Sonder Salone

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.