war he hadn't eaten for a few days, so he found a red bandanna and a knife and tried to imitate the appearance of a rebel so he could be fed. A rebel questioned him and he bravely said "What are you doing questioning me in a time like this?! This is war!" Fortunately, he was fed that day and lived to tell about it. He told me that during "Operation No Living Thing" people tried to swim across the river in these photos to be safe from the rebels, but many drowned.


This is one of the beaches in the east. It's called Lumley Beach. It's one of the few that local people are actually welcome at anymore because the rest have been bought up and developed. Lot's of good small beach bars to relax at, and there's usually hardly anyone there.

This is a typical scene during the rainy season. Not too many wells or running water where I was at, so when the rains came many people would be outside under rooftops collecting rain.



Let's hope for the best on August 11th!