World Teachers’ Day

World Teacher’s Day took place on October 29. Region 4 hosted a big celebration at the Regional Education Director’s Office.  Political dignitaries (their wives), education officials (their wives), and everyone who’s anyone in our region were invited.  Who wasn’t invited?  The majority of the teachers at my school.  I tried to cheer up my slighted teachers with logic: why spend a day listening to boring speeches and schmoozing with people you complain about every other day of the year when you could be changing the world, one student at a time, in your classroom?  But I couldn’t deny the blatant irony in the fact that the teachers at my school were missing out on a day that is supposed to be all about them.

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So, intent on making their day special, I channeled my inner elementary teacher/camp counselor and figured out something small to do for my teachers.  I colored a poster, blew up some balloons, and bought fancy cookies and punch.  Instant celebration!  I went around to each of the classes and interrupted the real teaching and learning that was undoubtedly taking place (ahem) and taught the children a song to sing to their teachers.  After some rousing renditions of “Thank you Teacher,” the students posed with their teachers for photos that I hope to print.  It was silly, but we had a little fun which is often lacking in classrooms at our school.  The teachers still complained, but they also licked the wrappers of their chocolate cookies clean.

We’re enjoying (just a little).

The Story of the Room that Would Become a Library

Twice a year, Peace Corps Volunteers have to fill out a report card about all of the projects we have been working on at our sites.  Part of the report form asks volunteers to tell a success story.  The following is the story I wrote for my Peace Corps Report Card, and since I won’t be able to make it back home for our traditional Report Card Dinner at Pietros, I guess I’ll share it here.

When I first visited the village that I have come to know as my home, I was a guest.  I had not moved my stuff in yet. I was only there to visit my future host family, future school, and my future village.  My future host father and the current head of Misera Basic Cycle School spent a morning showing me around the school.  I saw the office, the staff quarters, and the classrooms.  I saw the school garden, grown over with flora fed by the rains and ignored by students who were physically and mentally on summer vacation.  Finally, I was brought to a door with a lock that was jammed shut.  My host father had to find a sizeable rock to force it open.  This room, however, could not be overlooked as it was the room my fellow Gambians were most eager to show me.  The metal door swung open, and I stepped first into a dimly lit, dusty, stale room.  Tables and benches were placed haphazardly around the room.  There were stacks of wood planks covered in spider webs.   Books were scattered everywhere, on the tables, benches, and floor.  A few papers pasted to the termite infested walls told of an organization system that may have been but was clearly no longer in use.  Welcome, I thought, to the library.  When do we start?

My first look into the library

It was an organizer’s dream

After this first visit, I returned to my training village where I completed my Peace Corps Pre-Service Training.  On Swear-In Day, the day of my transformation from Peace Corps Trainee to Peace Corps Volunteer, I felt well equipped to head back to my village and tackle the room that had left such a big impression on my first site visit.  As part of the Education Sector in The Gambia, I knew that improving the literacy education practices at my school and improving the library resources was directly in line with our project plan.  I had a flash drive full of resources, including a library manual that a former volunteer created.  I even had a book about how to manage and organize a library.  Confidently, I volunteered to work with the library committee at our school’s first staff meeting.  Our committee met and made a plan to start working right away to organize the books currently in the library and at least make it usable by the classes.  What’s the point of having a library if you are not going to use it?

The work was hard and slow.  I knew the value of working with counterparts on a project.  I knew the value of a shared interest and responsibility in the project.  I did not expect that sharing this project would mean having to sacrifice some of my standards for organization and cleanliness.  I also did not expect to have to teach things like the proper way to stand a book up (with its spine facing out) or the difference between fiction and non-fiction to teachers.  Eventually though, our library was set.  We had rules in place.  Books were organized according to reading level, in stacks on tables because we had no shelves.  The cobwebs were minimal and all of the old, damaged books had been cleaned up off the floor and stored to give away to students. We were ready for classes to begin using the library.  And they did.

I observed how the library was used this first term.  Some teachers would use the library during their scheduled time, some would not use it at all.  Some would plan lessons or activities for their library period, others would not.  Some would help their students find appropriate books to read, others would not.  After every class held in the library, the place was left looking disheveled but used.  This is good, I thought. Having a library that is messy because of use is a good problem to have in a country where reading, libraries, and literacy are all challenging, unfamiliar concepts. But I admit, it was frustrating to come in day after day with my library monitors to see the work we had to restore the library to some semblance of organization.  It seemed like, as the term went on, the students and teachers were becoming more relaxed or less engaged in the library and being sloppy with the upkeep.

Fortunately, a former volunteer had arranged for 24 boxes of books from a charity called Books for Africa to be sent to my school.  I used the arrival of these books to close the library, reorganize, and have a fresh start.  This time around, the process was slower and I tried to be more intentional with changes we made.  I worked with the school’s administration to work the purchase of new shelves and mats into the budget.  The shelves were metal and therefore more sturdy and resistant to age, rot, and termites.  The library committee implored the students to bring in old 10 gallon bidongs (plastic oil containers).  These bidongs, in various states of decomposition, seem to be everywhere in the village.  I wanted to cut the bidongs in half to use them as bins for the books so that students could see their covers when looking for books instead of the spine.  The bidongs were slow to arrive at the library.  Though, once the village children realized we were trading each container for two of the old or damaged books in our library, they began flooding in.  Long lines of children waited outside of the library with bidongs and half of the library was stacked high with them.  Great!  We had shelves, mats, hundreds of bidongs, and 24 boxes of books.  It was time to get to work.

But just when I felt a rush of motivation and momentum, I hit a hard, cold brick wall in the form of no teachers being around or willing to help me.  I scheduled one weekend for the library committee to come in and work.  Somehow, most of the teacher managed to be travelling that weekend.  The two teachers that were around were busy with who knows what right up until the moment that I decided to go home because it was ridiculous to be working by myself.  The following week, I reluctantly agreed to another work weekend.  Teachers assured me that they would be there and we would get the work done.  I guess when they were promising this, they forgot about the religious celebration and circumcision ceremony that they were all attending that weekend.  So, yet again, I found myself alone in our library working half-heatedly and questioning whether or not I should just abandon the project since, clearly, I was the only person invested in this library.  Yet, I was inspired by the work and success other volunteers were having in their libraries.  And I knew that improving the access to books and literacy was a cause worth working and struggling and being let down again and again for.

So, I decided to give it another shot.  And this time, I decided to do everything I possibly could to get teachers to show up.  Bribery, I decided, was an acceptable way to get them to come and then, I was convinced, seeing the fruits of their labor and feeling pride in our work would be reward enough after that.  I reminded everyone I saw during the week again and again.  I promised candy, I promised juice, I promised China green tea, and I promised music.  I promised that it would be more like a party than work.  It worked like a charm.  Saturday morning, five teachers, including the Principal, joined me in the library and we got to work unloading books, stamping and sorting them, cutting bidongs, and putting books in their rightful spots.  We listened to music, drank juice, and were delighted by some of the books we found.  Knowing that Gambians’ enthusiasm for work is directly related to the time of day and the heat of the sun, I was not expecting my counterparts to work past two o’clock prayer.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that the momentum we had established working all morning lasted throughout the day and well beyond 5 o’clock prayer.  We moved all 24 boxes of books into the library that day.  And at the end of the day, I could hear the excitement and pride in the voices of the teachers as the poured over all of the new books and resources we had.  “We have a standard library now!” I heard again and again.

Hard at work (finally) in our library

After a few more weekdays of work (each time, I was helped without having to ask, beg, or bribe) the library was ready.  Books were organized into sections.  Bidongs lined the tables filled with books with their covers enticing young readers.  Bright, colorful mats invited students to sprawl out with their books.  Posters and pictures transformed the environment into a place of learning and opening one’s mind.  Teachers and students kept coming by to see our new, “standard” library.

Our Standard Library

Our Standard Library

All that remained was to train our teachers how to use this space.  I did not want the library to have the same fate as our library from first term.  I believed that if teachers understood how to use the library and how to properly care for the books there, they would be better equipped to teach the students how to use the library.  So, with the help of four other volunteers, I conducted a library training divided into three parts.  Teachers learned the classification system in the library and which books are found in each section.  Teachers learned how to properly shelve and care for books.  And teachers practiced checking out books from the library and using them to inform their lesson planning or even as the lesson themselves. The training went extremely well.  I suspect that the most enjoyable part for the teachers was sitting on the mat and being read aloud to.  Who doesn’t love a read aloud?

At our library training, one teacher explains which section his book belongs to and why

At our library training, teachers race to put books from the return box back where they belong in the library

At our library training, my colleagues are captivated by a read aloud

The transformation of our library took most of second term.  The true test of our new library and our newly trained staff will be third term, and the years to come.  But already, I feel successful.  I succeeded in motivating teachers to take part in the library project.  I saw the results of their involvement in their enthusiasm for the work and the pride and satisfaction as they referred to our library.  I feel successful because I trained all of the teachers in my school in the use of our library.  Now, my hope is that these teachers will be able to better use the resources in our library and better guide their students. I will measure the lasting effects of this training by observing the teachers who use the library in term three.  I will pay attention to how they are using the books, how they are conducting their library lessons, and the state of the library after each lesson.

There are so many ways to measure the immediate and short-term successes of this project.  And I believe there will be long-term effects that are impossible to track or measure.  I like to think that each of my teachers now has knowledge and skills to use a library and maybe even conduct their own library project at any school they may end up at.  I believe that this library can changed the reading culture of the teachers and students in the school.  I believe that as these children grow older, they have the capacity to change the reading culture of our community.  It would be great to see, somewhere in the future, children checking out library books and reading at home in their compounds.  It would be wonderful to see students picking up books for fun.  I would love to see the students choosing more and more challenging books.  Eventually, maybe they will even start to choose books based on favorite authors or favorite series. For now, though, I feel successful because we have a “standard” library, its transformation was a collaborative effort, and the teachers have the knowledge and skills to use the library and make some positive changes in our community.

My host father, a teacher and an influential community member, shares the vision for our library

Three Month Challenge: Complete

I am sitting in the internet café in Soma trying to finish filling in the gaps of my baseline report.  I moved to my village on September 9 which means today, December 9, is the end of my three month challenge.  Along with trying to meet the expectations of Peace Corps for my first three months at site, I set three personal goals for myself.  Here is a reflection on my progress towards meeting my goals:

Goal 1 “Establish a routine that includes time with family, physical activity, and some alone time.”

I got right on this goal once school started.  I have always been really good with structure and routine, so this was not that difficult.  I was exercising every day, having alone time to bathe, garden, and wash my clothes, and was spending plenty of time with my family.  The problem I encountered was that in trying to develop and stick to a routine, I became too inflexible in a society where last minute planning is the name of the game and time is defined in relation to the five daily prayers (also somewhat flexible).  I found that I would leave an interesting conversation or an enjoyable activity at school so I could make it home in time to exercise.  In being too good at meeting this goal, I realized that while routine is great for establishing oneself and finding comfort in a new environment, sometimes being flexible and open to a disrupted routine is important in adapting to a new environment.  So, more recently, I have tried to adapt my routine so that I can still have my exercise and alone time, but I can take time for the new and unexpected, too.  Goal 1 was achieved, reevaluated, and is now a work in progress.

Goal 2 “Find some friends; Gambian friends that I trust and I can count on to help me integrate and learn the language.”

I can certainly say that I have found Gambian friends in my family.  I am friends with the toddlers, the school age children, and the women in my compound.  I feel very close to my mom and grandma especially.  They both take the time to understand me and the way that I communicate verbally and non-verbally.  I am so grateful for these women and hope I can reciprocate by showing interest and care for their culture and their family.  I have also made friends with teachers at my school and some women in my village. Friendship here has different expectations than I am used to, so I am still working on being able to trust and understand my new friends.  I think language will always be a barrier while I am here, but it is nice to know there are people that will work alongside me to overcome it.  Goal 2 was achieved within my compound walls, but is still a work in progress.

Goal 3 “Develop positive professional relationships at school.”

In this developing country, the idea of professionalism has a broad definition that only a select few try to understand and exemplify.  The teachers at my school certainly know what it means to be professional and most work hard to be professional at school.  The problem is, my idea of professionalism is a lot more strict than what passes for professionalism in The Gambia.  Not to say that Gambians are unprofessional, just that there are habits and exchanges that pass for professional here because they are so much a part of the culture, that would not fly in America.  I don’t want to start a laundry list of behaviors I have seen, so suffice it to say, that I am working on adjusting my expectations while always modeling my idea of professionalism in the workplace.  I have learned to be very clear with the people I work with when their behavior offends me or would not be passable in my culture.  But even that has taken time.

Actually, the biggest challenge I am facing in my relationships with teachers is validating my ideas and expertise.  All of my colleagues are quick to take my advice or ideas as the way things should be.  The problem is when they accept my ideas because I am the Peace Corps Volunteer from America, not because they see their value or justification.  And, I am seeing that the adoption of these ideas will not happen until they are tried, tested, and teacher approved.  Which will take time.  Goal 3 requires a lot of learning on my part still. I hope to try to develop my skills in working towards a solution with teachers rather than offering the solutions to teachers.  This, I feel, is the only way for the ideas to be owned and implemented by the teachers themselves.  Check in with me again in three months!

I had a lot of people taking on a three month challenge of their own in solidarity.  Thanks for your support and keeping me posted about your progress.  It is nice to know that we are all working to meet goals and that goals that are easy enough to write can actually be really challenging to achieve.  But I guess that what makes setting and working towards goals a worthwhile pursuit. Feel free to post here or send me a message, email, or letter to fill me in on how your three month challenge went!

Now, back to the work of my baseline survey, you know, the more official, measurable, structured assessment of my time in The Gambia thus far.

The First Week of School

The first day of school, which I thought would begin at 8am, started around 8:45ish.  Though it is hard to place an exact time on when school actually started.  Was it when my father, a teacher in the school, rang the bell for students to line up?  Was it when the principal showed up to address the students (quite a bit of time after they lined up)?  Was it when the students were dismissed to go sit in their classrooms?  Was it when the students were read the list of who would be promoted to the next grade and who would be repeating their grade?  If you are thinking, surely, school starts when a teacher is in front of the classroom teaching, then I am not sure that school started that first day.  After all, teachers were not assigned a class to teach until later in the week.

Tuesday, the students were asked to show up to school with hoes and cutlasses. The students spent the morning weeding the school grounds with the promise that they would be dismissed when the job was complete.  Weeding the school grounds actually means pulling up every green thing until all that remains is sand and rocks.  During rainy season, weeds can grow to be knee high in a week, so I guess this is necessary. The students went home that day tired, sweaty, and not knowing what teacher they would have or what classroom to report to on Wednesday.

Finally, Wednesday, the principal made some decisions about which teachers would be “temporarily” placed in which classes.  We then went around announcing which student was in each class (again) and then handing the list over to the teacher.  This took most of the morning because some time was also spent waiting for doors to classrooms to be unlocked.  So imagine now that you are the principal at this school.  You have all of the keys on one key ring and none of them are labeled.  Sweat forms on the back of your neck as you try unmethodically to find one key out of 30 while the entire school is standing there watching and waiting.

Now imagine being a teacher in this school.  You show up the day before school starts ready to go but not knowing the students or even the grade you will teach.  On Wednesday you are handed a list of students and assigned a grade but told it is only temporary and subject to change. Oh, and the classroom you are using is also only temporary until the school time-table is complete.  I asked the teachers what they do in these first days when they do not have anything prepared.  I have been told they are working on introductions and establishment of rules.  What I have seen varies.  Some teachers are making a genuine effort to get some teaching in despite the circumstances.  Others prefer to sit outside their class, drink tea, and wait for next week when the real teaching begins.

After my first week of school I am exhausted.  The root of my exhaustion does not come from the sweltering late mornings spent scrambling for this or that class list with the principal of my school.  Nor does the exhaustion come from the nightly treks to our feeder villages to enroll students and discuss the importance of education until dark.  My exhaustion comes from the prospect of what lies ahead.  This week was eye-opening.  I see now that no matter how much time I spend here and how hard I work, there will still be more work to do.  Which, I know, is not unique to schools in Africa; what school does not need improvement, after all?  The prospect of the coming years’ work is exhausting, yes, but also full of possibility.  These next two years will require patience and dedication.  But there should never be a lack of things to do.  Time to roll up my sleeves, get organized, and get to work.

Students weeding the school grounds

Teachers walking to a feeder village for the Education for All Campaign

Three Month Challenge

It is official.  This girl is a Peace Corps Volunteer.

Tomorrow I move to site.  Misera will be my home for the next two years.  I am embarking on what some refer to as Three Month Challenge.  This is the period before we come back to Peace Corps Headquarters for phase 2 of our training (a week in December).  During this time, I will settle into my hut, get to know my village and surrounding villages, go to school, get to know the teachers I will be working with, and practice, practice, practice my Pulaar. My main work during this time will be gathering data and starting to figure out what projects I will take on during my service. By the end of Three Month Challenge we will all complete a baseline report on our community and school.  These will be used to get an idea of where our communities and schools are at before we start projects so we can measure the impact we have over the next two years.  This report will require a lot of data collection, which I am excited about because it will help me to understand my community better. While Peace Corps has been very good about defining specific goals for us to meet during Three Month Challenge, I have a few personal goals that I will be working on.  One personal goal is to establish a routine that includes time with family, physical activity, and some alone time.  I usually do not make alone time that much of a priority, but I think these first three months will require me to be in tune with myself and very reflective about my progress.  Another goal I have is to find some friends, Gambian friends, that I trust and I can count on to help me integrate and learn the language.  Finally, my goal is to develop positive professional relationships at school.  I would like to remember to be confident about my experience and qualifications, while being respectful of customs and challenges present in The Gambian school system.  Three goals are perfect for Three Month Challenge.   I will try to ride my bike into Soma, stop by an internet café, and report on my progress in meeting these goals.

In the meantime, anyone want to take on a Three Month Challenge with me?  Let me know if you have something you want to work on for three months and we can support each other!  I am talking to all of my readers, including those back in the States!  Starting a new job and want to set some goals?  Starting a new school year?  Working in China?  Have a furnace room that needs organizing?  Reply to this post or send me an email to let me know what your Three Month Challenge is!