Well

It's been quite a while since we updated the blog mostly because it's a bit of a challenge to think of what to write. Our lives here, though generally pleasant and comfortable, aren't particularly interesting. I do not really feel like I have much insight into life in Kinshasa beyond what I read in the news online or the general observations that just about any outsider would make about this place. So I have been holding back from writing. I cannot think of anything I feel like is worth sharing. My brother Thom says I should write about teaching, and another teacher expressed similar sentiments to me recently when I explained my trepidation about writing about my life here. He said that writing about the elite students that we work with could be a fascinating blog in and of itself. Yet, I shy away from writing anything too personal on the internet about people whose permission I don't have, and I don't really want my students searching out this blog so I'd never ask for permission. Plus, I seem incapable of focusing my attention on the uniqueness of my students' experiences as I am always getting wrapped up in their inability to use commas appropriately.

So should we just put this blog to rest? I don't think I'm quite ready for that just yet, but I'm still not sure what my goal should be in writing. I have been thinking about this issue lately as I have been reading quite a lot and questioning my own lack of inspiration for writing. I know that I can write, but why is it that I have nothing that I want to write about? And why is it that I seem to have an almost moral opposition to the romanticization and fictionalization of reality. My nitpickiness which probably comes from my grandfather makes me wary beyond belief of writing anything that is not 100% accurate. I also take this out on James as I have quite a proclivity for correcting and clarifying. So, I am still trying to figure out how it is possible to write about my experiences in a captivating way while preserving accuracy.

As I continue to try to sort these issues out, I will attempt to update more, but who knows how it will all work out. For now, I will look out my window and ponder the jungle in my backyard, one part of Kinshasa that I know rather well.

Coming to terms with house music

After two months in the Congo, I am still struggling to think of interesting things to write about our life here. It's not that we are by any means unhappy or even bored. As I mentioned, our quality of life is quite high. We've got a great place to live, can afford to treat ourselves to some of the ridiculously expensive imported foods, spend many afternoons at the pool, and always have people to hang out with. This blog is supposed to about "African" things, right? And we're just not in a position to gain much in the way of a perspective on the state of the Congo as relative outsiders.

As I mentioned in a previous post, one interesting thing about living here is getting to see the intersection of Central and Southern African goods and culture. Though the Congo is geographically in central Africa, South Africa seems to be working towards co-opting into it's area of dominance (that already extends across Southern Africa). South African companies are worming their way in, and the DRC is part of SADC (the Southern African Development Community).

The more interesting thing to observe is the intersection of culture here. People say 'koko' before entering a room just like in South Africa. They also grab they air to motion someone to come towards them just like in Chad. Congolese music, in addition to being some of the most popular music around Africa, shows some of this intersection as well. I came to surprising revelation the other evening while listening to a Congolese band playing in a bar. Some of the beats reminded me of jiving to South African house music. I had always thought of house music as a European style embraced by South Africans, but I finally realized it was more than this - sure the electronic side of house music is European but the beats are African and that's what makes it so popular. I'm still not a fan of most house music, but at least I can justify enjoying the song 'Jezebel' so much.

Walking Around the Neighborhood

I've been having a hard time thinking about what to write on this blog lately. As I had imagined, our life here is much more focused on school and our students so I don't know that I will ever know enough about the Congo to really comment on culture, society, or politics like I could in Chad or South Africa. Living on the school campus is a bit of a unique experience. Though it's a like a compound that is isolated from what's going on around it, we can and do walk out the gate and around the neighborhood whenever we want. Of course, during the week, we're usually pretty tired by the end of the day and even walking 10 minutes to buy a few loaves of bread seems like too much work, but on the weekend we like to walk down to a busy intersection which is about a 30 minute walk from school. On the way you pass one of Mobutu's old palaces which also housed a zoo (complete with a lion that was killed and eaten during the fighting). It's a cool place, totally overgrown but the cages are all still there peeking through the thick undergrowth. You can see the remains of stalks where soldiers (we think) from the surrounding army have cleared some of the land to plant corn in past years. There's also a museum which we haven't been inside yet, but outside of it, there's a statue of Henry Morton Stanley that has long since fallen down. It's kind of creepy as the way his arms are extended towards the sky it looks like he's reaching towards heaven as he takes his last breath.

Another 10 minutes past the zoo/palace/museum brings us to the circle. There's a Nando's (which I've heard is not anywhere as good as Nando's in South Africa, but since I've never eaten Nando's before, who knows) and lots of small shops that mainly cater to the Kinois not expats though you can get just about anything you need in them. The best part though is that it's the closest market type area to where we live, and there are lots of ladies selling vegetables and fruit for much more reasonable prices than in the expat grocery stores or from the ladies who come and sell on campus. What's crazy about Kinshasa is that people don't really seem to care that you are there. Certainly the vegetable ladies want you to pick them for your business, but we haven't really been harassed at all walking around this busy circle or around our part of the city in general. Though children are occasionally excited to greet us, many children let us pass without a second glance something that would never happen in the other places we've been in Africa. People here just seem to be underwhelmed by foreigners. Maybe with so much negative involvement since Stanley first came down the river til now, they've actually figured out that foreigners and foreign aid aren't the answer, or maybe their just too busy to care. Who knows, but I'm happy to get a chance to walk around the neighborhood a bit.

getting comfortable

As we get settled here in Kinshasa, we are constantly amazed by how comfortable our life here is. We've moved a few steps up from Peace Corps and though we don't have everything we had in South Africa (like a microwave), we have to filter our water and bleach our fruits and veggies, and sometimes the water or power go out, things are just a million times easier. It's bizarre because we suddenly find ourselves with lots of free time in the evenings and don't really know what to do with it. Here's just a few examples of what's changed...

We don't have to wash our clothes by hand. We've got a washer and dryer and our housekeeper usually does our laundry for us anyway.

When we wash the dishes, our non-stick pots and pans get clean in about one hundredth the time of our dishes in South Africa and we can wash them under hot water coming straight out of the tap.

We can buy alcohol and bring it home without worrying about concealing it.

We can also buy as much as we want of anything because we don't have to carry it on taxis.

We eat salad which we never really did in South Africa mostly because of the annoyance of carrying vegetables home from the grocery store. We also eat lots more fruit because of the same reason.

We can take a hot shower anytime we want. We can go number 2 in the middle of the night if we have to without risking the bad folks lurking in the night.

We can look at as many pictures and videos and download as much as we want on the internet (with the exception of tv shows and movies).

We can walk around our beautiful jungley school compound, see parrots, and enjoy nature.

We can swim in the pool that is a less than 5 minute walk from our house or play just about any sport with the teachers, aid workers, missionaries, etc.

We've got neighbors all around us who are always up for a beer and a chat.

We've got all of these things and yet we still live in Africa. This morning, we walked down to a busy intersection a couple kilometers from the school where there is a small market of sorts, just people selling food and things on the side of the road. We bought some fruits and veggies, and James bought himself a new pair of our favorite African (well really Chinese I'm sure) flip flops since he left his last pair in South Africa. It was nice to get out and see more of the area around the school, and not just from a car driving by it. In some ways, Kinshasa is a scary city, but walking around near the school, you don't feel like that at all. It feels like a much smaller place than a city of 10 million, and it was nice to finally feel a bit more grounded here and less wrapped up in all those conveniences I described above.

enter the congo

Thanks to all for blog title ideas. I decided to go with one of James' since it is supposedly his blog too though he wouldn't offer ideas until I put it out there to the world. So thanks for motivating him :)

We arrived safely in Kinshasa on Sunday after very different length trips. James' had a four hour direct flight from Jo'burg while I had a longer trek via Addis. I spent over 36 hours on airplanes in less than two weeks. Not fun. But it was wonderful getting to spend time with friends and family in Virginia and Maine and to see our beautiful kitty.

We also haven't written since our whirlwind July began. The first week of July we finished up the last of the school libraries and attended our final farewell function. It was nice to hear everyone's speeches and to present them with our silly gifts (as well as to receive some very nice heartfelt gifts from the schools. Some of the middle school girls came and did traditional dance (both Shangaan and Tswana styles of dance), and one of the principals' daughters came and sang some wonderful songs. The highlight of the whole day was the bus ride home with the middle school girls dancing like crazy to house music the entire time.

Then we attended the Pan-African Reading for All Conference in Gaborone, Botswana. It was a great experience for us as well as the principals/teacher who came with us since they got to experience another country with a very slightly different culture as well as connect with a lot of academics and some NGOs. Our presentation went really well, and people seemed very interested in the work we were doing. Overall it was a very useful and fun week.

We only got to return to the village briefly after the conference, but our host mom prepared a wonderful farewell luncheon before we said our tearful goodbyes. It was challenging to leave after two wonderful, exhausting, and rewarding years in Jericho. (Now I can say the name because we don't live there anymore.)

We've jumped into everything here though the first week has been mostly taking care of logistics. We've been to just about every expat shopping destination in Kinshasa and resigned ourselves to the fact we'll be doing our shopping at grocery stores rather than markets since that's the norm for expats here. The good thing is that our taste in food is on the cheaper side anyway so we won't fall prey to the often exorbitant prices here as often as most.

It's a big, hectic city and we're just now starting to figure out how to get around, but it will be interesting when we take our first solo trip out into the city. We've been getting back into French as we keep getting called upon by other new teachers to help with negotiations and anything that needs explaining in French.

The campus and our house is beautiful. We've got more than enough space and are still enjoying the luxury of indoor plumbing. Air conditioning is nice but not as necessary yet since it isn't too hot this time of year. Our gardener (yep, we have a gardener...and a housekeeper) is planning to get started on a vegetable garden soon. There's also a swimming pool on campus, and I'm going to start swimming for exercise in the next couple of days.

Next week, we'll be preparing for school to start and then on the 15th, things will begin for real. For now though, we're enjoying relatively leisurely days and nights in the Congo.

getting there

Today begins our last full week in the village. The following week we'll be traveling to Botswana to attend and present at the Pan-African Reading for All Conference. We'll get back from that Friday the 15th and have to head to Pretoria on the 17th to finish up our Peace Corps business. Then I'll be arriving in American on the 21st, spend the 25th-29th in Maine, and leave for Kinshasa on the 30th. It's going to be a jam-packed month, that's for sure.

So our fears about no one caring that we were leaving seemed to be ill founded. Three weeks or so ago, I discovered a secret principals' meeting taking place with the aim of planning our farewell. They didn't seem to realize how soon it was coming up and ended up settling on the 7th as basically the last possible date they could have it. It should be an interesting event, but it's a bit sad because these kinds of things are expensive so they can only invite so many people. Lots of people have been asking us about it who won't get to go, but it would be impossible to cater an event for the whole village (and when we suggested not catering anything, that was just an impossible proposition).

We have already had two smaller farewells that were really nice. I had planned two parties for my clubs to give them certificates and have snacks which felt a little weird since they are planning to continue after I leave. At the one for the magazine club, the teachers commandeered it a bit and had two kids give speeches and they gave speeches along with some presents. The second one was a bit bigger. One of our schools told us they needed us at school on Friday (the last day of school) and they did a program with the whole school. Conveniently they had just participated in an arts competition so they had their traditional dance routine and gospel song already prepared. Those were great plus more speeches, lots of singing and one of our favorite things...singing and dancing while presenting presents. All of the teachers took one of the presents (like towels, picture frames, etc) and danced them up to us on the stage and presented each one while all the kids were singing and dancing at their seats. It was super fun. When we have cheaper internet, we'll try to post videos of these things.

Anyway, it's been a great end to our time here but extremely busy. This week continues to be busy, even with no school. We've got to finish up the last of the libraries, make presents for all the schools, finish the paper and powerpoint for the conference, thoroughly clean our house, and make a dent in the packing process.

It's weird to think back over these two years as it's flown by, but it's crazy to remember everything we've done. We've traveled in South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Liberia. We've been through week long power outages and months long water outages. We've been to countless weddings, funerals, and parties and marched around the streets. We made it through a month long teachers' strike. We've seen 4 of the big five and countless other animals. We've swam in the Indian (and Atlantic) Ocean. We've been to the ridiculous Hartebeespoort Snake Park twice. We've spent countless hours talking with our host mom. We finally made friends in the village. We've planned two fun camps that were plagued by extreme cold and extreme wet. We watched Siphiwe Tshabalala score the first goal of the World Cup in a packed room with people of all ages from the village. We saw the US take on England live. We have met an NBA player, the US Ambassador, the South African national soccer coach. We've built/supplemented 4 libraries. We've played Chicago with kids on the street.

It's been a wonderful two years.

The Plight of South Africa's Boys, Continued

For the past few weeks, I had been considering e-mailing Oprah my opinions on this issue, basically because if I were in her shoes, I'd feel a responsibility to help the boys of South Africa not just the girls. I don't know how much she knows about the challenges faced by males in this country, but on the off chance that she doesn't know anything at all, maybe my e-mail would get read by someone sort of important and make a difference. I know the reason that she started her school here wasn't really for South Africa, but for Africa itself where in most countries, girls have a horribly impossible time and for herself, as she is very dedicated to women's issues. Still, it makes me wonder why not base your school in a country then where girls really need your support.

This desire to communicate with Oprah had been brewing as, as I mentioned in the last post, we've been watching a lot of Oprah (we get episodes about 4 months behind so the final episode has not yet aired) since winter started. She's really quite good at making you feel like she is accessible and might just call you up when you really know that's never going to happen. Now, my reflection on this issue has been enhanced by the chance of me ever meeting Oprah has gone from never in a million years to slight chance we'll be in the same room, but would I even get to talk to her and if then, would it go beyond hello?

So a few more thoughts to ponder about boys, education and life in South Africa. In my research for our conference paper, I had the chance to read the report on South Africa of the 2006 PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study). This study which compared scores of 4th and 5th graders in 35 countries around the world (most of them developed, the only other African country included was Morocco) found that South Africa performed the lowest of all countries. Within South Africa, students from rural schools also performed significantly worse that students from urban and suburban schools. These statistics were not suprising to me, but what I found most interesting was the gap in performance between girls and boys. Overall, in all countries, girls performed better than boys, but South Africa also had one of the greatest performance gaps between girls (gr 5: avg. 319, gr 4 avg. 271) and boys (gr 5: avg. 283, gr 4: avg. 235). For context, the international average score (and most countries only tested grade 4) was 500. I wish they would have given the breakdown of rural students' scores by gender, but they don't.

In my schools, I see boys lagging behind consistently. I know a number of boys who dropped out of school after the finished 6th grade (end of primary school.) Because of my interest in this issue, I decided to disaggregate the scores on the pre and post assessments I did for creative writing for our research by gender. The overall average on the pre-test was 11.4 (out of twenty) and the overall average on the post-test was 13.4 so the average went up by two points. For girls, the pre average was 11.8 and the post average was 13.2 (an increase of 1.4). For boys, the pre average was 11.14 and the post average was 13.48 (an increase of 2.34). So as you can see, boys originally under performed girls, but made a much larger increase in score to outperform them.

I can only attempt to understand why this happened, but my guess is that, the boys were motivated by the kinds of activities we did because they were interesting to them. In my schools at least, the culture of girls seems to be very achievement oriented. They want succeed. They do everything that they are asked to so that they will get good marks. Though there are a few girls in that class who really just do not know how to read and continue to fail, most girls average 3 and 4s (above average). The boys just don't seem to care as much about getting high marks. I think it has to do with the factors I discussed in my previous post. They don't see the point. The creative writing activities we did were motivating to them because they were fun. Not a single one of them was for a grade (though in retrospect, maybe the should have been), but they did them anyway (boys and girls). Kids who completed their writing assignments got to go type them in the computer lab which was a big motivator. They got to write stories about things they were interested in. When I collected the post assessments (a story about a sequence of pictures), a few boys told me 'I think you're really going to like my story.' I don't know that fun and challenging activities are going to suddenly sweep across this nation, but I would guess they might help motivate boys.