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Harriet Evans

“I spent nearly two months this summer teaching in one of EducAid's schools up country in a village called Magbeni. It was my first time in Africa and at first I was really struck by the obvious poverty; no running water, electricity or nutritious food. EducAid use a government building that was kindly given to them by the primary school that is also run in the same village. Over two hundred very lucky children cram into the hot and dusty schoolhouse everyday and several lessons go on at the same time across the room. Working alongside other Sierra Leonean teachers was a particularly great part of the whole experience for me and I was really inspired by their thirst for knowledge and understanding and their enthusiasm for teaching. It was also inspiring for me to teach kids who take their education seriously and who know how lucky they are to be with EducAid. These are kids who aspire to be doctors, lawyers, presidents and teachers and one day transform Sierra Leone.”

Harriet Evans visited EducAid in the summer of 2009.

Rajasree Roy

September 3, 2009

EducAid Sierra Leone

Diamonds in the Sky

SUNDAY, JUNE 14, 2009: 3 AM

Josh and I have been flipping through the village handbook for several hours now. Time elapsed: 2.5 hours. Symptoms: Headache, throbbing heart pain, 104ºF+ fever, vomiting, and yellowish skin. Rheumatic fever, malaria, tonsillitis….hmm, his best friend died three weeks ago from abnormal symptoms of tuberculosis…could it be that? James went back up the hill to call his dad, who is a GP, for advice. Harriet is putting wet cloths on his head to bring down the high fever. Even the headmaster is hoping that we can save him. But we are not doctors. What can we do? Yeah, we can check his temperature, give him some Paracetamol, and hope for the best. With no trained doctor at hand, what else can we do? The children are scrambling here and there to help in any way that they can, reluctant to lose yet another one of their companions. After all, he is one of them, one of the glimpses of hope for the future of Sierra Leone.

This past summer was perhaps the most eye-opening, life-changing, and phenomenal experiences of my life. It put a lot of things into perspective for me and has driven me to pursue my passions. I volunteered with the EducAid Sierra Leone Organisation, a British founded establishment which provides secondary school education free of cost to the children of Sierra Leone. Since primary school education is free throughout the country, EducAid helps bridge the gap and continue the education of those who are unprivileged by establishing schools throughout the nation. The annual cost of secondary school fees in Sierra Leone is 60 USD per student, which is more than most teenagers there can afford. Although Sierra Leone’s devastating civil war left the country in physical ruins, the empowering human spirit and inspiring optimism of the people give the nation a tremendous beauty that this world bequeaths only to those who have known great suffering.

These schools consist of three types of students: village kids who live nearby, homegirls/homeboys who are from distant villages but are staying at the school to get an education, and orphans who have lost everything but are holding onto this last trace of hope for a better future. The charisma and determination in these students are mind-blowing. When I arrived in Sierra Leone my first night, I was taken to the headquarters in Lumley, Freetown. This is the bungalow of the director of EducAid, Miriam Mason-Sesay, an amazing woman who has allowed her home to become the learning institution for thousands of children around the country. Once students are promoted from their respective village schools, they come to Freetown to further advance their education. After they fully graduate from secondary school, EducAid tries to find them sponsors from abroad to help fund their college education for higher studies. In the meantime, many of these students give back to the system by working as teachers themselves for the village schools.  

The first couple of scenes as I walked through the many stories of the school in the dark of the night gave me a realistic view of how dedicated these kids are to make the most of these opportunities. What I thought were pieces of furniture from the shadows, were actually rows and rows of children peacefully sleeping through the night, on and under tables, beside bookshelves, basically anywhere they could fit. They took on innocent fetal positions as they lay next to each other in a basic happiness that I tried so hard to take in and understand. After spending the first night there, I realized in the morning that these various tables and bookshelves were actually those of the classroom. Each floor was a huge classroom that was quickly transformed many times of the day to fit the needs of that time. It was a study space in the mornings, a cafeteria in the afternoons, a playground in the evenings and a bedroom dormitory at night. Still, these kids were so content with what they had. This setup mirrored the system that I soon encountered in Magbeni, a village three hours away from the Freetown headquarters, a place that would soon become my home for the next six weeks.

The road to Magbeni foreshadowed the striking beauty of the village. As we drove further and further away from the congestion of Freetown, I was entranced by the lush green rainforest on either side.  When we passed by the three villages that preceded Magbeni, children ran outside to yell out “Opotu” which I later found out to mean “white man”. The British girl who was accompanying me, Harriet, yelled back “Owunibee” with a smile. This, she told me, meant “black man”. I was initially shocked at this blatant racialization, but soon realised that the exchange was pure and simple, without any malicious intent involved. These children were simply excited to shout out what they saw. If they saw someone that was lighter skinned and not of their skin color, they assumed they were a “white man”. They also took no offense when someone called them “black man” because they embraced this factual description. Rather than being an aggressive verbal exchange, it was, if anything, naïve. As for me, I was still a “white man” to them until the very end in which some of them started finally describing me as “copper-colored”.

The reception to Magbeni was very warm. I was the last of the five teachers to come and the village welcomed me with open arms. They immediately started offering me foods and goods that they thought would make me comfortable. Village kids in class and out were scrambling to take a glimpse of me and you could hear giggles and see the excitement and curiosity in their eyes everywhere you looked. There was no time to waste. We immediately joined the morning staff meeting and our work began.

Although I was engaged in a plethora of projects throughout my stay there, I was mainly involved in the Health Education Program.  I taught all of the students and teachers/staff alike the importance of taking care of their health and others. In a place where there is no electricity, clean running water, or access to a medical facility, education on various health topics goes a long way. By the end of my time there, all students were better informed about sanitation, CPR, first aid procedures, and various diseases that plague the area. Being a part of this program gave me the good fortune to interact intimately with each and every staff member and student in the village. Each class met with me twice a week as they rotated lessons. Since school hours were from 8 am to 3 pm, I met with staff members after school to teach them similar lessons. If there was a free period in the day, I’d help tutor Red and Blue Group 1 students (those who were preparing for their promotion examinations) in mathematics and English.

The variegated experiences that I had accumulated in the past greatly helped me in being productive and engaging in the community. I had spent the previous summer teaching at a village school in Kolkata, India. Although the material and the teaching style involved were somewhat similar, the circumstances were greatly different. I did not have to overcome a language and cultural barrier in India, but had to quickly adjust to the cultural norms in Sierra Leone. To be honest, it wasn’t such a struggle acclimating to Magbeni. In fact, much of the Indian and African cultural norms were very similar. As soon as I got over the language barrier by learning the basics and emphasizing more hand gestures, communication became easier. 

My Resident Advisor role at Duke also enabled me to mentor many of the girls in the Women’s Project. This is a special program in which women who had not had an earlier education were given the chance to catch up and join the rest of their peers. Although I was dealing with secondary school education, the students at the school ranged from the ages of ten through twenty-five, all in different stages of their education and development. These young ladies from the Women’s Project came from different backgrounds and were talented and knowledgeable in so many ways. Although they were behind in academics due to their special circumstances, they were far ahead of any of us Westerners if you closely looked at survival skills. They cooked for the school, did laundry, cleaned the compounds, and provided musical entertainment for each other. All the students, with boys included, were self-sufficient. They were able to take care of themselves with scarce resources, something even many “educated” individuals would have difficulty with if they were stripped of all of their amenities. It was interesting mentoring these individuals and opening up their mindsets to the world around them. It was necessary to challenge their beliefs and encourage discussions in order to initiate self-discovery.

Apart from academics, it was equally fulfilling to introduce them to various forms of art appreciation as well. We hosted many talent shows, drawing competitions, drama club presentations and debate tournaments to enrich these other facets of intellectual enrichment. Although many of them were already involved in music and sports-related activities, they did not appreciate these passions as talent and as part of their self-value. Instead, they looked at these as trivial pastimes. Teaching them to appreciate various forms of their own talent, apart from academics, allowed us a facet to be a part of opening up their minds and encouraging creativity. It was extremely encouraging to have curious students who were always interested in learning more. Granted, many of them did not want to study all the time and preferred to play, but if once they received encouragement to focus on alternative activities, it was clear that these students had a lot of potential and that many of them had a lot to say. It was evident that many of my students had started to attribute intrinsic value to their academic and artistic pursuits. 

My time in Magbeni was very fulfilling because I was able to completely immerse myself into the culture and environment. I was with these children 24/7, eating, sleeping, playing, cleaning, sharing and living with them. We went on adventures together, competing in river races, plucking juicy mangoes from trees of the neighboring chiefdom, and watching Bollywood and Nigerian movies when we had the generator running for some days of the week. They liked braiding my long Indian hair and I loved helping (or trying to help) them cook. We often had musical jam sessions in which we sang and danced to various Indian, African, British, and American tunes. My African dancing courses at Duke helped me synchronise my body only a little bit with them, for most of the women there had amazing dancing abilities. It was also a lot of fun hearing them trying to sing Indian Bollywood songs, which were actually very much in tune. It wasn’t long before we became a part of one big family.

All in all, this experience was amazing. I’ve always been interested in becoming a part of Doctors Without Borders in the future, but after this exposure, I know for a fact that this is what I want to do for a living. Comparing this adventure with a pediatric shadowing experience I had soon after Sierra Leone, I know that an 8-5 office workday is not what excites me. Instead of being restricted by four walls, I want to be out there in communities such as this, helping the population and providing resources in forms of education so that the future of the country lies in the hands of its children and not in foreign establishments. Education is the primary way of making Sierra Leone and any country for that matter a truly independent and successful nation. For example, while we were in the village, there was only one nurse within two hours of Magbeni. Even then, she was really a witch doctor. For 30,000 inhabitants of the country, there is only one professional doctor. With these kinds of statistics and severity of the conditions around the world, I know my purpose. In guiding these children, I feel as if I’m fulfilling my mission, one child at a time. 

When I first landed in Sierra Leone, enormous diamonds immediately caught my eye. They were in the sky. They were the stars. I have never seen such an amazing site in my life. It was as if someone had shattered glass on a black tiled floor. The children of this beautiful country are like these stars. No matter what goes on beneath them, they continue to shine brightly. Dedicated. Determined.