It hurts

You can read as many books as you want but until you have a chance to put things into practice, the skills aren't there. One of the fundamental principles or should I say "rules" of parenting, and therefore of teaching, is to not react impulsively. I had read it a million times; I have had it said to me a million times; but today I reacted impulsively. In today's children's class, two of the girls had been play hitting for most of the class. I told them a few times that I did not like it, even though it was just for fun, and asked if they could stop, but it continued. Halfway through the story I looked up just in time to see one girl hit the other quite hard, and the second girl then return the hit even harder. Having lost patience, I brought out the only punishment I give and said to both of them "That's it, neither of you will color today" and continued telling the story.
As expected they both began to cry quietly into their arms. It is the greatest challenge we face here in our classes...hitting and fighting...it is CONSTANT! And it is so hard to change because their parents do it, so we try to be quite strict in class about not hitting. While I was getting out the coloring sheets I overheard the girl who had returned the hit sobbing to the boy sitting next to her that he had ruined everything and ask him why he was so mean. I turned around and asked what was going on. After much persuasion and several versions of the story I discovered that the boy who the girl was talking to had a stick behind his chair and had been hitting the girl a couple of chairs over with it during the entire class; she has thought it was the girl sitting next to her and had asked her to stop several times until finally she lost her patience and hit her neighbor, who, because of how she was brought up, instinctively hit her back.
It hit me so hard when I heard all the facts...I realized exactly what I had done and how it easy it was to do it. I apologized for reacting so quickly and gave out a few warnings and yet another reminder of how much God hates to see us hit others. Unfortunately at that very moment one of the mothers came charging over and dragged her child off to be hit for some undoubtedly small offence. When I tried to stop her she just looked at me as if I was crazy. We can't understand how unusual they think we are. They don't understand why we don't hit their children and they possibly never will. The least we can do is continue to intervene when we can, and set an example of love and tenderness.
It really puts the work we are doing into perspective. It's funny how something can act as motivation and at the same time be so emotionally painful.

Lesson Learned: In order to acquire skill, you need practice. In order to create change, we must take action. Reading manuals and theorizing only goes so far. Everything we say and do must contribute something to advancing our civilization, morally, materially, and spiritually.

Our best friend

I would like to introduce you to our best friend on our year of service: our car!


Some may say we are spoiled to have a car, but the truth is it allows us to do much more work than we would be able to do if we were on foot or using buses. In addition, we are able to transport people and bring them to events.
Our car is a tiny Renault Twingo we have affectionately named Foxy. (The "A" means the driver has had their license for less than two years)


As wonderful as Foxy is, and as much as we love her, she has a few problems, the most annoying one being that there is no handle on the driver's door, meaning that the window must be opened all the way in order to open the door from the outside.


The most worrisome problem is that the display you see on the speedometer while it is parked, is what the car always displays...i.e. the speedometer doesn't work. The gas gage doesn't really work either.


By now you have certainly figured out that the air-conditioning in this car doesn't work...but just in case we ever wanted to try, we wouldn't be able to...the dial is gone. And we still don't know what used to be in that big hole.


If we ever did get the urge to fix something in the car, we can find all the spare parts we need right there! There are even spare parts from other cars!


Some would say that our roof needs a paint job...we like to think that our car is very fashionable...I mean, all the jeans nowadays are faded right? (please notice the peach air freshener!)


Hubcaps? Who needs 'em?


Despite all these little problems (oh yes, have I mentioned that the alternator broke today?) Foxy is a great car and a great friend and hey, at least we can feel cool inside...check out the seat covers!!!!! ;-)

Brilliant stars

My adopted son for my time here, Jean-Luc. He is 4 years old and a fireball of energy but at every children's class he sits quietly next to my chair and listens very carefully. At the end of the class, he waits patiently until all the other children have left and then bounds into my lap.


Jean-Luc and Nanika


The boys from the hood




Making posters for the new youth arts workshop - Les Jeunes d'Art

Education

This year is a year of service for me: service through education. Not only is every day a learning experience in itself, but also every time I step into a class I am both teaching and learning from my students. There was a great compilation made a while ago of speeches given at a symposium on education and I would like to share some interesting points I have found in this book.

There are three kinds of education: material, human, and divine. Material education is concerned with the progress of the body; human education is concerned with the progress of civilization; and spiritual education is concerned with the acquisition of divine perfections. Unfortunately, as our society advances materially, it ignores the importance of spiritual education. People see the three types as being unrelated and spiritual education as being a question of choice. I wonder if the same people who have forbid the saying of prayers in school assemblies or the teaching of moral values in classes see a correlation between their decisions and the increase in teen drinking, STDs, and drug overdoses. Probably not.
How can educators deny the importance of spiritual education when the concept of "education for all" is based on the "spiritual" premise that we are all equal and therefore have an equal right to education?

One of the speeches in the book focused on some major themes in the Baha'i Faith and how these related to objectives of education.
-Intrinsic nobility of man: Education should have the purpose of elevating man. Teachers should work to elevate students' sense of intrinsic nobility... particularly in a culture that is constantly degrading man.
-Unity in diversity: Education must exploit the diversity of talents and knowledge that students have, not stifle it.
-Oneness of mankind: this should be the thread linking all learning and action. Education should focus strongly on eliminating prejudices and of course, never create them!
-Words and deeds: Hypocrisy is becoming dangerously prevalent in our society. Teachers who scold students for smoking but light up as soon as school is done; actors and ministers heading anti-drug and anti-AIDS campaigns but who get busted for illegal possession or indulge in unprotected promiscuous behavior. Education must be carried out through example and teachers must realize the impact their behavior has on students. I have often heard stories from people who barely remember what they learned in high school, but remember the teacher who yelled, who lied, or who was extremely kind and patient.

The point which interested me the most was the basic building block of education: knowing-loving-creating. True creativity can only come from knowledge and LOVE. So much emphasis is placed on the acquisition of knowledge in schools, but unless students really develop a love for what they are studying, there will be little motivation and little creativity. The difficulty lies in creating this love and encouraging the creativity.

These are all principles that I will work very hard to apply to my work here, but the reason I wanted to put them in this blog is because I think they are applicable to everyone! As a teacher, as a student, as a parent, and as a human being, education is a constant, never-ending process.

French Fries on the Maroni

Well, it finally happened...I lost my voice. We all wondered who would be first to be afflicted with this extreme handicap and I won the prize! The reason this is such a handicap is because it is very difficult to teach (especially children) when you have no voice, but also there is not enough time to regain the voice before going out to teach some more, meaning that it just progressively gets worse until you are forced to stop teaching because you really have no voice!
In any case, it sort of worked to my advantage today. The children in today's class found it very amusing and I tried to make it into "whispering day". It turned out to be a "whispering 5 minutes" before chaos set in again. So after a short discussion, the coloring sheets came out and I enjoyed the rest of the class smiling and handing out markers. It's interesting how when you can't talk, you watch a lot more. I learned a lot about the children today.
After the class, the three of us had an hour and a half to kill before our junior youth groups, so we bought some lovely French pastries and sat down by the river as the sun was setting. It was perfect!
When I got to the junior youth group, there were only 4 youth there. We spent a few minutes debating whether or not we should do another lesson and finally decided it would be best to just leave it, for the sake of the others and my throat. So I piled four 13 year olds (who were in their pajamas) into the car and we drove into town to buy French fries. There is a little stand in the middle of the town that makes them...it is also unfortunately the spot where all the scooter gangs hang out. When I stopped the car, the kids bounded out of the car like wild animals let out of the cages it. Luckily they are very smart and didn't endanger themselves...however, they made their presence known.
Once we had our fries, we drove down to the river and sat on the rocks eating and talking about school. One of the boys, Enrico, who has a lot of difficulties reading and is very reserved, burst out "Miss, you're actually nice!"...It struck me that the only side of me he had even seen was the one that pushed him to read and participate in the activities. I laughed and said "Well, sometimes."
We spent a few minutes identifying what each one of us had difficulties with and threw a rock into the river as a symbol of throwing away the difficulty and we then picked up a stone to symbolize what we were going to do to help with this difficulty.
This was followed by some races and cartwheels in the park before heading back to Vampires.
My only regret of the evening is that I DIDN'T HAVE MY CAMERA!!!! Sigh...But it was a wonderful opportunity to bond with the youth and a lovely end to the night.

Lesson Learned:
We must think before we act but don't forget the value of spontaneity. Sometimes following through on a spontaneous urge to do something can result in extreme fun (as long as it's within reason)

Pictures

I have realized that there may be a bit too much writing in these blogs and some people might be interested in more pictures. Soooooooooo...here are some beautiful faces of French Guiana:


Little Jackie (do not mess with this child, she is one tough cookie!


Eginio, one of the brightest boys I have ever met.


Victoria, third member of the year of service team (from Paraguay)


Yasmina, one of the sweetest girls alive! She unfortunately left to go back to Suriname for school.

Braided hair

Another adventurous weekend gone by. We packed up the car on Saturday afternoon and headed out of town. We each taught two classes in various locations and then settled down in Wagi Pasi for our night in hammocks. As we slowly get to know the people in the villages we feel much more welcome (duh!) and much more comfortable. We are slowly picking up our Taki-Taki and Saramaka and are able to communicate more and more. The highlight of every weekend spent in Wagi Pasi is waking up early to go to the creek to bathe. Because it is in the forest, the water is quite cold and is a very refreshing wake up! It feels "natural" to be washing in water that you find rather than the water that comes out of taps...and it is very peaceful. It's especially fun to listen to the women laugh about their husbands and the latest silly things their children have done.
This weekend we also began work in a village further up the road called Prosperity. Our "home base" there is at Hilda's house, one of the women in the Book 3 study circle I tutor. She is an extremely smart woman with a very strong character, so needless to say, we get along very well! Every Sunday we eat lunch at her house, and since we felt bad that they had to cook for us, we offered to help. I don't know if it was any help but it sure gave them some entertainment. Hilda gave us the beans to cut up and her daughters sat around and smiled as we attempted to cut them as thin as we had seen them cut the beans. We were completely unsuccessful but had fun doing it...and at least we made some contribution to our meal.
While I tutored yet another wonderful multi-lingual session of Book 3, Denissa and Victoria got their hair braided. Sunday is the big hair day here because everyone changes their hair for the new week at school...boys and girls!
We did our afternoon classes and finally drove home, with the wind blowing through the car and the sun setting, exhausted and blissful after another wonderful weekend.
It's funny how exhausting it is to sleep in Wagi Pasi. We hypothesized that it was because we couldn't sleep properly in the hammocks, but with more thought we realized that it is also emotionally tiring. It comes back to that constant debate about material comfort and possessions. Do people out in the villages really need all the material comforts some of us have grown so accustomed to? We sometimes see their life as being difficult and tiring, but if they don't know another way of life is it tiring to them? And in the end, it is their detachment from material comforts and wealth that enable them to be such spiritual and generous people. We see how little they have and how much they are willing to give and we feel ashamed at how much we have in comparison. We feel that what we are doing is not enough, but then there isn't much else us 18 year-old girls from other countries can do! Anyway, it is all these thoughts mixed together which make it a bit tiring, but the fun and cultural experiences we have make it all worth it.

Lesson Learned:
This is a bit of cliche but it sure is true - Life is wonderful, but it is short. We must live every day to the fullest and treat others as if they were brothers and sisters. If you want to accomplish something, go for it. Don't hold back and don't get distracted!


Aliyenni, our weekend hostess, with her youngest child, Claire


Braiding hair by candel light


Our contribution to Sunday's lunch


Hilda, our Sunday hostess, an absolutely marvelous woman and fantastic cook!

Ala sani boun (Everything's good)

My Taki-Taki is progressing slowly and my Monday morning French class takes great pleasure in teaching me new things and laughing at my pronunciation.
Teaching a language makes you realize all the things in it that just don't make sense and in French, there are tons. I wish I could explain why the "c" in French is pronounced a certain way with certain letters but I can't! I have tell them "just because"... it's not very helpful.
My afternoon children's class went marvelously and in the evening I had my second class with a wonderful group of four girls. They all have extreme reading difficulties so we move VERY slowly but they are so dedicated and persevere with extreme courage. To see them work so hard is what gives me the patience to read one sentence in 5 minutes.


Aren't they beautiful!


Today we had our usual long morning work session over God-given French coffee. At 4 I headed off to my massive and insane Tuesday children's class. It was a little less chaotic than last week but still very difficult to manage. One of the greatest problems lies in the fact that there are so many toddlers who accompany their older siblings to the class. There is no one at home to take care of them and I don't want to penalize the older ones by telling them to leave. Once again, a dilemma!
The Tiger-Butterflies (Tuesday's junior youth group) have sorted some of their problems out but it was a strange atmosphere. I can't put my finger on it. It's such a great group of youth but society and its never-failing negative influence strikes again!

Lesson Learned:
Lying never gets you anywhere.

Ants in Hammocks

Once again I must blab about how wonderful our Friday night discussion was. The subject for that night was the elimination of prejudice, a subject chosen in the hopes of discussing some of the tribal issues of the country and community. We did not succeed in doing this but we did succeed in having a very interesting discussion. Racism is not really a problem here so the discussion revolved mainly around religious prejudice. We also discussed if it was possible to completely eliminate prejudice and how important it was. Another one of our objectives for that evening was to make people conscious of certain "unconscious" prejudices they may have. Nothing was said on that topic for a while and we trudged through a slow discussion of what our role was and how we could eliminate prejudice until one of the boys there, who hadn't said anything all night said, "Well, I think I'm prejudiced against gay people". It was a very frank comment, not meant to offend or attack but simply something he had obviously been thinking about and genuinely wanted to discuss. Unfortunately, our group that evening was composed entirely of boys and the discussion turned down a road we did not want it to go down, so we ended the evening and decided to discuss more on that subject the next week when we had some Writings to guide us.
We began our weekend with a lovely French breakfast in town in the morning and in the afternoon we drove out to the villages and started work. The best part of all was a new junior youth group starting in Wagi Pasi. When I arrived, the mother of the camp came up to me and introduced herself (something not commonly done by women here), said "I went to school in Suriname, I can read in Dutch but I want to learn French. May I please be in the junior youth group?" I was surprised and explained my uncertainty about the youth's openness if their mother were to be in the group. She laughed and said "Don't worry, I will be a kid too. I want to play the games and draw! And I know your mother is far away so I will also be your mother." Sure enough, she participated in the games, read very well, and encouraged her children. A good lesson in flexibility and open-mindedness.
I then began a new children's class at a camp down the road. The children were extremely well behaved and very bright. We finished a few minutes early so I sat down with some of the older kids and talked with them. I asked who went to school and they said everyone except for one of the girls sitting next to me. She immediately got up and left and the kids laughed and explained that she had gone to school up until this year when her mom stopped taking her, then they all giggled and said in a hushed voice..."Her mom drinks too much alcohol; the other day she tried to fight with a man." I almost started crying. I explained that it was not nice to talk about other people like that and that they should help the other girl learn if she couldn't go to school. I found the girl, Lucie, crying behind a tree. She didn't say anything but I offered a hug and we just stood behind the tree for a few minutes. That is by far the most challenging part of being here... the emotional suffering that the majority of children endure, be it from physical abuse, verbal abuse, or neglect. There is so little we can do except persevere with the work we are doing in the hopes of creating a change in this generation.

We spent the night at Alieni's again. Thankfully, this time there was no partying until 3 am but I was still not granted a good rest since a pesky ant (or ants) had found its way into my hammock and bit me all night!!!!


(5 hammocks in one hut! It was a tight squeeze but lots of fun!)


(Victoria and Denissa's hammocks)


I was extremely thankful when dawn came. We set out for a different and bigger creek. Unfortunately it was farther away and by the time we had washed and made our way back we were all sweaty again. I guess we'll have to develop a system for not exerting too much energy on the walk back...or not dry off after washing.
I finished the Book 2 in the morning and had another session with the Book 3 group after lunch. When Denissa and Victoria left for their classes I sat down with our host for a lovely meal of rice and chicken and they had a good time laughing about the fact that I can't cook.
We finally got home around 7 but could not fight the desire we women sometimes get for chocolate, so we dashed to the "libre-service" (corner store) and purchased a wide variety of chocolates to hold us through the night. We then sat down to watch a movie...the first movie Den and I have watched since arriving here! It was a very strange feeling to be sitting in front of the TV so long!

Lesson Learned:
The concept of hospitality has evaporated in many parts of the world. It is part of the disease of materialism and selfishness that is engulfing the West. It never ceases to amaze me how people who have almost nothing will happily open their homes to you and with a smile offer you food and drink. People are quick to point out the parts of this culture that have to change but there are also some things we can learn from it.

Five Weeks

Today is the 5 week anniversary of my departure from Canada to come to French Guiana. In some ways it feels like no time has passed since I left and I can still perfectly remember our first day here...and in other ways it feels like we've been here for months! Part of that comes from how quickly we've been welcomed into the community and into our new home. The Walkers, with whom we are living have made us feel extremely comfortable and so it feels like we've known them longer than just a month. We tease each other and Bob's strange and wonderful sense of humor often gets him little play hits from all the girls. Also, because of the good planning of the community, we were able to immediately start our activities.
We have also welcomed into the house a new girl, Victoria, from Paraguay, who will be helping to increase the number of activities in the area. Hopefully she will be able to drive better than us.
Our Saturday was spent trying to organize children's classes and youth groups in the village of Wagi Pasi, where we spend our Saturday nights. We were only supposed to have 1 of each class but when we learned that a certain group of kids didn't go to one house and the kids from that house couldn't be moved because they are handicapped, we ended off with 2 children's classes and one junior youth class. It is very difficult to work in conditions of disunity, but even harder to move forward as a group. This is true for everything, be it a student council or a multi-billion dollar corporation. True success is achieved when there is unity and consultation is used to make decisions. We do not want to indulge these little fights that go on between families by having 2 separate classes for the same village, yet at the same time we don't want to deprive children of possibly the only moral education they will ever have. It is a dilemma.
Sunday was quite tiring. I tutored a Book 2 (the second book in a sequence of books on capacity development) in the morning and then had a quick lunch and went back out to tutor a Book 3 in the afternoon. It is a bit of a strange arrangement. There are three women in the group. They all speak Dutch and Saramaka but only one speaks a decent amount of French. So the women read out loud using Dutch books, I attempt to formulate questions and lead discussion in a combination of French and Taki-Taki and the rest is just mental connection and sign language. We have a pile of dictionaries and there is lots of laughing. When we finished and I was waiting for a ride, one of the women sat down with me and helped me learn a prayer in Saramaka. She was so encouraging and made me read it over and over and over, correcting my mistakes. This same woman had been very shy during the whole two hours, but when she had a chance to show something she knew how to do, she was radiant. It made me realize how much humans must pride themselves on the knowledge they have and always strive to learn, but then share it with people. Knowledge serves no good if it is kept to oneself.
As the new week began, it felt like we were following more of a regular pattern and there was less uncertainty in the day.
Tuesday's children's class was an absolute chaotic disaster (yes, I am going to insert some of the challenges encountered here..it's not all peachy!) When I arrived I was excited to see 4 new boys who were a little older and who had already been in some children's classes. Unfortunately I got excited too soon. They are boys after all and their "enthusiasm" got the younger ones quite rowdy and about a half an hour into the class I could not be heard and about 4 children were crying. So I comforted them and then sat down and didn't say anything. After about 5 minutes the kids started realizing something was wrong and they hushed each other. I slowly explained that I was very sad that people were being so loud and hitting so much and for this reason there would be no coloring that day....open mouths and complete silence. Even though I said they were free to leave, nobody moved! They were probably all hoping I would give in. Despite the adorable faces looking at me, I didn't and they started to play again, but very quietly. I talked to the boys about the fact that they set an example, though I don't know if that did any good. It's very difficult to teach children's classes in large groups. You don't want to be a strict teacher but if you too nice there is no discipline from the beginning. The children here come of their own free will, they aren't sent, so if they don't like you, they won't come! It is a difficult balance to strike.
The junior youth group that night was almost just as problematic. Two of the girls had had a fight during the week and so of course the rest had taken sides and you could feel the disunity in the group. We said some prayers and talked about unity. Eventually one of the girls just left and we finished with a bit more of a lighter spirit, but it was difficult. It's very draining too! I just pray that during the week some things will be worked out.

Lesson Learned:
Words are very powerful and the way you say the words can change everything. Think before you speak and take into consideration peoples' feelings and the ways they might respond. Being in tune with how others are feeling is not easy, so we must make an effort to be considerate and tactful.

Two wings

One of the highlights of the past few days was our second youth gathering on Friday night. We chose the topic of the Equality of women and men, and there was a group 9 people. We attempted to keep the discussion focused of Baha'i quotations on the subject but it inevitably strayed very far, though not at all in the direction we excepted. We began by explaining that our basic belief of the topic was that men and women are like the 2 wings of one bird, the bird of humanity. In order for humanity to soar, both wings must be equally developed: men and women must work together and each one's roles, though they may be different, are equally important. Sadly, our society has come to value physical strength and force, creating a mostly paternalistic society, which views gentleness and moral courage, things more characteristic of women, as weaknesses. Our society has come to undervalue the role that mothers play, the role they possess as the first educator of the child. Maternity leave is not well paid and it is extremely difficult to return to one's job if you take too long a period off...the crucial period in the early life of a child when values and basic behavior is learned. A woman who chooses to stay home for the duration of her child's life is seen as making less of a contribution to society that a person who goes to the office every day. This is extremely sad and dangerous. The mother's choice to be present in her children's lives plays a strong part in the children's' education, but it also creates stronger family bonds. And since the family is the foundation of society, strong family bonds creates a more unified society.
I want to share a story that is very close to my heart on this topic: one of my best friends' mother received her teaching degree just before she had her first child. She chose to postpone teaching until her child was 5, but two years later her second child, my friend, was born, and then came a third child. This mother stayed at home, remaining very active in educational work but without a "job", until her first child graduated. She then began searching for a "real job" but could not find one because she had no formal work experience. This woman who had raised 3 of the most wonderful boys I know had no "work experience", even though for the past 18 years she had dealt with all the ups and downs of a child and an adolescent's life 24/7; and the organization and support of a household. I believe that a change is necessary and that the day will come when motherhood will be one of the most impressive things a woman can put on a resume; the day when the world will be proud of mothers, for they are raising the next generation, and each and every one of us owes out existence to a woman.
"The world of humanity has two wings - one is women and the other men. Not until both wings are equally developed can the bird fly. Should one wing remain weak, flight is impossible. Not until the world of women becomes equal to the world of men in the acquisition of virtues and perfections, can success and prosperity be attained as they ought to be." (Abdu'l-Baha, The Baha'i Faith)
It is important that both men and women become conscious of this, since we all have a role to play in the establishment of equality, and since it is so important to the advancement of civilization.
At our gathering, the issue of women working was not really raised since it is not quite part of the culture. However, our discussion branched off onto the pratice of polygamy, something quite common here, as well as domestic abuse. No conclusions were reached on these two points but some very interesting points were raised. The majority of boys in the group thought that it was ok to have several wives if you treated them fairly but stayed quite silent when we asked if this was truly possible. They aisle seemed quite confused as to how you make your wife obey you if you don't hit her. The girls who were at the evening unfortunately did not respond, and Denissa and I had to hold each other's hands to stop ourselves from blowing our heads off. We attempted to patiently explain that hitting doesn't get you anywhere and that treating your wife equally will get you much further. The girls simply nodded at this. We did however all firmly agree on the fact that both women and men have to work at it, neither can do it all. On that note, we folded paper cranes to represent humanity, ate some cookies and chilled (as we young people do)

Lesson Learned:
Different cultures see things in different ways, and we can learn a tremendous amount from each other. We cannot impose our expectations or beliefs on others. However, culture should not, and cannot, become a barrier to progress; negative aspects must be rooted out and an ultimate standard must be followed if we are to achieve unity and peace.