Becoming a Peace Corps Volunteer
Training: July 9th-September 6th 2017
I wake up to the sound of rain on the tin roof, and reluctantly click snooze on my alarm. While going to bed consistently at 8:30 pm every night has made it easier to wake up early, I have yet to kick the snooze habit. Three snoozes later, I finally turn off my alarm, grapple in the dark for my headlamp, and crawl out from under the mosquito net. I tie a lapa around my waist, and step outside to use the pit latrine, brush my teeth and wash my face, grateful for a few moments of solitude before the day begins. I get dressed and walk outside to the front veranda, where my host mom and her cousin's wife sit chatting. My host mom's name is Katiatu. Her cousin's wife's name is Katiatu. My granny's name is Katiatu, and my given Salone name is, you guessed it, Katiatu. (Disclaimer: not every female in Sierra Leone is named Katiatu.)
My host mom, known in the village by all as "Aunty K", boils water over a coal pot for tea and coffee. While the water heats up, Aunty K buys our breakfast ingredients from the women walking buy with goods for sale balanced on their heads. Women stroll by with buckets, basins and bowls filled with everything you can imagine casually balanced on their heads - breads, cakes, cookies, pineapples, bananas, eggs, and even over-the-counter drugs. My host mom makes me a fried egg sandwhich and buys a couple fried banana donut cakes because she knows I like them (and also because it is confirmed that she's literally trying to fatten me up). I eat breakfast and sip on my instant coffee while community member after family member after neighbor walks up to the veranda to talk to Aunty K and whoever happens to be on the veranda at that time. They all, of course, want to test out the new girl's Temene, the dominant local language in this area of Salone. To some of their surprise, I have mastered the basic greeting:
"Ndiray!" (Good Morning!)
"Ndiray, Seke!" (Hello, good morning!)
"Topia ndira?" (How is your health?)
"I tontu guru." (I thank God)
"Momo" (Thank you)
"I yo" (I acutally have no idea what this means, people say it after "Momo" so I say it too.)
"Nis a muah?" (What's your name?)
"Katiatu Kamara"
Laughs hysterically (Hah! The foreigner knows Temene! This is hilarious!)
This exact exchange happpens what feels like dozens of times per day. Sometimes it ends after we exchange pleasentires, which is most of my Temene knowledge. Sometimes the person says a few more lines and patiently explains what they're trying to say to me. Other times, I'm not so lucky, and I get lectured to in Temene while I stare back with the dear-in-the-headlights look. Unless they're asking me if I want to bath or if I'm eating rice, the conversation doesn't go very far.
The language thing is hard for a few reasons. One, it's not similar to English. There are 9 vowels and 170 letters in Temene , and it is filled with sounds that come out awkward (if at all) from my American tongue. Two, I am not learning Temene in training. My fellow trainees and I are learning how to speak Krio in training, the common laguage in Sierra Leone used at markets and for transportation. And later on, I start to learn Madingo, the local language spoken at my perminant site where I'll be serving the community for two years. There are sixteen native laguages spoken in Sierra Leone, not including Krio and English.
After breakfast, I grab my backpack, put my on my helmet and hop on my bicycle to head to training with some of my fellow trainees. We ride through Moforki, a small village where the Health trainees are living with host families, about dozen trainees out a total of 41. We make our way to Port Loko where the Peace Corps training center is located, swerving around puddles and potholes on the dirt roads of the village, while our neighbors yell out our Salone-given names wishing us a good morning. As we start cruising out of Moforki, we hear our names less and less, and "opoto" becomes the nickname of choice (Temene for "white person").
Nine hours of training and a cumulative 45 minutes of biking later, I am back in Moforki, and welcomed home by Aunty K and a heaping pile of rice and plasas. Tonight, it's cassava leaf, extra spicy. After dinner and stumbling through some conversations in Krio on the veranda, I take a well deserved bucket shower (don't knock it til you try it.) And just like that, it's 8:30 again and time to crawl back into bed and under the mosquito net.
After 9 weeks of training, my cohorts and I swore in as official Peace Corps volunteers on September 7th, comprising of 30 English, math, and sccience teachers and 11 health education specialists. The 11 of us are first group of health-focused Peace Corps volunteers in Sierra Leone since 1994. Our jobs are to educate on and implement behavior change tactics having to with malaria prevention, hygiene and sanitation practicies, and nutrition for children, pregnant women, and lactating mothers. We are change agents working in collaboration with Sierra Leone counterparts to help develop our communities into healthier places to live.
Lapa: two yards of brightly printed cotton material, often worn as a long wrap skirt.
Plasas: sauce made with leafy vegetable, such as cassava leaf or potato leaf.
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| Moforki Sunset |
My host mom, known in the village by all as "Aunty K", boils water over a coal pot for tea and coffee. While the water heats up, Aunty K buys our breakfast ingredients from the women walking buy with goods for sale balanced on their heads. Women stroll by with buckets, basins and bowls filled with everything you can imagine casually balanced on their heads - breads, cakes, cookies, pineapples, bananas, eggs, and even over-the-counter drugs. My host mom makes me a fried egg sandwhich and buys a couple fried banana donut cakes because she knows I like them (and also because it is confirmed that she's literally trying to fatten me up). I eat breakfast and sip on my instant coffee while community member after family member after neighbor walks up to the veranda to talk to Aunty K and whoever happens to be on the veranda at that time. They all, of course, want to test out the new girl's Temene, the dominant local language in this area of Salone. To some of their surprise, I have mastered the basic greeting:
"Ndiray!" (Good Morning!)
"Ndiray, Seke!" (Hello, good morning!)
"Topia ndira?" (How is your health?)
"I tontu guru." (I thank God)
"Momo" (Thank you)
"I yo" (I acutally have no idea what this means, people say it after "Momo" so I say it too.)
"Nis a muah?" (What's your name?)
"Katiatu Kamara"
Laughs hysterically (Hah! The foreigner knows Temene! This is hilarious!)
This exact exchange happpens what feels like dozens of times per day. Sometimes it ends after we exchange pleasentires, which is most of my Temene knowledge. Sometimes the person says a few more lines and patiently explains what they're trying to say to me. Other times, I'm not so lucky, and I get lectured to in Temene while I stare back with the dear-in-the-headlights look. Unless they're asking me if I want to bath or if I'm eating rice, the conversation doesn't go very far.
The language thing is hard for a few reasons. One, it's not similar to English. There are 9 vowels and 170 letters in Temene , and it is filled with sounds that come out awkward (if at all) from my American tongue. Two, I am not learning Temene in training. My fellow trainees and I are learning how to speak Krio in training, the common laguage in Sierra Leone used at markets and for transportation. And later on, I start to learn Madingo, the local language spoken at my perminant site where I'll be serving the community for two years. There are sixteen native laguages spoken in Sierra Leone, not including Krio and English.
After breakfast, I grab my backpack, put my on my helmet and hop on my bicycle to head to training with some of my fellow trainees. We ride through Moforki, a small village where the Health trainees are living with host families, about dozen trainees out a total of 41. We make our way to Port Loko where the Peace Corps training center is located, swerving around puddles and potholes on the dirt roads of the village, while our neighbors yell out our Salone-given names wishing us a good morning. As we start cruising out of Moforki, we hear our names less and less, and "opoto" becomes the nickname of choice (Temene for "white person").
Nine hours of training and a cumulative 45 minutes of biking later, I am back in Moforki, and welcomed home by Aunty K and a heaping pile of rice and plasas. Tonight, it's cassava leaf, extra spicy. After dinner and stumbling through some conversations in Krio on the veranda, I take a well deserved bucket shower (don't knock it til you try it.) And just like that, it's 8:30 again and time to crawl back into bed and under the mosquito net.
---
After 9 weeks of training, my cohorts and I swore in as official Peace Corps volunteers on September 7th, comprising of 30 English, math, and sccience teachers and 11 health education specialists. The 11 of us are first group of health-focused Peace Corps volunteers in Sierra Leone since 1994. Our jobs are to educate on and implement behavior change tactics having to with malaria prevention, hygiene and sanitation practicies, and nutrition for children, pregnant women, and lactating mothers. We are change agents working in collaboration with Sierra Leone counterparts to help develop our communities into healthier places to live.
Lapa: two yards of brightly printed cotton material, often worn as a long wrap skirt.
Plasas: sauce made with leafy vegetable, such as cassava leaf or potato leaf.
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