Dreaming of home at this Christmas time
Even more than I usually do
And since I know it’s a long road back,
I promise you
I’ll be in Rooome for Christmas
You can count on meeee
Please have cheese and gnooOOOchi
And pleasant chiantiiii
Christmas eve will find me
Where the ruins lean
I’ll be in Rome for Christmas
Here’s hoping I don’t freeeeze
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I apologize in advance for rubbing this in your face, but you must understand – I haven’t tasted real cheese or wine for 17.5 months. Rome is going to be FLY.
I’ve also been told that I’m going to freeze my buns off, so thank you in advance, Mom, for bringing my ski jacket in your suitcase.
T-minus 2 days, folks! It’s quite an exciting time.
The trimester wrapped up almost as soon as it started, unfortunately, but I have given my students some reading to do over the break. Here’s hoping they follow through!
In an effort to give you more insight into what we crazy (read: bats*** insane) volunteers get up to, I thought I’d share some articles I wrote recently. The one about “Informatique” was for a technical exchange newsletter, the one about the “perfect volunteer” was submitted as a part of our peer support network outreach. I hope you enjoy, and Merry Christmas!
Over the past two months my French vocabulary has sky-rocketed… if you want to talk about AZERTY/QWERTY, cursors, recovering documents, or tool bars, that is.
My ability to explain the significance of proper typing technique is more eloquent than I ever imagined it would be, and my appreciation for Microsoft Office’s automatic “Voulez-vous enregistrer les modifications apportées à Document 1?” message has reached an all-time high. Even my dreams have taken on a certain grainy pixilated quality, and when a student asks me a question during English class, my knee jerk response is, “Try double-clicking the icon.”
Yessirs and Mesdames, computer literacy has effectively taken over my life.
But it’s not all bad!
In fact, this is the first time that I have been face-to-face with a class of students that, in its entirety, freely chose to follow my course. Let me tell you, the motivation and timeliness alone are enough to make me want to teach computer literacy full-time.
A little background on how this all began:
Last spring I submitted a PCPP proposal to create a “Learning and Information Technologies Center” at my collège/lycée. Since the total funds needed did not surpass $2,500 (meaning, the proposal did not need to be reviewed by a committee), the project was approved, posted online, and funded by mid-summer. I was able to bring back to Ditinn 4 new laptops in September. The laptops were purchased in Medina Market in Conakry, and software was installed by a friend (originally from my village) who works there.
The original plan was to acquire 10 laptops through a company in the U.K., but after hearing a plethora of horror stories about computers being stolen at the Conakry airport my counterparts and I decided to purchase them in-country. So far, so good! The laptops run like a dream (*knock on wood*), and have a 4.5 hour battery life. This allows us to hold 3-4 full classes before having to take them to the local telecentre to charge.
Current program:
Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I work with one group of 8 boys in collège/lycée, and one group of 8 teachers. Each class is 1.5 hours, with the first half hour spent reviewing previous lessons and discussing the new skills that will be used that day. The remaining hour is used for hands-on practice. I’ve found having 2 students per computer to be beneficial since there’s often one person who has better understood a certain concept or physical technique (gliding your finger over the mouse to move an arrow on screen is tough, yo). They then help their partner to complete the tasks that I assign them. It became clear early on that I could repeat instructions over and over and over again, but when such information comes from a peer, the students are much more likely to accept and remember it. Go figure.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I meet with a group of 12 female students. This group has been, by far, the most challenging to work with. At the same time, it has given me greater insight into the reality of girls’ education in Guinea. Many of these students can speak French fairly well, but when it comes to written instructions, the girls hit a roadblock. At the beginning of the course, I was running around from computer to computer, reiterating instructions and practically hold their hands and guiding them to the correct place on the keyboard or mouse. It was a disheartening realization that some of these girls were functionally illiterate. They can copy instructions down very well, but it would appear that they have never been encouraged to actively apply such instructions to a subsequent task. However, this doesn’t mean that they can’t still benefit from computer literacy lessons. With the male students and teachers, I began a pretty information-heavy program on Microsoft Office and Excel. I’ve since changed the format of my girls’ class to include more oral, step-by-step instructions, and activities that give them practice in concrete skills (e.g. manipulating the mouse, typing lessons, navigating resources online and through programs like Microsoft Encarta). The result has been much more pleasant for all parties involved. Once these skills have been developed, I plan on tackling the more abstract Microsoft Office Suite with them.
Future plans:
I’ll continue instructing the teachers for the duration of the school year. The plan is to train them in the use of Microsoft Excel so that they can calculate students’ grades at the end of each trimester, as well as to connect them to online resources that they can incorporate into their lesson plans.
For the boys and girls, I’m in the process of selecting the most advanced students to begin an intensive training program this coming January. I’m finalizing an “Introduction to Computer Literacy” guide that I’ll make available in both French and English this spring. The guide will include French/English technical vocabulary, model lesson plans, a list of online resources, and in-country contacts (e.g. cyber cafés, IT specialists). The students in the intensive course will then use this guide to instruct their peers in typing skills, and in basic Microsoft Office Suite activities. It’s turning into a sort of computer literacy internship program.
We’re also coming up with a pricing plan to generate a small amount of income to pay for charging the computers, as well as to further develop our Learning and Information Technologies Center. Some ideas floating around are purchasing a solar panel for charging, acquiring additional laptops, and printing written computer resources from online.
Some unexpected developments:
1. Originally, we had planned to secure the library at our school so that the laptops could be stationed there 24/7. However, the overnight guardian that worked at the school last year has been absent for the past three months, and so the level of security available is unfortunately inadequate. This has led me to keeping the laptops at my house, which in turn has led to the entire village to believe that I purchased four brand-spanking-new laptops for my own personal use. It’s an unfortunate turn of events, but not an insurmountable obstacle. Like most everything in PCV life, it’s a work in progress.
2. As mentioned before, the girls’ group has proved to be a considerable challenge to manage. However, it has gotten me more involved in gender-equality initiatives, something which I felt was seriously lacking from my activities last year. I’ve slowly begun to see a change in the girls’ attitudes towards me. Teenagers will be teenagers, but I’ve noticed a little less surliness during class and a little more willingness to participate. Despite the difficulties, I’ve found this experience to be well worth the effort. I also plan to mesh the Youth Entrepreneurship syllabus into our computer classes. We'll practice Word formatting, making Excel spreadsheets, and creating PowerPoint presentations using material from the program!
Now that I’ve effectively talked your ear off (would it be more accurate to say “typed your eye out?”) about computer literacy, I’d like to pose a question. Are you involved with, have you ever been involved with, or would you like to become involved with computer literacy activities? If you answer “yes...”
I’m hoping for input on the computer literacy guide so that it can be edited, modified, and eventually made widely available to interested volunteers in Guinea, and I'm also seeking contacts for my students. They'll be learning how to use e-mail this coming trimester, so if you'd like to be a pen-pal (you could practice your French skills), or if you'd like to be an English-language resource for them - please contact me!
Merci, my friends!
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Oh, my God, Becky. Would you look at her VRF? It is sooo big.
It’s like she’s got a time-turner or something.
Omg, did you just read Harry Potter in French?
Um, I have no projects so only like, 4 times last month. It blew my tête.
Anyway, I heard she speaks fluent Malinke and Kissi.
I heard she eats with her hands and only uses the water method, and she’s never gotten sick.
Uck. She’s just so… bien integrée.
There’s that one volunteer. You know the one. He rocks the leppi like he was born to wear indigo and dances to the djembe like a pro. She’s already submitted a proposal, received grant money, and successfully completed her first project within a month of In-Service Training. He organized a national basketball tournament/fundraiser to pay for a sign language teacher for the group of deaf students in his village. She rallied her 9e class to paint a world map at their collège, and now has a dedicated troupe of young artists who go from town to town painting educational, bilingual French-Susu murals. For free.
They’re a wonderful example of a human being and you hate it. Why? Because in our eyes they’re the ideal Peace Corps Volunteer, and that makes us, well, sub-par.
Maybe your first project flopped. Maybe you’ve had to move sites and start all over because of an unfortunate incident, or because of an unfortunately belligerent stalker-fou who wouldn’t leave you alone. Maybe your Franglais makes everyone’s head hurt (including your own), and your personal hygiene has taken a hit ever since your well ran dry last week. Maybe after the tenth time someone generalized that “tous les noirs sont paresseux, et tous les blancs sont des bons travailleurs,” you screamed that they were being an offensive jerk. Maybe you’ve had to take a couple mental health days away from site because you almost smacked a petit who followed you around throwing pebbles at you and chanting FooOTE all day.
It happens. As a PCV, we tend to have in our minds some sort of “ideal volunteer.” Perhaps we equate extending your service as the one true mark of success, or choosing to “Early Terminate”/getting Medically-separated means that you weren’t good enough. Perhaps your site mate loves spending hours on end with the market ladies, while you feel exhausted after about 5 minutes in their company. If you think about going back to the States after a particularly difficult month, or week, or day, or even just a really horrible hour at site, you feel guilty about it and weak in comparison to the rest of your stage. If anyone can explain where we get these dramatic standards of perfection and failure, please pop that info into the next monthly newsletter. As it stands, viewing your service in this manner can have some seriously negative effects on your psyche.
Peace Corps says that one of the most important goals of a PCV is to demonstrate how we, as citizens of the United States, are diverse in a multitude of ways. After all, we know that we’re different, and are we not quite proud of our unique qualities? Peace Corps also encourages us to try new things and to step out of our comfort zones. Realistically speaking though, our basic day-to-day living often already reaches far beyond what we’re used to. Pushing your boundaries is good, but uncompromisingly living outside of them to the detriment of your well-being is not. Talk to a volunteer who has been here for a while, someone who you think is a great, even ideal example. Guaranteed, they’ve struggled to find balance during their service and they’ll still think that they don’t measure up to other volunteers in certain ways. Sometimes they’ve had to live in the shadow of a previous volunteer who pulled off an amazing project, or sometimes they feel ashamed that they don’t have a bunch of Guinean friends. Sometimes they’re 17 months into their service and they still think about ET-ing. Sometimes they share the common concern that, as a volunteer with limited resources, they’ll never be able to help enough people, and that this makes their time here inconsequential. These things reach beyond our control, and it’s not our job to override our basic wants, needs, and emotional reactions in the name of service. Peace Corps is not about changing yourself into a new person, it’s about learning and adapting, and it could be argued that understanding and taking care of yourself is the most important thing you can do as a PCV. If you’re physically and mentally stable, you’re going to bounce back from moments of adversity much quicker than if you’re neglecting your health in order to please other people. The quicker you bounce back, the quicker you’re going to tackle that next initiative, whether it be something as grand as creating a library for your community or as simple as helping your neighbor to fix her fence.
Let’s take a closer look at this “ideal volunteer” for a moment. Think about that someone you look up to in-country. Think about why you look up to them. Odds are, there are a couple very specific reasons that they’ve gained your admiration. Now, can you reasonably assume that they have absolutely every aspect of their life in perfect order? Is life ever like this, even back home? No. Everyone has their good and bad days, their struggles and triumphs. It would seem that we’ve unwittingly concocted an “ideal volunteer” who is, in fact, an amalgamation of amazing qualities coming from many different people. Though we’re all pretty awesome human beings, the “ideal volunteer” does not exist. Period. So why do we insist on holding ourselves up an unrealistic standard?
Yes, having an ideal in mind can help motivate you throughout your service. But make your ideal your own. Ask yourself, “How can I improve myself in a way that respects my values, my past experiences, and my objectives in life?” In the end, will it help your mental health and motivation when you compare yourself to another volunteer who lives in a different site, who has different resources at their disposal, who came in with different educational and professional expertise, who has a different tolerance for socializing, and who ultimately has very different goals for the future?
Uh uh. O’o. Ade. Non.
So how do we maintain a positive attitude when faced with other volunteers’ success and our perceived failure?
First, let’s analyze some behaviors that would make someone a bad volunteer (because who doesn’t like a little trash-talking once in a while?).
1. If you smack children and pinch (not nicely) babies on the reg.
2. If you break every Peace Corps rule imaginable with the sole aim of giving a metaphorical middle finger to “the man.”
3. If you receive grant money and use it to buy a sweet new moto for yourself.
4. If you buy codeine pills from your local pharmacy and start selling them to kids at your CECOJE in order to finance that fancy Samsung Duos phone you’ve wanted for months.
5. If, when you get frustrated with your students/counterparts/petits/neighbors, you yell and them and say that they’re lazy, stupid, good-for-nothings.
6. If you steal your neighbor’s cow and sell it to pay for your trip to Senegal next summer, and then blame it on your host brother.
7. If you knowingly spread false information during sensitizations or classroom lessons.
8. If you accept bribes from your students in exchange for giving them passing grades.
If you avoid committing the above acts, it would appear that you’re doing a damn good job as a volunteer. So, relax. If STOMP Out Malaria isn’t your deal, if joining VAC or JET seems dull, if youth entrepreneurship doesn’t exactly light your fire, or if you dread giving public presentations on food security, that’s okay.* Just as there is no “ideal volunteer,” there is no one correct combination of activities that will make your service successful. Don’t be afraid to pave your own way in Guinea. You know best your personal mix of extroversion/introversion, and how that impacts your day-to-day activities. If you need to de-stress by taking an epic bike trip, take that bike trip. On the other hand, if you need to spend a couple days alone in your house, watching movies and eating care package nutella and graham crackers, do it! Your sanity takes precedent over immediate productivity. Your productivity will develop as you nurture yourself. And with time, you’ll figure out how best your artistic, organizational, and intellectual skills can be applied to make a project mind-blowingly awesome. Peace Corps is going to be different for everyone and if, at the end of the day, you feel like you’re putting your skills to good use in a way that appeals to your likes or even your greater goals in life, then you’re rocking your service.
So, can we agree to trash this batty idea of the “ideal volunteer?” You do you and, rest assured, people will appreciate your genuineness.
*Just a side note, we in JET believe that all of these programs are fan-freaking-tastic. Keep up the good work dudes and dudettes.
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