"A phoned dem, but a tol' dem dat we would be late. So dey are
waiting, waiting fo' us."
"You didn't tell them we were coming at 10am?"
Katie, Amhidu, Jalloh and I were scheduled to present at one of the
local secondary schools at 9am. But it was 9:09am, and we were
printing the handouts we planned to bring with us. I was a bit
annoyed, because I don't like being late. But Katie had made some
magnificent handouts, and they were probably going to go much further
than our spoken message. Poor Amhidu seemed a bit beleaguered by the
sudden schedule disaster. The problem was that power and internet are
so scarce, and it had taken a very long time for us to find pictures
for the handout. And the car was broken down, so we had had to walk to
clinic, which takes about an hour. And then, the printer was slow. Not
a great start.
"Maybe," Amhidu went on, worried but still friendly, "you and Jalloh
will go to the school, and start, and Katie and I will come after with
the handouts."
"Oh, OK. But I won't start until you and Katie come."
"Yeah, yeah, you jus' go dere an tell dem dat we are still coming."
So Jalloh and I set off at a mild sprint. At least, Jalloh thought
so. "This is how fast people walk in New York, Jalloh. Everyone."
We slowed down to Africa speed – as fast as you can go without
breaking a sweat. It was hot.
The school wasn't far away. It was concrete, and only the classrooms
were indoors. The hallways were basically porches, partially shaded by
the roof. We met the teacher that had invited us, Mr. Komba, and we
met the vice principal, Mr. Koti. Then the head boy rang a bell,
everyone assembled, and they were herded into the classroom. The kids
were really loud and really excited. I was pretty excited.
What was I going to do with the time until Katie arrived?
"Hello."
Silence, then a few reluctant hellos.
"My name is Chris. Sahr Christopher." My Kono name always gets a
laugh. Jalloh tells me that sometimes I confuse people because British
people are often "Sir", and so they think I'm a knight...? I didn't
really pursue that one.
"I'm a Canadian – I come from Canada – but I study at a university in
the United States."
"Slower, Chris." Jalloh was leaning against the window at the side of
the class. The students agreed with Jalloh.
"OK. My friend Katie and I have come today to talk to give you some
education about how to keep yourself and your loved ones healthy." I
gave an exaggerated nod. No one responded. "But she is not hear yet,
she is coming with some handouts."
The students were piled into the class. The desks were four or five
students wide, in rows, and there were five or six students at every
desk. There were also many chairs around the side of the room. There
was plenty of natural light, and the room was painted some neutral but
bright colour like white or light blue. In the front there was a
blackboard on a wooden stand. It looked like it had been broken off of
a giant blackboard rock and then affixed to the stand; the edges were
completely irregular and it was more or less flat. The eraser was a
sponge. The chalk, however, was long and pristine. Maybe they had
gotten out the special chalk for the exotic visitors? I didn't flatter
myself for too long with that thought.
"So we have some time to spend together."
They were a little bit restless. It was the entire secondary school,
about eighty students. They were right in the awkward age group where
the girls have begun to grow up but the guys look anywhere from 9 to
15.
"So, I haven't been in Sierra Leone for very long, and I don't really
know anything about it, so I was thinking that I could start by asking
you guys a bit about Sierra Leone."
There was a lot of noise, and the teacher gave a combination
translation-reprimand.
"First, you guys are all in secondary school. Why do you think that
secondary school is important?" I wouldn't be caught dead asking a
North American class of 12-14 year olds that question, but I wanted to
know the answer and didn't really have any idea how a class in Kono
District would behave, so I figured that I might as well try. There
was uncomfortable silence, followed by Jalloh translating the question
in a scolding tone, followed by the head boy walking primly up to the
front. He turned to face the class, and Jalloh and the teachers made
approving noises.
"Secondary school education is important. One, it is important becos
we are learning more things, more particular things. Two, it is
important becos we have more interaction with professors. Three, it is
important because we meet many more people than in primary school, and
we make mo' friends." The teachers made deep approving thank-you
noises and the head boy returned to his seat. I still don't know
hardly anything about Kono District classroom dynamics, but I was
pretty sure that the best way to bridge the gap between foreigner and
student was not getting the head boy to spout answers to the approving
murmurs of the professors.
"Okay, let's try this a different way. Put your hand up," I put my
hand up, "if you walk less than ten minutes to get to school." Mass
confusion. Mr. Komba translated my "ten" into "very short." I like
numbers much more than every single Sierra Leonean I have met. About a
quarter of the class put up their hands.
"What about, twenty minutes? Put your hand up if you walk twenty
minutes or more to get to school." They understood this one.
Two-thirds of the hands were up. "Thirty minutes?" Almost all. I
thought we were done. Mr. Komba said,
"Oh, but some walk very far, very far-far!"
"Oh, okay, who walks more than thirty minutes?" Some hands. "More
than an hour?" A few hands. "Wow. That's a long way. I'm impressed –
you must have real dedication." I'm not sure if my praise got through
at all.
"What about... malaria? Put your hand up if you have ever had
malaria." Two-fifths of the hands went up. "And dry cough?" Dry cough
is the African name for tuberculosis. Everyone laughed, no hands went
up. Okay, so no dry cough here. "When Katie comes, we will talk more
about both of those."
I stalled a bit by walking up the row and then back.
"Hmm... okay, put your hand up if you have a boyfriend or
girlfriend." Raucous laughter, and then Jalloh said,
"Everyone! Everyone have a boyfriend or girlfriend!" What? Well, all
the hands went up. I shrugged it off and made a mental tick in my 'I
don't understand Sierra Leoneans at all' column.
"Alright, alright. How many of you have brothers or sisters that went
to university?" Mr. Komba translated, no one's hands went up. Jalloh
said,
"It's very hard, very hard."
"Yeah, it is... what about college?" College means trade school, like
carpentry or plumbing. Three or four hands went up. "And how many of
you hope to go to college or university?" A solid eighty percent. I
stalled for a bit more time, walking up the row and back. "What about
me, do you have questions for me?"
They asked me about my educational background, but nothing else. Then
I had an idea.
"Okay, now I have a question only for the girls." That was mildly
controversial, but soon the class was quiet again. They wanted to know
the question. "What do you plan to do after high school?"
At first, no one answered. But I kept quiet and waited. Then one girl
spoke up. "Engineer."
Another girl. "Lawyer."
And another girl. "Nurse."
I threw in some patter about how those were all excellent choices.
Then I asked the boys.
"Doctor." I asked him if he knew that nurses are the ones who really
run the show. Nobody understood. It's hard to be a comedian across
language barriers.
"Trader." That's someone who buys the goods and distributes them to
the local merchants. I only know because I asked. Then I had another
idea.
"Alright, another question only for the girls." Less controversial the
second time around. "What is the biggest problem facing Kono
District."
Momentary silence, then one girl jumped to her feet. I later learned
her name was Fanta.
"Teenage pregnancy!"
The girls nodded. I nodded too, and filled in a bit of space with my
verbal agreement. Then I motioned to another girl with her hand
tentatively raised. "Teenage pregnancy." Her voice was small. Hell,
she was small. They were all small, just beginning to have to worry
about teenage pregnancy.
"Teenage pregnancy is definitely a very serious issue. It can destroy
a girl's life. We will talk more about it when Katie comes."
Katie came almost immediately after that. We got through our modules
with more or less success, and our novel skin color almost offset the
boring information we were force-feeding them. I tried to involve the
class to a certain extent, but mostly I just got confused looks and
people that pretended to understand. So I stuck to writing things
clearly on the board. Then, we came back to teenage pregnancy. Fanta
was participating again. Katie asked a question, half to Fanta, half
to the class.
"Why, why does teenage pregnancy happen?" Fanta jumped to her feet again.
"Becos you don' have any money, you don' have any thing, and der is
some boy, and 'e will give you money if you go with him, and maybe you
don' know what will happen, an you need de money fo' you school, and
den..." Fanta trailed off into the class's murmured consent. Katie
responded.
"Yeah, that's very serious. We'll come back to that, but thanks for
answering." She looked around for other answers.
"Maybe becos you man 'e don' wan' to use a condom." Katie nodded
again. No more answers were forthcoming. She turned back to Fanta.
"So, I understand that it's very hard, and that you don't have money,
and that it's very hard to pay for your school fees. But it's so
dangerous, and it can be so destructive to your education, and it's
not healthy for the baby, and you won't be able to take care of it,
because you will have even less money when there are two of you..."
Katie is impressively empathetic. I could see her trembling in front
of the monumental poverty that must drive someone to engage in sex for
money, whether it's explicit (prostitution) or implicit (more well-off
boyfriend).
"If you get pregnant while trying to get money for school, you can't
go to school." I kept my contribution simple, but there's nothing
simple about this. The girls don't have options. The poverty here is
heart-breaking. People live and smile and laugh, same as everywhere
else, but nobody knows how many girls are getting pregnant – only that
so many of them are getting pregnant that it is the first problem
cited by these secondary school girls. The blame lies perhaps more
with the men than the women – condoms are often looked down on here.
There is so little work that very few women work. It's telling that
there is only one female employee of NOW, a very progressive NGO. My
thoughts are quite disorganized on this, but they are still
passionate. Every one of those girls could be my little sister, or her
friends, or soon, my cousins. It breaks my heart.
The class was riveted by the discussion, but it wasn't clear how to
continue it. And we still had to cover the tuberculosis module...
I can't get used to how extreme poverty and desperation gives way to
the everyday in this place.
Note: we are trying to put together a peer educator program for this
school as a result of this event. Our good friend Christine Prifti is
helping us with the research – she is a self-described health nut, and
she is especially inspired and motivated to work on family and
reproductive health issues. The internet here is so dinosaur-slow that
it's very difficult for us to do any research – we can't even open
pdf's. So a big thank you to Christine for all of her help. If anyone
else would like to help us, here's how. If you find something that you
think we would like to read, copy the text into a Word document or a
text file. Then email us the (much smaller) text file or word doc,
with as little formatting as possible.
You know what else? Let me know your reactions to this challenges this
young group of Sierra Leoneans faces. I'm curious to hear them.
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