Actually, not quite yet... I’ve still got over $3000 to spend.
For those of you who contributed to the Life Skills project, you’ll be glad to know that by the end of June all of your money – if I do say so myself – will have been well-spent.
Here’s a rough summary of costs to give you an idea of how we organized this year-long project:
Training of trainers (November-December): $1700
Five-six months of classes and clubs: in-kind or free
Monitoring and follow-up: in-kind or free
Mid-term evaluation (April): $500
Final evaluation (June) including gifts of mentoring books and soccer balls for the Life Skills schools: $2800
Follow-up Project Design and Management training for school inspectors (July): $900
(Actually this last item is not your money but USAID funding)
Our final event will take place on June 29 and will involve not only all of the educators and tradesmen trained to teach Life Skills but also approximately two dozen representatives from NGOs or other international organizations that work in girls’ education and empowerment, HIV/AIDS, family planning or youth. Money originally budgeted to bolster classes and clubs (which turned out to be free) will now be used to host this large-scale event. We will invite local authorities and the press. There will be food and non-alcoholic drink. Most of all there will be lofty speeches and lots of extremely late-to-arrive important men.
Why organize such a protocol headache instead of just giving out LOTS of books and girls soccer balls as gifts? Sustainability. (Here’s hoping!) This workshop will be designed to showcase our “pilot program” before potential collaborators, donors and advocates. It will provide an opportunity for the people I have worked with to connect with other organizations with similar missions and interests.
The day will include presentations on our pilot project; a short peer-educator skit performed by students; two ice-breaker/ group challenges demonstrated by select apprentices; and the main event – a two hour debate (round table discussion?) on how Life Skills educators and attending organizations can collaborate.
I am excited about the project’s end and hoping hard that the event will be great. The people I’ve worked with are enthusiastic and generous but it is difficult to maintain motivation without some outside influence. They could teach Life Skills, or not. Frankly it’s easier to have a free period.
But if we get people talking, if Peace Corps gives this town volunteer replacements, if the trainers develop relationships with Population Services International, UNDP, Plan International and UNICEF… maybe this “pilot” education project will make a long-term dent.
14 June 2010
01 April 2010
Mama Olga
The woman next door yells at her teenage sons. Her name is Olga. I call her "Mama". She owns my house and we occasionally sit and chat.
Last night Mama explained the latest ways her sons, daughter and family all drive her up the wall. The boys never listen; when she gets home from work all the dishes are dirty; the children lack humility; the daughter is too fat; and the cousins expect her to take care of the latest sick relative. I sometimes listen to her yelling and notice that she almost never calls each son's name less than twice. On the first times, I suppose they don't come.
Mama's husband died over a year ago after a long illness that robbed him of the abilities to talk and walk beyond a few steps for eleven years. She feels that she was robbed of what would have been the easiest years of her marriage. Mama is tired of illness and tired of men. She is tired of cooking for people and dealing with the attitudes of her teenagers. She is tired of working at the health clinic all day and wishes she could take a vacation to go anywhere but doesn't have the money.
Mama has a good job - hygiene assistant responsible for teaching the local population about environmental cleanliness, personal hygiene, family planning and heath maintenance. She is university educated. She can get by with a bit of English. But people have lost the respect they used to have for hygienists in her position. No one listens. She is grateful, nonetheless, for a job where she makes rounds in the community rather than sits tied to a desk. She is grateful to have at least one daughter who helps her at the house, begrudgingly, when she is home from university in Lomé. She is grateful for the grace of God. Like many Togolese, Mama is passionately Christian and proudly vocal about her beliefs in Jesus. We say grace each time before eating together and she tries to drag me off to church when I am not off to Lomé on a Sunday morning.
She gives me advice not realizing what my real Mama has long since known: I won't listen when I know I'm being told what to do. Even if she knew, it wouldn't stop her; the culture of unasked for advice is different here than in America. Advice comes free in West Africa. Mama tells me to enjoy the silence, the calm and the time alone in my life while I still can since one day I'll have "little Americans" running around, driving me crazy and refusing to be quiet or leave me alone. She seems to approve of my apparent senses of adventure and charity that have brought me all the way here to Togo. She would have liked to visit a place like America but knows that she will now never have the chance.
Mama's job is similar to mine in that she reaches out to people beyond her organization. She says the people in her household could use advice in leading lives that are healthy and sane since they're all so disobedient and unhelpful. She says I should enjoy my time alone now, go home, get married and have little Americans.
Last night Mama explained the latest ways her sons, daughter and family all drive her up the wall. The boys never listen; when she gets home from work all the dishes are dirty; the children lack humility; the daughter is too fat; and the cousins expect her to take care of the latest sick relative. I sometimes listen to her yelling and notice that she almost never calls each son's name less than twice. On the first times, I suppose they don't come.
Mama's husband died over a year ago after a long illness that robbed him of the abilities to talk and walk beyond a few steps for eleven years. She feels that she was robbed of what would have been the easiest years of her marriage. Mama is tired of illness and tired of men. She is tired of cooking for people and dealing with the attitudes of her teenagers. She is tired of working at the health clinic all day and wishes she could take a vacation to go anywhere but doesn't have the money.
Mama has a good job - hygiene assistant responsible for teaching the local population about environmental cleanliness, personal hygiene, family planning and heath maintenance. She is university educated. She can get by with a bit of English. But people have lost the respect they used to have for hygienists in her position. No one listens. She is grateful, nonetheless, for a job where she makes rounds in the community rather than sits tied to a desk. She is grateful to have at least one daughter who helps her at the house, begrudgingly, when she is home from university in Lomé. She is grateful for the grace of God. Like many Togolese, Mama is passionately Christian and proudly vocal about her beliefs in Jesus. We say grace each time before eating together and she tries to drag me off to church when I am not off to Lomé on a Sunday morning.
She gives me advice not realizing what my real Mama has long since known: I won't listen when I know I'm being told what to do. Even if she knew, it wouldn't stop her; the culture of unasked for advice is different here than in America. Advice comes free in West Africa. Mama tells me to enjoy the silence, the calm and the time alone in my life while I still can since one day I'll have "little Americans" running around, driving me crazy and refusing to be quiet or leave me alone. She seems to approve of my apparent senses of adventure and charity that have brought me all the way here to Togo. She would have liked to visit a place like America but knows that she will now never have the chance.
Mama's job is similar to mine in that she reaches out to people beyond her organization. She says the people in her household could use advice in leading lives that are healthy and sane since they're all so disobedient and unhelpful. She says I should enjoy my time alone now, go home, get married and have little Americans.
10 March 2010
Sister Seduction
Things in this land of beans and rice are going well, at least for me. It has been a little over three months since the big training and so far my teachers are doing well! In April we will get together as a large group for the first time since November to conduct the second workshop – Mid-term Evaluation. There we will talk about Life Skills via exchanges on best practices; problems encountered; proposed solutions and techniques for behavior change.
On Thursday Togo had its presidential elections. Although we Peace Corps Volunteers are obligated to stay away from political gathers and advised to avoid gatherings of any kind during political times… I took a little spin on my bike the day of the elections and the day after to check out the mayhem. In fact, I saw nothing of interest on my mid-day rides (I should have gone first thing in the morning to catch the real voting action!) but I did take a moment to appreciate the feeling of calm before the storm.
Last time Togo held elections in 2005, violence ensued and hundreds of people were killed in protests and riots following the elections. This time around, so far, things have been relatively calm. There were allegedly grenades and guns shots on Saturday in one neighborhood of the capital but other than that we’ve heard next to nothing. So it appears that: this year’s free and unfair election will pass without serious bloodshed; the European Union election supervisors will declare the process non-transparent; nothing will change and everyone will move on.
Despite the political climate, my little world turns. I’ve been making rounds to the high schools to observe our educators teaching Life Skills. In every class, I say a few words, usually at the end of the lesson but sometimes in the beginning or middle too. After it is over, I have either a one-on-one or a small group meeting to give feedback.
In the French system feedback is generally more direct – much less praise and much more critique. The grading system is x/20 where a decent and passing grade is 12/20 and 10/20 is not good but also not failure. As an American can you imagine getting 60% on a test and thinking that this was decent? So needless to say, my feedback sessions are usually a pleasure for everyone. True to my American form I start with a heck of a lot of praise, I think that went very well… I appreciated that you did this… I’m glad that this came across like that… and by the time I get to the actual criticisms they are so buried in fluff that everyone walks away feeling great about the session!
I don’t know about the effectiveness of my technique but the bottom line is this: I can’t teach teachers how to teach. I try never to forget this. My role has been that of a catalyst, an organizer, a monitor and most importantly perhaps, a heartfelt support. I want these people to want to advance in this work. I want them to feel that they are making change, doing good and accomplishing their small part.
I also want them to quantify their work and figure out how to reach up – in a society where everything comes from the top to the bottom – and touch their superiors through periodic reporting and relevant facts. This is the hardest part. How do you measure behavior change? How do you quantify self confidence? Who is monitoring students’ ability to communicate? Who can evaluate their interactions in private groups? Relationship management and decision making skills are all about teaching these kids to own and shape their futures. There is no easy answer on how to measure all this although the ongoing discussion is vibrant.
Before I started my observation visits – I stopped by each class or group just to introduce myself. Invariably the principal or vice principal would give me a lofty and/or comical introduction…
Here we have Christina Sobiloff the representative for Peace Corps America!
Here we have the white woman I told you about, Life Sills project organisatrice!
Here we have Madame Christina, an American who can speak French!
Here we have Miss Christina, a beautiful woman … look at her kids!
Here we have an American, who will seduce you with her accent in French!
Here we have Sister Christina who is basically a nun!
You may be wondering how I was basically called a seductress and a nun all in the space of one week. I ask myself the same thing. But I recall the words of one of my primary counterparts after the director for the Girls’ Education and Empowerment program gave a speech: she’s seductive, he said, to describe how compelling was the delivery of her message. An American would not have used my counterpart’s word to describe the appeal of the presentation. Seduction and sex would have nothing to do with it. I’m also not sure that is exactly what he meant. But if the intelligent and dynamic director of my program seduces her audience, that’s exactly what I want to do too. Next time, I’ll hope it is with my words and not my accent.
Finally, I’ve tried to explain to the one high school principal who insists on calling me Sister Christina, that I am NOT a nun and there is no need to call me Sister. Nonetheless, he persists. At least in his school the boys aren’t shouting out that they love me, no, surely those young boys understand that I am eternally and faithfully married to God.
On Thursday Togo had its presidential elections. Although we Peace Corps Volunteers are obligated to stay away from political gathers and advised to avoid gatherings of any kind during political times… I took a little spin on my bike the day of the elections and the day after to check out the mayhem. In fact, I saw nothing of interest on my mid-day rides (I should have gone first thing in the morning to catch the real voting action!) but I did take a moment to appreciate the feeling of calm before the storm.
Last time Togo held elections in 2005, violence ensued and hundreds of people were killed in protests and riots following the elections. This time around, so far, things have been relatively calm. There were allegedly grenades and guns shots on Saturday in one neighborhood of the capital but other than that we’ve heard next to nothing. So it appears that: this year’s free and unfair election will pass without serious bloodshed; the European Union election supervisors will declare the process non-transparent; nothing will change and everyone will move on.
Despite the political climate, my little world turns. I’ve been making rounds to the high schools to observe our educators teaching Life Skills. In every class, I say a few words, usually at the end of the lesson but sometimes in the beginning or middle too. After it is over, I have either a one-on-one or a small group meeting to give feedback.
In the French system feedback is generally more direct – much less praise and much more critique. The grading system is x/20 where a decent and passing grade is 12/20 and 10/20 is not good but also not failure. As an American can you imagine getting 60% on a test and thinking that this was decent? So needless to say, my feedback sessions are usually a pleasure for everyone. True to my American form I start with a heck of a lot of praise, I think that went very well… I appreciated that you did this… I’m glad that this came across like that… and by the time I get to the actual criticisms they are so buried in fluff that everyone walks away feeling great about the session!
I don’t know about the effectiveness of my technique but the bottom line is this: I can’t teach teachers how to teach. I try never to forget this. My role has been that of a catalyst, an organizer, a monitor and most importantly perhaps, a heartfelt support. I want these people to want to advance in this work. I want them to feel that they are making change, doing good and accomplishing their small part.
I also want them to quantify their work and figure out how to reach up – in a society where everything comes from the top to the bottom – and touch their superiors through periodic reporting and relevant facts. This is the hardest part. How do you measure behavior change? How do you quantify self confidence? Who is monitoring students’ ability to communicate? Who can evaluate their interactions in private groups? Relationship management and decision making skills are all about teaching these kids to own and shape their futures. There is no easy answer on how to measure all this although the ongoing discussion is vibrant.
Before I started my observation visits – I stopped by each class or group just to introduce myself. Invariably the principal or vice principal would give me a lofty and/or comical introduction…
Here we have Christina Sobiloff the representative for Peace Corps America!
Here we have the white woman I told you about, Life Sills project organisatrice!
Here we have Madame Christina, an American who can speak French!
Here we have Miss Christina, a beautiful woman … look at her kids!
Here we have an American, who will seduce you with her accent in French!
Here we have Sister Christina who is basically a nun!
You may be wondering how I was basically called a seductress and a nun all in the space of one week. I ask myself the same thing. But I recall the words of one of my primary counterparts after the director for the Girls’ Education and Empowerment program gave a speech: she’s seductive, he said, to describe how compelling was the delivery of her message. An American would not have used my counterpart’s word to describe the appeal of the presentation. Seduction and sex would have nothing to do with it. I’m also not sure that is exactly what he meant. But if the intelligent and dynamic director of my program seduces her audience, that’s exactly what I want to do too. Next time, I’ll hope it is with my words and not my accent.
Finally, I’ve tried to explain to the one high school principal who insists on calling me Sister Christina, that I am NOT a nun and there is no need to call me Sister. Nonetheless, he persists. At least in his school the boys aren’t shouting out that they love me, no, surely those young boys understand that I am eternally and faithfully married to God.
17 February 2010
Dog Tired
What’s the difference between a sick day in West Africa and one in the States?
Twelve colleagues, direct from the workplace, visiting you at home.
That’s right. On Monday I wasn’t feeling well so I called in sick to my morning meeting at the guild. A classic 12-hour stomach bug induced by expired lentils and too much moldy jam – yes embarrassing – but in retrospect, true.
So I lay on the couch, tried not to move, and hoped the electricity would hold out at least for the morning. Of course I should have seen it coming. I should have put on a bra; I should have washed my face and I should have brushed my teeth. But nausea is a great equalizer and the effort of moving from the bed to the couch was enough for the first hour of the morning. Pouring a glass of water to sip was about it for the second.
Of course, around sometime before noon the first two guests came a knocking.
I’m coming… uh yes, hi. How are you. How was the session this morning? Yes I don’t feel great but its fine. You are here to visit, how nice. At this point I sat down in the one weensy corner of shade, on the ground. Sooo, should I get you a chair. Yes? Right. Wait, you say there are more? POURQUOI??? (Out loud, whoops!)
So at this point the effort of standing back up and slipping through the approximately two feet of direct sunlight before heading inside toward the chairs, of course, induced vomiting. Lovely. Just in time for the guests. Two more arrived. Then four more again. Oh hello, how are you all. You came to visit. I’m fine. Really. Now I ran out of chairs and the second thing the president of the guild said to me upon arrival went something like, What?? But there is sunlight here? But… No shade. Where. How. We must go inside. HOW??
OK, fine. Grab the chairs and come in the house that’s fine. Then my counterpart who always graces me with French and never tries to befuddle me in local language goes for the traditional greeting of we are come to visit you, oh sick friend, to give you the encouragement, courage and human company necessary to heal, don’t worry, God will forever hold you in the palm of His magnanimous, beneficent hand so let us pray. And I’ll pray too right after I throw away that moldy jam those expired lentils.
And OK – maybe he didn’t say all this in Ewe and said something else more like Goodmorning. How did you wake up? How are things in your home? But I’ll hear what I want to when my usually wonderful counterpart refuses to communicate in a language that he speaks perfectly and that I understand. AND when, meanwhile, he is leading the troops in a tradition SOO far from AMERICAN that I want to ask all twelve people have you MET me? Who thought this was a GOOD idea?
And anyway, that first thing is totally what they WOULD have said if that had thought of it before hand…
People are very Christian here in Togo. First thing every day my host family listens to church from about 5:30 to 7:00 in the morning except on Sundays when they actually go there and afford me a precious few hours free of depressing, unharmonious chanting bleating from their staticky radio. On weekdays, if I’m still around the house, from about 7:00 onwards in the morning another neighbor takes over Christian radio duty and plays more depressing chants until the sun really starts to get hot.
Luckily I experienced it all yesterday morning when I had my sick day. Thankfully, by late afternoon I felt MUCH better. Well enough to make some margarine pasta and eat it so yeah!
That evening, after a boring day alone I decided to hang with the host family for a bit and maybe even try eating again. We got to talking about the family dog. His name, I recently learned, is Ideal. In six months I have never once touched this animal essentially living in my courtyard and dog lovers please don’t take this the wrong way. NO ONE touches this dog or most other dogs in Togo, Burkina, etc. unless the plan is to kick it or apparently… I’ll come back to that.
Well, one other time recently Mama and I got to talking about this dog and she explained to me that really, she loves the thing. He’s the perfect kind of dog because he does his rightful job of guarding the home and barking like crazy upon seeing any intruders (including me – the confusing white member of the family – often enough). We got to talking about him again last night while I recalled our last conversation about Ideal.
He smells. He is dirty and smells very bad but we can’t wash him because if we try to touch him he will bite.
Oh, well, you know. You’ll figure it out.
No he is too dirty I am thinking of getting rid of him.
But no, last time we talked you said he was a good dog! You love him, no?
Yes he is a good dog but he is too dirty now and I think I will sell him and get a new dog.
But who will buy someone’s old guard dog anyhow? Won’t they have the same problems as you?
No of course not, we will sell him to another ethnicity – there are some that will buy and eat dogs.
Aah. Ok. (pause) So why don’t you just eat him yourselves?
Our ethnicity does NOT eat dogs!
Twelve colleagues, direct from the workplace, visiting you at home.
That’s right. On Monday I wasn’t feeling well so I called in sick to my morning meeting at the guild. A classic 12-hour stomach bug induced by expired lentils and too much moldy jam – yes embarrassing – but in retrospect, true.
So I lay on the couch, tried not to move, and hoped the electricity would hold out at least for the morning. Of course I should have seen it coming. I should have put on a bra; I should have washed my face and I should have brushed my teeth. But nausea is a great equalizer and the effort of moving from the bed to the couch was enough for the first hour of the morning. Pouring a glass of water to sip was about it for the second.
Of course, around sometime before noon the first two guests came a knocking.
I’m coming… uh yes, hi. How are you. How was the session this morning? Yes I don’t feel great but its fine. You are here to visit, how nice. At this point I sat down in the one weensy corner of shade, on the ground. Sooo, should I get you a chair. Yes? Right. Wait, you say there are more? POURQUOI??? (Out loud, whoops!)
So at this point the effort of standing back up and slipping through the approximately two feet of direct sunlight before heading inside toward the chairs, of course, induced vomiting. Lovely. Just in time for the guests. Two more arrived. Then four more again. Oh hello, how are you all. You came to visit. I’m fine. Really. Now I ran out of chairs and the second thing the president of the guild said to me upon arrival went something like, What?? But there is sunlight here? But… No shade. Where. How. We must go inside. HOW??
OK, fine. Grab the chairs and come in the house that’s fine. Then my counterpart who always graces me with French and never tries to befuddle me in local language goes for the traditional greeting of we are come to visit you, oh sick friend, to give you the encouragement, courage and human company necessary to heal, don’t worry, God will forever hold you in the palm of His magnanimous, beneficent hand so let us pray. And I’ll pray too right after I throw away that moldy jam those expired lentils.
And OK – maybe he didn’t say all this in Ewe and said something else more like Goodmorning. How did you wake up? How are things in your home? But I’ll hear what I want to when my usually wonderful counterpart refuses to communicate in a language that he speaks perfectly and that I understand. AND when, meanwhile, he is leading the troops in a tradition SOO far from AMERICAN that I want to ask all twelve people have you MET me? Who thought this was a GOOD idea?
And anyway, that first thing is totally what they WOULD have said if that had thought of it before hand…
People are very Christian here in Togo. First thing every day my host family listens to church from about 5:30 to 7:00 in the morning except on Sundays when they actually go there and afford me a precious few hours free of depressing, unharmonious chanting bleating from their staticky radio. On weekdays, if I’m still around the house, from about 7:00 onwards in the morning another neighbor takes over Christian radio duty and plays more depressing chants until the sun really starts to get hot.
Luckily I experienced it all yesterday morning when I had my sick day. Thankfully, by late afternoon I felt MUCH better. Well enough to make some margarine pasta and eat it so yeah!
That evening, after a boring day alone I decided to hang with the host family for a bit and maybe even try eating again. We got to talking about the family dog. His name, I recently learned, is Ideal. In six months I have never once touched this animal essentially living in my courtyard and dog lovers please don’t take this the wrong way. NO ONE touches this dog or most other dogs in Togo, Burkina, etc. unless the plan is to kick it or apparently… I’ll come back to that.
Well, one other time recently Mama and I got to talking about this dog and she explained to me that really, she loves the thing. He’s the perfect kind of dog because he does his rightful job of guarding the home and barking like crazy upon seeing any intruders (including me – the confusing white member of the family – often enough). We got to talking about him again last night while I recalled our last conversation about Ideal.
He smells. He is dirty and smells very bad but we can’t wash him because if we try to touch him he will bite.
Oh, well, you know. You’ll figure it out.
No he is too dirty I am thinking of getting rid of him.
But no, last time we talked you said he was a good dog! You love him, no?
Yes he is a good dog but he is too dirty now and I think I will sell him and get a new dog.
But who will buy someone’s old guard dog anyhow? Won’t they have the same problems as you?
No of course not, we will sell him to another ethnicity – there are some that will buy and eat dogs.
Aah. Ok. (pause) So why don’t you just eat him yourselves?
Our ethnicity does NOT eat dogs!
06 January 2010
Training of Trainers Photos
AT GUILD - Training tradesmen to teach Life Skills
PC Togo Country Director & Director for Girls' Education visit
Group challenge - Flip the Boat
Group challenge - Bring Water to the Village
"Family Photo"
AT HIGH SCHOOL - Training school inspectors, principals, vice principals & teachers to facilitate Life Skills lessons
Role playing - Rita and Lucy
Talking to the group
Group challenge - The Human Knot
Working on an action plan
Chief school inspector, me & group Gbatope
Icebreaker - Find the Leader
Group work
Introducing closing ceremony
Chief school inspector & Peace Corps Director of Girls' Education
"Family Photo"
PC Togo Country Director & Director for Girls' Education visit
Group challenge - Flip the Boat
Group challenge - Bring Water to the Village
"Family Photo"
AT HIGH SCHOOL - Training school inspectors, principals, vice principals & teachers to facilitate Life Skills lessons
Role playing - Rita and Lucy
Talking to the group
Group challenge - The Human Knot
Working on an action plan
Chief school inspector, me & group Gbatope
Icebreaker - Find the Leader
Group work
Introducing closing ceremony
Chief school inspector & Peace Corps Director of Girls' Education
"Family Photo"
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