by Aaron Barlow
I didn’t know what I had done to set them off, but it indicated to Nana Oparibia that I was troubled and through her advisor she asked me why I had come. I tried to explain how my country was fighting a bad war in a foreign place and that they were taking young men like me against their will and forcing them to fight. I didn’t want to have anything to do with this war, I said, but I wasn’t sure if I could escape it. That was why I was in Ghana, and why I was coming to see her. Could she see into my future? Or, if she couldn’t, could she spray me with some magic potion to protect me?
It was a mouthful for the woman to translate and the priestess answered with her own mouthful, which was translated back to me this way: “Your eyes are light, your skin is pale, you don’t believe the way we do, so how can you come to me for help? If you don’t want to fight, don’t. And thanks for the gin.”
I had only been playing in the Life is a Game Store for a few months, but I was getting the hang of it. In Ghana, I would learn during the three years I served, part of the game was learning to live your life understanding boundaries and knowing which lines could be crossed and which must be avoided at all costs. All Die Be One Die, it’s true. But there was plenty of time to learn that one.
Lawrence Grobel taught at the Ghana Institute of Journalism from 1968-71. He created and directed the Masters in Professional Writing Program for Antioch College West in 1977 and currently teaches in the English department at UCLA. He is a contributing editor for Playboy and has written ten books. He recently completed a novel and a memoir (You Show Me Yours). This essay is an excerpt from that memoir. His website is www.lawrencegrobel.com.
A First Real Job
Joy Marburger
Memories of a time before the civil war, before the conflicts that nearly destroyed a country that is now trying to rebuild.
I decided to join the Peace Corps in 1969, during my master’s program at Bowling Green State University. My decision was based on several factors: disillusion with the Vietnam policy, a need to explore the world, and dissatisfaction with my program. A question in the Peace Corps application asked in which country I wanted to work—my response was India or somewhere in Africa. I had no clue that Africa was so diverse in geography, cultures, and nations.
I ended up in Sierra Leone, or “Salone” in Creole, where I would be a secondary school teacher. The name dates back to 1462, when a Portuguese explorer sailed down the coast of West Africa. There seems some dispute whether it was the shape or climatic conditions that influenced Pedro da Cintra to come up with “Sierra Lyoa,” meaning Lion Mountains, since the coastal regions looked like “lion’s teeth.” Sixteenth-century English sailors called it Sierra Leoa which evolved into Sierra Leone. The British, who took over the country from the Portuguese, officially adopted the name in 1787. British philanthropists founded the “Province of Freedom,” which later became Freetown, a British crown colony and the principal base for the suppression of the slave trade. The local name for Freetown before the Europeans came was Romarong, meaning the place of the wailers. This name came from the sounds of the constant weeping and screaming of victims of storms and cross-current disasters at the mouth of the Sierra Leone River.
A military coup was occurring when we landed at Lungi Airport in Freetown. There were about fifty of us, and we were herded into the receiving room by AK-47-toting soldiers. We were eventually cleared to begin our six-week training; living with families to undergo “cultural adjustment” and learning the Creole language. The training experience was memorable: the very hot food with staple ingredients of rice, cassava, and palm oil; the custom of eating the food with your hands; the different attitude about what is “personal property”; and the total submersion in inquiry-based teaching methods.
My assignment was to teach biology and general science at a girl’s secondary school in Moyamba, the provincial capital of the Southern Province. The school was operated by a Catholic order of nuns, the Sisters of St. Joseph. I lived in a modest cement-block house equipped with electricity and running water. I had three housemates, also teachers at the school; two were also PCVs and another was a Canadian Volunteer. Since the Canadian and one of the PCVs had been there for a year already, they had hired a “steward” named Brima who took care of all the household tasks. Brima had a great sense of humor, as did the other three Volunteers.
After dinner in the evening, we would tell stories, including Brima. Local neighbors would drop in unannounced, and the stories would continue. We had a local “band” in the neighborhood, which would play traditional Salone songs at least once a month with handmade instruments.
Teaching science to Sierra Leonean girls ranging from twelve to twenty-one years was a challenge. The educational system was based on the British. Instead of grade levels 7-12, there were forms 1-5. The whole point of students going on to high school after elementary school was to pass the Ordinary Level exams to get into a college or technical school. These girls were a select, small minority of the general female population. They were attending school through government scholarships or family savings. Some came from wealthy families in Freetown. Many came from the rural areas around Moyamba; their family income amounted to about $360 a year. The school fees were around $30 a year, so this was a substantial sacrifice. Many did not finish high school, either because of family responsibilities, or because they were married off.
In Moyamba, I became known as the “rescuer of animals in captivity.” Local people who had captured wild animals to make pets of them (or eat them) would bring them to me. I would pay them a leone or two (one or two dollars), and after observing the animals for a while, I would release them back to the forest, where no one would see me doing this. I had, at one time or another, a bush baby, a mongoose, a python, and an African falcon.
The students and I also had encounters with dangerous animals coming onto the school grounds: one day a tsetse fly (that causes sleeping sickness) came into the classroom through an open window, and all the students ran from the room. One student killed the fly, and I insisted on inspecting it so I could identify a tsetse fly. We also had a green mamba come into our library. That snake was quickly removed by the groundskeeper.
My most memorable experience with poisonous snakes occurred when I was preparing lesson plans in our dining room. All the other Volunteers were in town. Brima had finished cleaning up. I happened to look up from the paperwork just as a snake slithered under the front door, and then went under my bedroom door. Brima killed the six-foot spitting cobra with a broom!
I try to keep abreast of what has happened to Sierra Leone since I left in 1972. Civil war conflicts ravaged the country from the late 1980s until 2002. Much has changed there since I was a Volunteer; there are now websites and other electronic information about how the country is rebuilding itself. I often wonder what happened to my students, and whether they and their families survived the conflicts.
Joy Marburger, who served in Sierra Leone from 1969–72, is the research coordinator for the Great Lakes Research and Education Center, National Park Service, Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, Indiana. She received a M.S. degree in biology from Bowling Green State University, Ohio, and a Ph.D. at the University of Maryland in Agronomy. She is currently a member of a friends group working to return the Peace Corps to Sierra Leone.
It’s Condom Day!
Sera Arcaro
The comedy of crossing cultures crops up when least we expect it.
You joined Peace Corps to change the world in some small way. This idea, conceived by the idealist in America, came to fruition in Namibia, in the form of teaching English. You would change the world, or the lives of many people anyway, because learners who were highly proficient in English would have a better chance of qualifying for the university, would enable them to obtain better jobs, and would improve their standard of living.
It seemed to make sense at the time.
A year and a half la
ter, your naïveté is gone; you have realized that the world changes, regardless. All you can do is nudge a few people in the right direction, presuming you know which way that is. Given the high rate of HIV infection (20-30 percent of the population has the virus), you have come to terms with the sobering realization that all the English in the world won’t help if your learners die prematurely from AIDS.
You want to nudge them toward life.
This is why you find yourself, one day, standing in front of a class of thirty-six twelfth graders who are giggling nervously because you, their beloved English teacher and newly-minted “Life Skills teacher,” has just announced, rather gleefully, that “It’s condom day!” You triumphantly produce two wooden penises and a boxful of condoms. “Now, I know that, of course, none of you are having sex now”—a brief spasm of confusion: they look guilty. Does she really think we’re not having sex?—“but you probably will sometime in the future. Now, how many of you plan to have fourteen children?” The girls all shake their heads adamantly, clucking at the very idea; several boys raise their hands—obviously imagining all the fun they could have producing fourteen offspring. You continue, “How many of you plan on dying from AIDS?” They are duly sobered; no one raises a hand. “O.K. then. That’s why you must use a condom every time you have sex.”
You start with a game. The learners form four groups and each is given nine sheets of paper, each with one of the steps to using a condom correctly. Their task is to put them in order. The first group to finish will win sweets.
You’ve never seen learners so engaged, bent over the papers, “This one is second to last…” “No, you must check the expiration date first…” “Which one comes next?” A group says they’re finished. You check the order. You find it a bit disconcerting to see that they’ve put “tie the condom” before “have sex and ejaculate.” After a few more false victories, one group finally manages to put the steps in the correct order. Knowing that the kids will listen more to each other than to you, you have one of the more articulate learners explain the steps.
It turns out that the condom should be tied after having sex and removing the condom. Go figure.
Next, you ask for a volunteer to demonstrate how to put on and remove a condom, using one of the wooden penises. Sakeus jumps up. He may have failed four out of his six subjects last term, but this is his area of expertise; he will teach and the others will learn. Without any self-consciousness, he selects a green-colored condom and proceeds to accurately demonstrate how the prophylactic should be used. The class is attentive, only chiding him when he comes to the “have sex” part.
“How? Tell us how!” They feign ignorance.
You feign interest in something outside the window so they won’t see you laughing and you won’t see whatever gestures Sakeus might be making with the wooden penis.
After Sakeus’ condom demonstration, it’s time for a femidom (female condom) demonstration. You hold up an empty, two-liter plastic Fanta bottle and announce, just for the fun of it, “This is my vagina.” (English class and Fanta will never be quite the same for anyone again.) Luckily for you, Kristina volunteers to demonstrate how to use the femidom on the Fanta container.
The class oohs and ahs over the femidom’s larger size and its two rings, and is especially enthralled by the fthoink sound when the femidom is removed from the bottle.
You encourage them to ask questions, answering them with only minor tinges of embarrassment. Finally, the learners ask the ultimate question, “Can we have condoms?” Of course. Although you don’t want to admit to yourself that they are really having sex, the façade is shattered when the learners maul the box of free condoms and ask if you have any Cool Ryder or Sense brand condoms, because they “like those ones better.”
Later, Ndapewa is upset with you. “Miss! What are you doing with those condoms? You are encouraging people to have sex! They should abstain until they are married!”
“Yes, I know,” you say, pausing to think of where to begin. This is always the debate. “But they are having sex anyway. I am just encouraging them to do it safely.” It is no use citing research that there is no correlation between condom distribution and increased sexual activity, but that there is a correlation between condom use and decreased STDs. Instead, you demonstrate reality on a nearby learner. “Gabriel, don’t have sex. Wait until you’re married.”
“Yes, miss,” he says, while reaching for more condoms.
“See? I can encourage abstinence, but he will do what he wants. He’s going to have sex, so it’s better that he protects himself.” Ndapewa sighs in resignation. You feel the same way. You get to do this with eight more classes.
Most of the classes proceed about the same as the first, except one time the English teacher next door, Mr. Nuushona, enters the class to make an announcement. He is oblivious to the situation and doesn’t seem to notice anything unusual, such as your desk being covered in condoms. A learner, in some twist of cruelty, invites him to “stay and hear the lesson, because it’s very interesting.” Mr. Nuushona is a compliant guy, so he says, “Yeah, sure.”
You find yourself suddenly embarrassed. You, who had been brazenly swinging wooden penises around while discussing the pros and cons of femidoms and condoms, have been brought to a complete standstill. Then, slowly, you begin to laugh, because it’s the only way to unfreeze, and the class also begins to laugh, but everybody is trying to hide it. Finally, Mr. Nuushona gets his bearings and realizes that something is amiss. He glances at your condom-covered desk, at the femidom packet in your hand, at the Fanta-vagina, and suddenly it all clicks. He does not want to be here! This is not the safe confines of an English class! It has morphed into a perilous Life Skills class. He was tricked! He darts out the door before you can give any explanation.
But you must stay, and somehow you continue.
Sera Arcaro served in Namibia from 2002–04 and currently teaches English to high school students in Raleigh, North Carolina. She still keeps in touch with her Namibian students through Facebook; many have successfully completed college and some have gone on to study in places such as Russia, Sweden, and Germany.
The Civilized Way
Bryant Wieneke
New ideas, even in teaching, never work quite as expected.
One of the biggest problems I faced in teaching a practical skills course at Kolo Agricultural School in Niger was finding opportunities for the students to perform activities themselves rather than watching their instructor. There was no problem with the plowing; the school owned plenty of farmland to sacrifice to student inexperience. Nor was there any problem with teaching them how to de-parasite the animals because the school owned twenty oxen and one bull, and some degree of inexactitude in that process would probably not kill any of them.
It was different with the castrations. It was rare that a local villager brought in a bull at the right time for me to demonstrate the process step-by-step with the students gathered around to listen and learn. It was even rarer that we would have more than one bull so I could castrate one and have the students do the second.
This difficulty is what caused me to accept an offer from Boureima, the school herder. He had grown accustomed to me, and I had boundless respect for his ability with the herd. When he told me that the people in his village had bulls they needed castrated and he wanted me to do it, I jumped at the chance. It would give my students an opportunity to have firsthand experience in using the pince burdizzo, the huge pinchers that Peace Corps had provided to achieve the desired result without piercing the skin, thereby greatly reducing the risk of infection. I was also pleased by Boureima’s offer because this may have been the first time that the Fulani herders in his village would allow their bulls to be castrated using anything but the traditional method, which consisted of pounding the scrotal sac to smithereens with sticks.
The idea of taking my 7 a.m. class to Boureima’s villa
ge seemed a good one. By the time the twelve students arrived at the corral that Thursday morning, Boureima had already let the school herd out to pasture, and I had prepared the necessary equipment. We left immediately: the class was scheduled to last only two hours, and the students had another right after. Since Boureima had told me his village was only a short distance down the road, I figured that it would take fifteen or twenty minutes to get there. We would then have more than an hour to perform the procedures before heading back. Two hours seemed plenty of time.
Boureima led us. Although he was an older man, slightly stooped with leathery skin and wizened features, he walked faster than any other human being I have known. Much faster. In his loose-fitting robe and sandals, he moved down the dirt road as if on skates. While I had known Boureima and worked with him on a daily basis for six months, I had never seen him on the open road.
The students and I struggled to keep up. I reminded myself that Boureima walked to work every day and had told me that he lived nearby, so it couldn’t be that much further. But he just kept walking. Several students began to fall behind and, while I yelled at them to keep up, I understood why they were falling behind. This man was a machine!
