Veronica was about to head back to London which meant lots of final meetings for us. We had a Hands Off Our Girls community meeting to discuss what the First Lady had shared in Pujehun. One woman told a story of three girls sitting on a bench who were called one by one into a room to be assaulted by a man – and she blamed the girls for going in. I talked about the ‘It’s On Us’ campaign in America, assault statistics for both men and women, and victim blaming, and shared ideas about how we can support those who are assaulted instead of shaming them and making them afraid to come forward.

While I was talking, I had a little firework burst in my head – I couldn’t believe I was actually living in West Africa talking to a community about a human rights issue. Every day I try to remind myself how grateful I am for this opportunity and how hard and long I worked in order to be here. Sometimes it feels so surreal.

That night we had a final teacher meeting and the next morning we had a final BECE (a standardized test here) committee meeting. And then I was saying goodbye to Auntie Vero, someone who had been such a huge support to me my entire time at site. I was especially grateful for her because she could understand my perspective since she has lived in London since she was 17 and she could also explain the Sierra Leone perspective to me since she grew up here. And now she was leaving.

The next day at school, the day started out well and then quickly turned into a disaster. As always, my seventh-grade class was giving me a hard time. I was walking through the rows and noticed that once again, students were ignoring me and copying notes for other classes. I internally exploded. It was the final straw. Day after day after day I was struggling to get them to listen and learn and nothing was working. I had no support. I walked out in the middle of the class feeling overwhelmed but also immature. Another teacher noticed and asked me what was wrong. I unleashed all of my stress and said I couldn’t take it anymore – if they weren’t going to listen, I was done trying.

I stomped home and had a huge internal conflict. Maybe I was failing as a Peace Corps volunteer, as a teacher, as an adult, as everything. I got in my house and burst into tears I didn’t even know were welling up. Suddenly Wuyata appeared and asked me what was wrong. I couldn’t stop ugly crying and then Seibatu and even a chief came by. I tried to calm down but really couldn’t. Everyone left and Wuyata told me to stop by the clinic and get her before I went back to school.

At the clinic, the rest of the nurses yelled to me in Mende and laughed at my tear-stained face. I couldn’t believe it. I ignored them and walked away with Wuyata. As we approached my school, I saw my whole class kneeling in the dirt and heard students wailing. I looked in the barre and saw older students and my neighbor, Ja, the principal of the primary school, forcibly holding students stomach-down by the wrists and ankles and beating their backs with a cane as they squirmed and screamed. It was horrifying. I ran to the barre and told them to stop. I felt crazy. They laughed at me. They told me to leave and go stand in the office so I didn’t have to see it. I told them I didn’t want the students to be flogged, especially not on my behalf. They finally agreed to stop.

But on the other hand, who was I to come in here and throw a tantrum when this was their norm? I wondered if I was overstepping my bounds and if it was even my place to say anything. Yet how could I not when for me, seeing children get flogged is completely abnormal?

I still couldn’t stop crying. I sat in the office while teachers lectured me for two hours about why ‘stubborn African children’ need to be flogged here. And during those two hours the students went back to class, the teachers went back to teaching, the community went back to their normal routines, and I was the only one still dwelling on the whole incident. It was unreal to me and I felt like I was removed from reality. Even some of the students were laughing about it and were completely unphased at the violence of it all.

I sat in the barre and tried to compose myself. A text from Gabe came through. He had been seeing the doctor in Freetown for a while and the doctor couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him. He was most likely getting medically separated – permanently sent back to America. It was one of the most hopeless, melancholy moments of my life.

School ended and everyone left. I continued sitting there. Rain started to fall and I saw Seibatu walking toward me. I told her about Gabe and she empathized. We sat together in silence as the rain poured around us and she ran her hand up and down my back. I was defeated. That night I contacted our doctor and said I was drowning in stress. He told me to come to Freetown the next day which was a huge relief.

At 9 p.m. Wuyata and Seibatu showed up. I was already in my pajamas and didn’t want to have to interact with anyone, which I even told them and felt rude about. They came in anyway and gave me a long speech about how I needed to be strong for Gabe because “relationships depend on the woman’s behavior.” Seibatu started to cry and told me she hadn’t eaten all day because of me. If I had internally exploded earlier, now I was straight turning to ash. I didn’t want to listen. Or talk. Or keep up the polite charades. Or take any more blame. I just wanted to be sad and alone. They finally left. In the corner of my room I watched a spider capture a firefly and eat it, its light going out. How appropriate.

The next morning I felt embarrassed to even walk out my door. How many people had heard about me screaming and crying all day? I had to greet Ja like everything was normal, like I hadn’t just seen him whipping my students the day before. I sat on the highway and waited for a car to come by. Tears kept threatening to fall out and I blinked and swallowed and drank water and forced it all back inside. Wuyata sat with me and listed every reason she could think of that I’d be sad about Gabe going back to America. I pressed my lips together and nodded along. On the bright side she also informed me that three of the nurses were being transferred to other villages – hurray! Maybe nicer ones would transfer in.

Finally a car came and I was on my way. I’d never been to Freetown before and it was stunning. There are rolling hills and a beautiful ocean view. On top of that, drivers aren’t allowed to pile six passengers into a car like they do in the villages, so I comfortably sat in the front seat while two men sat in back. One told the driver he would pay for the final seat just so we could get going – he said it was too humid to wait around. I was shocked. I learned he was a diamond miner who worked with a man in Las Vegas. He wanted to give my number to the Vegas man until I told him I was married, then decided it wasn’t worth it. He insisted we get drinks together and he wanted to introduce me to some military man in charge of the Pujehun area. Did the thought that I hadn’t trekked all the way to Freetown just to run into him and spend my whole afternoon entertaining him even cross his mind? Why were people constantly feeling entitled to my time and attention?

I made it to the Peace Corps compound and saw Gabe. It was like a huge weight was falling off my shoulders and instant happiness flooded me. The Peace Corps compound is where all of the higher up staff members work and there is also a doctor’s office and a sort of hostel where volunteers who are sick or on program hold can stay. There is also air conditioning, Wi-FI, computers, a kitchen, and hot showers – a small haven.

The next day I met with a doctor and talked about all of my stress, from having Mende yelled at me constantly, sexual harassment from men, no support at school, students who won’t listen, nurses and community members who laugh at me, teachers not doing their jobs, feeling like all of the responsibility is on me, Auntie Vero leaving, Gabe leaving, and especially the entire flogging incident. He had me fill out two surveys and my results showed that I had a lot of anxiety at site. He told me I would have to talk to the education programming staff.

As nice as staying in the compound was, it was also seriously bringing my morale down. Everyone else who’s there is sick or stressed, and three volunteers were actually going back to America. Listening to them talk about all of their stress at site and how excited they were to go home definitely wasn’t helping me want to stay. But I knew I wanted to stay, and I knew it wouldn’t be easy. As Peace Corps says, this is the hardest job we will ever love. And it’s true.

The next few days I met with Peace Corps staff and they were concerned with all of the responsibility I had at school, from running assembly alone to being in charge of signing out all the textbooks to parents even when I had class to being the sole disciplinarian and more. We agreed they would come visit my site and talk to the school staff. I was really nervous about this approach but knew something had to be done if I wanted things to work out at site. Thankfully Peace Corps was extremely understanding and knew perfectly well how awkward a meeting could potentially be. They fully planned it with me and took all of my concerns seriously.

The next day I saw a dog get hit and killed by a keke and I cried in the street. The day after that my Kindle, with over a thousand books, broke. God damn universe, can I catch a break?! After a week of Netflix and showers and pizza and general destressing, it was time to go back to site. That day Gabe officially found out he was being sent back to America. We said our goodbyes and I began my long trip alone back to site.

I tried to give myself a pep talk. I had reached a breaking point, taken a week off, and was now vowing to have a better attitude, different strategies, and new coping mechanisms. Mind over matter. I got in a car and the woman next to me shared some fried dough. I told myself to hang on to these small moments. I got to Bo and switched to a car headed to Pujehun. I was squished in the front seat next to a man who started out nice and then began asking me if I had a husband, if I wanted a Salone husband, if I could cook Salone food because that’s what the men will really want from me, if I plan to get pregnant in the next year, and a whole bunch of other totally inappropriate questions.

“If I’m making you uncomfortable, I’ll stop talking,” he said. I don’t know about you, but if I have to ask someone if I’m making them uncomfortable, it’s probably a given that they’re uncomfortable. I straight up told him I didn’t want to talk to him anymore, our bodies stuffed together in the seat for the next hour and a half.

I got back to site and Seibatu’s three nieces sprinted up to me as if I had been gone a whole year. We walked to my house and Mariama was so happy to see me, she ran over in her underwear. It was really touching, and again I added to my mental list of reasons I’m here – for people like them and for relationships like these.

The next morning I was extremely nervous about going back to school. I didn’t know if anyone knew why I left. Seibatu and Wuyata believed I went to Freetown “to say goodbye to my husband.” I confidently walked to the school acting like nothing had happened. Just as I turned to enter the office, a teacher who had made fun of my voice twice before said good morning to me in a very high-pitched voice. Seriously?! My first day back?! I snapped at him and he immediately denied it, insisting he was telling a student to grab his phone for him.

We then had a teacher meeting where teachers who weren’t even at school at the time defended him and his fake story. Only one teacher, Swaray, took my side. Even Seibatu questioned me. But I stood my ground and would not let them gaslight me. They wanted both of us to apologize and I refused. Again I felt crazy – I’d never been this aggressive or yelled at anyone before. My promise to myself to have a better attitude at site was failing miserably.

But that day my mom texted me saying she had received the pen pal letters Veronica had taken and sent to her from London – yay! Veronica even included a really nice note about how much she appreciates the work I’m doing here.

The next day I skipped assembly. We had two weeks left of the school term and I decided I would skip assembly until the next term. Either another teacher was actually going to come on time and run it, or they wouldn’t and we would start late. I was going to try not to worry about it. Three teachers started to completely ignore me, I guess showing their alliance with the one who had made fun of me three times now. I acted like I didn’t notice, but greeting is a very large and important part of their culture, so it was hard not to. First period was supposed to start at 8:30 and by 8:25 assembly had yet to begin. I sat in the office.

The school day was fine, but that night Wuyata and another nurse came to visit me to ask about my argument with the teacher. Again I was to blame – they told me I had to learn how to be friendly and adapt. They insisted that Africans just speak loudly which drove me crazy. No matter how many times I told people he was not shouting, he was speaking in a high-pitched voice to mock me, they always claimed he yelled at me and wouldn’t listen to what I was saying. I didn’t want to be agreeable. I told them that I would not be friendly to someone who was going out of their way to annoy me. Then what would come next? I felt like I couldn’t let anyone even tiptoe around my boundary line or things could quickly get out of hand. And to top it all off, they told me I should never tell Gabe when I’m sad here because I’ll just stress him out. All of this unwarranted advice was going to make me burst.

The next day Mimi was diagnosed with malaria. Normally one of the best students in class, she fell asleep on a bench in the middle of the day. I also noticed that one boy had been absent every day since the flogging incident. I asked my class about it and they said he was never coming back. I wanted to go to his house but then felt apprehensive – would his family see it as my fault that he was flogged and therefore quit school?

Around site, society season was beginning. I started to hear the women’s society at nighttime walking around the village singing, chanting, and shaking instruments. In the morning I saw them again dancing past my house and didn’t know if I should hide inside or not. After they passed, I walked to Seibatu’s house to wait for a car. I was traveling to a friend’s site to meet up with all the volunteers in the south for Thanksgiving!

I met up with two volunteers at the hotel in Bo and listened to them share stories with their families over FaceTime who were highly amused and laughed at everything they told them. I tried to see it from their perspective. I didn’t want to take everything here so seriously and be so upset all the time even though some things were really tough. Then once we got to their site and I saw how laid back they were when people did things like shout Mende at them, I asked myself why I couldn’t do the same.    

I had been at site for about two months when Seibatu mentioned that the solar installation in her house was actually meant for my house, and she had been borrowing it until I arrived. I had no idea it was supposed to be mine, and then randomly one Saturday morning I saw an employee from Easy Solar taking the panel off her roof. He and Mada put everything in a bucket and started walking toward my house.

This was incredible. I was going to have lights and I would be able to charge my phone! The employee told me he was from Guinea after I tried greeting him in Mende. He said he was also trying to learn Mende but everyone was always yelling it at him – I could empathize. At my house, Ja asked him how much a solar set-up would cost.

“1.5 million leones!” he yelled across the whole damn village.

“What?” Ja asked.

“1.5 MILLION LEONES!”

Shut up! I hadn’t even paid for the solar and I didn’t want all of my neighbors thinking I was that rich. The man finished installing four lights and a battery with a USB port and then left. That night I turned the lights on and stared. I could see everything in my room. My phone was charging next to me.

The next day I missed school for the first time. I was very achey and had a cough and congestion, but it wasn’t terrible. Multiple students visited me during the day as well as a teacher, Seibatu, Wuyata, and my neighbors. Seibatu was adamant that I should go to Freetown to see a doctor but I insisted it was just a cold.

“She’s fine! She’s adapting!” Ja said.

“You can’t adapt health!” Wuyata replied. She turned to Seibatu. “Cry for your daughter!”

They walked away laughing but also warned that you never know what could happen in the middle of the night. For me this was a simple bad cold that I wasn’t worried about at all, but for them it could’ve been anything. I still felt bad the next day but went to school anyway. I didn’t want to miss more classes and I wanted to start a pen pal project with my students. When I got to school, many students ran up to me and bragged to each other about who had visited me. One student said she was mad at me for missing school, which was actually very heart warming.

We started the pen pal letters the next day and I was really impressed. JSS 2 (eighth grade) took the time to write rough drafts and wrote things like, “Your food is sweet but our food is also sweet!” and, “My family is so very nice.” I would be sending the letters to fifth graders in America at my mom’s school. My seventh-grade students were also excited about the project. Kids who had never talked in class before were eagerly calling me over to ask how to spell words. I showed everyone some pictures my mom sent me of the students and school and they very intrigued by them.

I visited Gabe again over the weekend and had another stressful travel experience. I got to Bo and immediately found a car leaving right that second for the next city – yay! But when I tried to buy a ticket, the man said I needed to buy two. I asked why.

“Because you have a big butt!” he laughed. Disgusting.

Instead I waited over two hours for a totally empty car to fill up. A man asked for my number so he could ‘help me’ in Bo and I said no. The car finally started to leave when a preacher came on and yelled at everyone about God. Another man came to the window and yelled something at me while winking. I decided my new tactic would be to blankly stare back and not say a single word. It worked wonderfully! The man got extremely awkward and left.

The preacher finally finished and the car pulled away. A chicken trapped in a plastic bag began pecking my ankle. After three seconds we stopped to change drivers. I took out my phone to listen to music and noticed half of my Spotify playlist had disappeared. I tried to remain calm and had this weird feeling of amusement at how ridiculous everything was mixed with anger at how ridiculous everything was.

A weekend away from site was again rejuvenating, besides the bats that flew around Gabe’s room that he swept out the door and the child who came to his window and yelled at me to take my shirt off. On my way back to site, a keke driver tried to overcharge me in Bo. I told him I was just going to walk then.

“But you’re walking the wrong way!” he called after me.

“Oh…that’s fine!” I yelled back. Eventually we negotiated a lower price. I ran around the city buying different spices and vegetables and was actually pretty proud of myself for navigating everything alone. I got a car back to site and the driver yelled at everyone else in the car park to “look at his girlfriend.” Ugh.

My students had midterm exams that week. We all sat in the barre and they studied for the next test. I noticed one student’s notebook had ripped pages from a book taped around like a book cover. I asked them about it and they told me they go to the primary school, check out books, and rip out pages to use as book covers because their notebooks fall apart so easily. I thought about my library project and how I had just received confirmation that a book shipment was being sent to me.

I visited Wuyata at the clinic and she and another nurse told me all about their “womanly duties.” They said women are responsible for cooking and cleaning and that if other women see your husband doing those chores, they will say you are lazy and don’t know how to take care of your man.

“I know my husband wants forgiveness if I see him cleaning!” one nurse laughed.

I asked if the women here care that they are stuck with all of these chores and they insisted they don’t. I also asked what people would think of me if they saw Gabe cooking for us. Wuyata said they would understand that it’s part of my culture.

“Women will even point to you two and say to their husbands, look! This is real love!” Wuyata said.

Gabe visited that weekend and he helped me carry buckets of water into my house. I wondered what my neighbors thought.

The next week at school I learned about some conspiracy theories people here have about America. The teachers asked me about Bin Laden and whether or not Tupac was really dead. One teacher insisted he is living at the International Space Station. They asked if we all have money making machines, how tax brackets work, and how many states we have now – they guessed 56, up from the 52 they had previously thought. How do jails work? How much do doctors get paid? Is it safe to carry insurance cards around?

I also heard stories from Wuyata about her life during the war. She told me she walked to Liberia from Pujehun after the rebels invaded. She was separated from her family for seven years and only reconnected after an old friend randomly saw her walking around a market. The Red Cross delivered a letter to her from her family to confirm they were alive and then she went back to Bo where her entire family was. She thought everyone had been killed. She never returned to Liberia.

She told me she witnessed the rebels cutting a baby out of a pregnant woman’s stomach. She also watched one rebel threaten to kill a mother and son if they didn’t have sex. They refused and were murdered.

“Thank God they never raped me,” she said. “I really don’t like talking about it and remembering.”

The next day at school as I was teaching JSS 2, I heard a lot of commotion outside. Students were being hauled from JSS 1 for ditching class Monday afternoon. But here’s the thing – all week during midterms they had tests in the morning and then were supposed to have class in the afternoon that not a single teacher showed up to. Every day they sat in empty rooms so eventually they stopped staying. On Monday the teachers decided to show up but the students didn’t and now they were being punished. It wasn’t fair at all.

Next JSS 2 students were being called out of my class. I walked outside and saw everyone kneeling facing the wall. Seibatu slapped some JSS 1 boys in the back of the head and one banged his head on the wall in front of him. Anger boiled inside me.

“What is happening?” I asked.

We all met in the office and I explained my dismay. I volunteered to stay after school with them so they could write lines as punishment instead. Some teachers agreed while others said I just didn’t understand stubborn African children. After school, the students thought I was joking, then got very serious when they realized I wasn’t. Ten students ditched and had to stay after school the next day to write twice as many lines.

While they were writing lines, a journalist came to the school to interview Seibatu about the standardized test incident. She wasn’t even part of the testing and now she was taking the blame for the teachers. The journalist wouldn’t say who had called him to report her. Veronica talked him out of writing a story.

The next day at school more students stayed after to write lines, this time for talking in class. It was my third day staying after with them. I didn’t like being the sole disciplinarian and by 4:30pm, two hours after school ended, I was wondering what was taking them so long to finish. One girl couldn’t even read the sentence she was supposed to write and therefore had no idea what the punishment even was. Another student had someone else write the lines for her. It was so frustrating, and after everyone left, I sat in the barre and again angry cried. Was I doing the right thing?

The next day at school I went home for lunch and didn’t go back, something I had never done before. Two students came to my house to ask me what was wrong. Stress!!! And now more stress that they noticed I was gone when I should’ve been there.

My stressful week was thankfully followed by a really fulfilling weekend. I ventured to a student’s palm oil farm again and spent the morning watching a woman walk around a giant tub of oil. They explained the entire process to me, including watching a boy use a rope around his waist to shimmy up a tree to get the nuts. Back at my house, I saw my neighbor, Amie, cutting potato leaf and asked if I could watch. I sat on her veranda for the first time and it felt natural. I was thankful I didn’t try to force myself to sit with random people when I first arrived and instead let it happen on its own. Kids came over to color on my veranda and we all moved easily back and forth between the two houses. It felt communal.

At night, I again made fries with Veronica and Mimi, as was becoming our routine. While we were cutting the potatoes, a boy I had seen around town walked over.

“Please!” he yelled. This was the only word he ever yelled to me but usually I was alone. I asked Veronica to talk to him.

She discovered he didn’t actually know what please meant and he didn’t know how old he was or the year he was born. He claimed he was 13 but then couldn’t say what 13 was in Mende. He was supposed to be in second grade but his mother had sent him to live with a relative and instead of enrolling him in school, she had put him to work selling items and doing housework. He could spell his name and he knew the alphabet which Veronica cheerfully sang along with him. She told him she wanted to be his friend and showed him where her house was. He turned to leave and I asked if he wanted to take some fries.

“Thank you. May God bless you,” he said in perfect English. What?!

Veronica told me one of my students who was staying with her, Umaru, had a similar story. He had missed six straight years of school when he was sent to live with a relative and finally decided he wanted to get an education. He moved back with his father at my site and is now 19 years old in seventh grade. He really tries in class and is never deterred even when the other students (and teachers) laugh.

The next morning, my neighbor Mariama showed up 45 minutes before church started asking if I was ready to go. I told her we still had time, and a short while later we walked over to the primary school together where church was now being held. A JSS 3 (ninth grade) student was leading it and asked everyone if they knew what the word generous meant. One of my eighth-grade students perked up and excitedly motioned to me – it was a word I had just taught them last week in class. I was thrilled he remembered and was applying it to real life.

At the end of the service everyone is allowed to share ‘testimonials’ where they talk about ways God has impacted their life. One small boy was literally leaping out of his chair to share, and when he finally had the stage he started talking about his family and then burst into tears. Everyone fell silent and a nurse said it was God’s will. After church I asked Wuyata what he had said, but she hadn’t been able to understand him either. We asked another nurse, Massah.

She explained that the boy’s father was in Liberia and his mother lives in another district. His parents decided he was too disobedient so they sent him to live here with his grandmother. She didn’t want him either so Massah took him in.

“Lucky for me he’s been great!” she said.

Did he think if he prayed hard enough his parents would take him back? It was heartbreaking. I went to Seibatu’s house after and couldn’t stop thinking about it. We had a quick meeting about school documents and she told me the community used to have a library and that someone had given them computers and a generator but it was all sold by prominent community members.

I started to get wavy vision in my right eye that I couldn’t blink away. My head began to hurt. The pain was growing so I went home. I drank water and a rehydration packet and took a nap, but when I woke up my head felt exactly the same. I took two Aleve and finally after four hours it faded. It was the first migraine I’d ever had in my life. I decided to rest for the remainder of the day and read a cheesy memoir from that house-building couple on TV, Chip and Joanna.

I continued having small integration successes that I was really proud of. In my eighth-grade class, I made a song with clapping so that they could learn possessive pronouns and everyone loved it. The students actually told me different ways I could have them present the song and pairs of students started running to the front of the room to sing it even though I didn’t tell them to. After class ended and I was walking away to go eat lunch, I could still hear the whole class singing and clapping together.

Three of my boy students randomly visited me at home to practice their English and reading. John from Leh Wi Lan visited the school again where we met with the student prefects to discuss their leadership responsibilities. He also said a worker from Handicap International would be coming to test the students’ vision. This was all great – and then the conversation got slightly weird when he found out I had gone to Pujehun to see the First Lady and hadn’t informed him. He was very upset I didn’t tell him and insisted we could’ve gotten drinks together.

After school I saw my first official soccer game at site between my village and another. I had slight anxiety that I’d be standing at the field alone but all of my students ran over to me and were happy to stand with me, discuss the game, and scold kids who got too close. After the game I walked home and my neighbor asked me to eat with her.

The whole sharing food culture here really confused me – did they actually want me to sit and eat with them or was it just a polite thing to say? I had gone to a few neighbors who had asked me, eaten one spoonful (or fingerful), and then left. But Allematu prepared me a whole plate and I actually sat down with her. She’s my favorite neighbor and one of the kindest people to me here so I was really happy for the chance to talk to her more.

Integration and adapting are happening slowly but surely!!

A man named John from an organization called Leh Wi Learn came to my school unexpectedly. His group had handed out reusable pads to the female students and now he was back to survey them to see if they were using and liking them.

We all sat in the barre, a sort of pagoda structure, with all of the girls sitting on the inside circle facing out surrounded by boys sitting facing in. John had them raise their hands if they were using the pads and each girl did. I was in awe that this was being done in front of the male students and that no one seemed to be embarrassed.

John repeatedly referenced me and said all the students knew me and that I’m a good resource for them. I love that he did that, and he also talked about starting a girls’ club with them which I immediately offered to be part of. Seibatu and I then went to a room with 10 female students to fill out a survey with them on how they feel about the pads, if the school has good enough facilities for them, if they ever miss school because of their cycles, and more.

I really enjoyed school days like that, but school stress was still rising. I had started sending kids outside when they weren’t listening which I absolutely hate doing, and sometimes I wasn’t even sure who to send out because so many of them were being disruptive. I even asked Mr. Swaray to come talk to them once, and the class immediately fell silent the second he appeared in the doorway. He told me I had to manage my class, but it’s not that simple.

In the afternoon I visited Auntie Vero with Mimi to finally make fries. I quickly realized it was Mimi’s first time in her house. She was absolutely giddy about the nice home, and when Veronica asked me if I wanted to sit in the kitchen or living room, Mimi was discreetly staring at me and pointing to the living room. We sat on a couch together and Mimi told me it was her first time sitting on one.

A Peace Corps employee randomly showed up then and handed me a calendar that has pictures of Salone for every month. We flipped through it together and Veronica had Mimi read the captions. Mariama, my neighbor, randomly showed up and she enjoyed looking at the pictures too.

That night, Auntie Vero had a prayer circle that a student had been inviting me to for a couple days. I went and after we finished, Veronica told me how the village used to be before the war. Apparently my site used to have the luma, or big weekly market, that people from nearby villages would come to. She said there were five shops, a regular market, and various tribes living peacefully in the area.

The war destroyed it all. She left for England and when she came back to visit she didn’t even realize she was in her hometown. Now there is no market, the luma is seven miles away, and there are only two small corner stores that pretty much only sell onions and energy drinks. How could Salone look now if the war hadn’t devastated them three decades ago?

At school the next day, Veronica watched me sign out books to parents and asked the other teachers if anyone had been explaining to parents the rules of the textbooks. That thought had never even crossed my mind seeing as in America everyone knows what to do with textbooks. Veronica told the teachers they need to explain that the books need to be returned, they cannot be sold, they are the property of the government, and students need to bring them to class.

After she left, a few teachers ranted to me for three hours about the lack of support they have. The current president is pushing for “free, quality education” but as Mr. Swaray put it, where is the ‘quality’ if none of the teachers are trained or paid? He added that all of the NGOs that come here are for the children – UNICEF, Save the Children, UK Aid – where are the organizations that help the teachers? I wrote down everything they told me afterwards and want to try to look into helping them resolve some of the issues.

They apologized for ranting for so long but I thanked them and said I was interested in hearing about it. Another teacher walked into the room with cooked potatoes and said, “Brittney, let’s eat!” I felt like I was slowly building a better relationship with them where they felt comfortable talking to me and including me. We ate potatoes and they thanked me for joining them.

After school I had my biggest jogging group yet – 17 kids ran with me to the next village. It was my furthest distance yet at 5 miles roundtrip. They had been asking for weeks to go to the next village and I finally agreed. One boy brought a whistle and blew into it three times as we took off.

After about half a mile, many of the younger kids wanted to stop. I decided I wouldn’t stop this time. The boys tried to encourage everyone to keep going and I was impressed with everyone’s stamina. The road was treacherous with all the mud, giant puddles, and rocks, but the sky was beautiful in the setting sun and we even saw a rainbow and the moon. We passed something they called a ‘sky snake’ and everyone stopped to look at it. We ran over a river that had tiny fish darting around, and we all looked at those too.

At a curve in the road, a few kids walked into the bush to pee and the rest of us stood along the highway in what looked like a wheat field, the breeze making the plants sway back and forth. Each time a car passed the boys would erupt into screams. If someone greeted me, they mocked them. A motorcycle passed and everyone started to yell.

“That man is staring at you!” a JSS 1 (seventh grade) student named Musa said to me. His eyebrows were furrowed and he looked genuinely upset.

I looked up at the motorcycle and saw that they were indeed still staring back. Suddenly the bike swerved and all of my students laughed. Their concern and protectiveness were so sweet. I knew this would be one of my favorite memories that would stick with me forever. We reached the next village where some of my other students live. They were surprised and ecstatic to see all of us. Some of the kids who had jogged with me had never been to this village before, so they were eager to walk around. I was getting nervous as the sun was setting.

No one (except me!) wanted to run back so we walked and talked and the group split up. Night fell and it started to rain. My principal’s nephew and his friend appeared with a blasting radio. They said since we hadn’t come back yet, they came looking for us. We all walked back into our village in the dark with lightning showing us the way.

That weekend I visited a hotel in Bo for the first time called Dohas. It has air conditioning, Wi-FI, western food, and showers! I just went there to visit friends and to eat, but a shower would’ve been nice since I got doused in muddy water on the way from a car slamming into a pothole next to me. After the hotel we walked around the markets and it was my first time feeling confident buying things. I even bought two plastic chairs, something I had been wanting since I got to site. I own two wooden chairs that are pretty uncomfortable and I was so excited to finally work up the courage to make a big purchase and lug them back to site.

I had to take a keke to the car park and the driver originally said he would take two more passengers and put my chairs inside next to me. But three women showed up so he tied the chairs to the roof with shoelaces. I was extremely skeptical but told myself he knew what he was doing. We drove a short distance then dropped two of the women off. I learned that the woman next to me was from my village. We made small talk and then heard a crash.

The chairs had slipped off the roof and smashed into the center of the highway. My beautiful chairs that I had been waiting two months to buy! Not to mention they could have slammed into any one of the dozens of motorcycles on the street and caused an accident. The keke pulled over and the man looked at us.

“Well go get them!” the other woman yelled. The driver grabbed the chairs and showed them to us. The red one I had bought for myself was fine. The purple one I had bought for when Gabe visits had a crack in the middle. My heart sank.

“How much was it?” he asked me.

“65,000!!!!” I was so mad.

“So…how much do you want?”

“65,000!!!”

“Oh, I was even thinking that would happen,” the other woman said. “He should have moved them after he dropped the other women off.”

We put the chairs inside and he dropped the woman off. He then started giving me a speech about how sometimes people make mistakes and you just have to forgive them. I said he could have prevented this mistake and I was not going to forgive him. We drove all the way back to the keke park and other drivers asked why I was back.

We explained the story and a male passenger immediately took my side.

“My brother, it is your fault. Pay the white woman,” he said. “What do you think foreigners will think of us if you treat them like this?”

I was conflicted. Realistically I could just buy another chair and it wouldn’t really affect me, but I didn’t want to perpetuate the image that all white people have endless money and that anyone can do whatever they want to me and it’s okay. If he had dropped a local’s chairs, what would protocol be?

Two police officers came over and listened to the tale. A male officer said I should just forgive the driver because people make mistakes. The female officer was more understanding, and we finally agreed that the driver would pay me for half and I could keep the chair. Then the same driver took me to the car park I was originally going to which was a bit awkward.

I couldn’t fully hear him as he started ranting, and I assumed he was yelling at me. I leaned in.

“I can’t believe that man called you a foreigner!” he said. “That is so rude of him. We are all Sierra Leoneans!”

Again, I was shocked. We had just been in a dramatic screaming match where police got involved and now he was offended on my behalf. I assured him I was not offended at being called a foreigner and then we introduced ourselves to each other. We got to the car park, I thanked him, and he left.

“Hey, is this your chair?” the car driver asked. “It has a crack in it.”

“………….”

I made it back to site well after the sun had set. I couldn’t wait to talk to Wuyata about this experience, but as soon as I saw her she started to scold me. She said she had just called her husband in Bo because she was worried about where I was. The thought of contacting anyone hadn’t even crossed my mind – I was too focused on dealing with the police, getting back to site, and managing my emotions. I tried to explain this but she wouldn’t have it.

I stomped home and angry cried. I was constantly feeling like no one was ever trying to see things from my perspective. The next morning a man I didn’t even know asked me where I had gone yesterday.

“See!” my friend Dauda said. “Everyone worries about you when you’re gone!”

The town elder appeared and also asked me where I had been. Because I was in Bo, I had missed a funeral that I didn’t know about for someone I never even knew. Then Wuyata arrived and told me we had to talk. My heart sank.

“You promised you’d tell me how your weekend with Gabe went!” she said excitedly. And here I was thinking she was going to lecture me. I told her I thought she was upset with me and she was surprised. She said she was only worried.

In the afternoon another volunteer visited me and greeted people in Mende. The first thing Veronica told me was that we really needed to brush up on my Mende. What the hell?! The other volunteer was only greeting people which I did every day! I was learning that shaming was a big thing here and I didn’t like it.

The next week at school an NGO called Marie Stopes, which supports family planning, randomly came. They spoke to the students about birth control and offered free arm implants for the female students. In front of all of the male teachers, a male staff member suggested that maybe I would also like some free birth control. I was speechless.

They brought out a kit to show the students how to use condoms. Everyone burst out laughing when the worker held up a giant dildo to demonstrate.

“You can pump and pump and pump!” he yelled while thrusting the dildo into the air. He also talked about how young students shouldn’t be having sex and pointed to a particularly petite boy in the front. The man then held up a pinky finger to compare to the boy and said sex simply wouldn’t work. Everyone laughed, including the boy.

Some teachers told me that parents used to tell their kids they’d die or have permanent erections if they had sex, but now kids don’t believe it as they have easier access to the internet to verify the truth.

That night Seibatu returned from a women’s conference I had nominated her for through the Peace Corps and she gave me cookies she had received. I shared them with her nieces and Mimi split the last one in half with me. Seibatu had learned about malaria and women’s health, including birth control, and was very worried about the possible side effects. I told her many students had received birth control implants at school just that day.

I jogged to another village after that with my youngest group yet. They got tired immediately so we walked a lot, they picked some flowers that I then had to hold, they fought over who could hold my hand, and once we arrived a woman gave us four grapefruits for the eight of us. Everyone began fighting over who could hold the fruit and I literally ran away. They called after me and I felt like I was in a movie. Two laughed and ran to keep up with me while the rest fell behind. It was too overwhelming, all of the screaming and fighting and touching and grabbing. Jogging was supposed to be a relaxing release but it was becoming a chore and somewhat like babysitting.

On my way to school the next day a man yelled at me for never greeting his family, claiming they greet me first every day, which is simply not true. These interactions were really building up and getting to me, and then I would get more upset for letting it get to me. A student’s mother was waiting at school and she was extremely upset that we had let her daughter get the birth control implant the day before, saying her daughter was now going to be promiscuous.

The thought that none of these underage students had received their parent’s permission had crossed my mind but I thought if it was an issue that the other teachers would have said something. I guess not. Seibatu agreed with the woman and brought up all the side effects she had learned about at the conference. Veronica, a nurse, arrived and tried to explain to everyone that what they were saying wasn’t true. Then it turned into a blame game of who had even let Marie Stopes come in without any warning.

At night we had a community meeting with even more arguments. There was a lot of drama regarding a standardized test the students had taken in July during my site visit. Community members said the teachers stole money that was supposed to be used for the students’ lodging and food. They had only eaten one meal a day during the two-week testing period and their sleeping accommodations left them all covered in mosquito bites. The teachers said this wasn’t true and blamed the hired chef.

Then at school the next day we had yet another meeting. I tried to discuss an NGO I was going to contact to order free books from. Only Swaray answered my questions. The other teachers said they were tired, stood up, and left in the middle of it.

Over the weekend I went to Pujehun for the first time and was amazed at how big it was! The First Lady was giving a speech the next day about her campaign called Hands Off Our Girls to end sexual assault and I was really looking forward to going and learning about it. On Saturday we walked around the city and hung out at the campaign area for a while. They were running hours behind and still had at least six performances to go before the First Lady. We left to get lunch and when we started heading back, we saw everyone leaving from the field. We missed the First Lady.