Mano Dasse = awesome.

again, i have no shift on the left side on this computer so bear with me please....

First and foremost, i need to give a shout out to Marty Dertz's mom. She used her precious time while writing him a letter to complement my blog and how helpful it's been. i'm so glad it's benefiting someone other than my own family and marty is definitely one of my favorite dude's here. hands down.

i visited my village for the past 4 days and it was quite an experience. i left on saturday morning in a private vehicle. my principal's nephew, Joe, lived in america for 26 yrs and has his own business in bo and vehicle that he drove us to Bo in. so, we get to Mano Dasse and go to visit the school where i will be teaching. it is literally out in the middle of the bush. it's a quaint little school though and on my walk home, there is a point on a hill where i can see my whole village and the river. it's incredible. so after visiting the school, we headed to visit one of joe's friends that lives right next to the school. she is an older white woman by the name of Simon. She's from Switzerland and married a man from Mano and lives out in the bush and does agriculture work. She's lived there for 4 yrs and speaks perfect Mende and Krio, so i'm certain that i have a lot to learn from her. After that, we went to visit my house. It's a cute little house with 2 rooms. each maybe 10' x 20'. i also have an outdoor kitchen, bathroom and bath house. There are 2 papaya trees, 1 lime tree, and 1 plum tree in my yard. woo hoo! so, after this, we went back to where i was staying and i ate and took a nap. i am about 30 yards behind the police station with great neighbors.

during my stay, i was staying with the Paramount chief. For those that don't know, this is a huge deal. There are 129 villages in her chiefdom. i'll explain that later. So, i woke up from a nap and we walked down to the junction in town and sat under the amazingly bright moon and stars and drank a beer or two. By we, i mean my principal and i. it's pretty difficult to describe just how amazing the stars and moon are in a place with no electricity. i've never seen anything quite like it. my first night here, while sleeping, i woke up and almost had a heart attack because something living fell out of a hole in the ceiling, bounced off of my bug net, and ran across the floor. still don't know what it was. holy crap.

so sunday i woke up and went to the catholic church with my principal. he's pretty much my community mentor and conveniently, he was also a Mende teacher for many many years and he speaks excellent english so he is able to teach me about the phonetics of the mende language. so, we went to church and walked around town so that i could learn my way around. i also met more people such as the town chief, town speaker, court clerk, etc. My principal (mr. simbo) is also a section chief. the heirarchy is paramount chief, section chiefs, town/village chiefs. the town chief for Mano is the raddest dude ever. He's super old with huge glasses like mom used to wear in the 80's and white hair. i pretty much expect him to whip out a saxophone and start playing blues. he also explained that he has an extra room in his house that nobody stays in just in case strangers happen to need a place because the mende people like strangers so much. This, i can vouch for, is very very true. so, we went home and again, i took a nap. i'm afraid maybe the people think i'm lazy or seclusive because i took a nap every day i was there, but it's exhausting meeting 700 people a day, having them speak a language you don't know to you, and being stared at constantly. and they all expect you to learn the language immediately which can be frustrating. but uplifting when they are surprised at what you do already know. it's amazing that everyone knows 3 languages and doesn't think twice about it. too bad america doesn't do that. The african's switch freely between languages so often, i will have a conversation in English, Krio, AND Mende before it's all said and done. it's insane.

So Sunday night, right at about dusk, the chief got home and that was an insane introduction. She is, by far, the most queen like, regal, dignified lady that i have ever met and when she talks, people shut up and listen. She had been at a workshop meeting with officials from Nigeria, Guinea, and Liberia on progress of her chiefdom and areas that they were trying to improve. While we were talking, someone came in and kneeled to greet her. whoa. craziness. She even has a chair that she sits in that says EIIR 1961 on it because it was a chair that was made for all of the paramount chiefs in honor of Queen Elizabeth coming to visit in 1961. So, appreciation is a hard thing to portray in this culture, and i made a lame attempt to express my appreciation for feeding me and letting me stay and having people wait on me hand and foot. i think i might have gotten it across this morning when i left, but that's a really hard thing to portray when you are treated like royalty. The gifts that i received while i was in Mano, just for being a stranger, totalled up to 35 bananas, 2 coconuts, 3 giant cucumbers, 1 avocado, and 1 hijacked pineapple. by hijacked i mean that we drove to a nearby village and there was some guy walking on the site of the road with a pineapple on his head. my princapal pulled over, said something in Mande, and the guy handed over the pineapple and disappeared into the bush. Mr. Simbo (principal) then explained that pineapples weren't in season and that he hijacked it and it was for me. Wait. Huh? Wasn't sure what to do with that one. so i took it. i mean, hey, who am i to be rude and turn down a hijacked pineapple.

So, after the chief arrived home, what used to be an empty house turned into a parlor full of people that come to talk to the chief or just generally sit in her presence. It's rather interesting to watch. I'm not quite sure how she does it though. i would imagine that it's exhausting to constantly talk to people that you know come to talk for a reason. i was exhausted just listening and i don't even know the language.

So monday, i woke up and got ready for a community meeting led by the paramount chief. i put on my Africana dress and went with Mr. Simbo and waited awhile for the town bell to be rang and the chief to show up. She arrived and held a meeting in which they spoke in Mende. Some about me which was translated on the spot and some about the local road rebuild project. The chief explained who i was and what i was doing there and the community asked questions like whether or not i would be willing to hold adult math classes outside of school for those who were interested and possibly other courses. They also asked about whether or not i would be staying in my house alone because they were concerned about my safety. I was completely touched by their sincerity and welcoming of strangers into their community. After the meeting, several people came to introduce themselves. The community health officer explained that he is interested in sciences such as chemistry and physics so after i told him i studied engineering, he was pretty pumped that i would be able to teach him past the education that he already has. Like others, he informed me that they realized that i was here to help the community and education was a problem area and if anybody tried to mess with me, that he would quit his hospital duties and come to stand outside my house as a personal bodyguard. haha. it's unreal how safe i feel there.

So, after introductions and holding the hands of a lot of curious little kids, the paramount chief suggested that we go visit my house. by the way, i've successfully dodged the pumuey comment by waiting for the kids to say pumuey and then flipping the scripts on them and calling them Mende muey. They aren't really sure what to do with that and all of the adults think it's hysterical. Anyway, upon seeing my house, she informed the mason that was present that we needed to do an extension ASAP b/c i needed an indoor toilet and kitchen so that i wouldn't have to leave my house at night. how do you even say thank you for this sort of thing? i'm befuddled.

so monday, we took the cheif's car and went to the teeny tiny villages surrounding our town. They are all very beautiful. Also, Monday night, whatever creature was mentioned from above about my first night scare returned, but this time, it made it inside my bug net. i've never moved quicker in my life than when i woke up to an unidentified varment inside my net and crawling on my head. i sprung to the foot of the bed frantically shining my light and saw/hearn nothing......sneaky little varment. i think because of my malaria medicine causing wild dreams that i imagined that it was a giant hairy spider. Spiders don't bother me, but they do when they catch me off guard. it sounded like a crab might sound on tile floor though and it totally freaked me out. but naturally, i got over it and went back to sleep.

This morning, i woke up and hopped on board a bush taxi which was an interesting experience. We left at 8 sharp and it took about 2.5 hrs. to go 38 miles bc of rough roads, stopping to cram more people in, and stopping to fix the taxi. At this point i was so burnt out and overwhelmed that when people spoke Mende to me, all i could really do was blink at them. i felt bad, but my brain is really on overload. The past 4 days have been crammed full of learning names of people that expect me to remember and also trying to learn the language i don't know that everyone speaks. Sheesh.

Until next time.... over and out.