I am back on Ramadan after all. I have been eating with my family every night, which has been generally good, if a little awkward, since I can’t understand what they are saying. Yesterday I didn’t eat anything until dinner with the family, and I am hoping to stay with that until the end of Ramadan. I could get up at 4 a.m. to eat also, but I generally don’t care enough to wake up.
(30 minutes later)
A random guy showed up at my door just now, and talked for a while about how I had said hi to him a couple of times. He wanted something else, but I couldn’t understand what it was. Finally I told him that he had to leave, and my family rallied around and chased him away with sticks. It’s not good because if he was a thief, he was casing my house to come back later. If he wasn’t, he still knows where I live and that could be a problem.
A volunteer’s greatest protection is the community around him. It is trivially easy for anyone who wants to to find out where you live just by asking people. But with your family and friends around you, it is much harder for them to find a good time to steal anything. My concern is always when I leave town and have to leave stuff in my house. It is possible someone could break in without my family hearing them. I may ask to leave my things like my camera and my computer with the family from now on when I leave. There is risk of one of the kids taking something, but there is only one that I would worry about.
Anyway, as I was saying, I am now fasting during the day, except for a cup of tea with milk and sugar in the mornings. Yesterday I had my third business group meeting, and though only six people came, it went pretty well. We discussed the process of determining how much money you need to start your business (the capital de depart), and though it seems like just making a list, it becomes difficult when you start to consider things that will last, like buildings and equipment, versus supplies and stock. Anyway, hopefully next week it won’t be raining and everyone will come, and they will have done a SWOT analysis for their business and taken a first stab at estimating costs.
My English class is now more than full, so I will have to start taking names as a sort of waiting list. That is also going well, though I wonder what I am going to do after we’ve worked through the English book I have. I am also gearing up on a couple of other projects, one working with teenage girls to form savings clubs and help them launch businesses, and the other to have a math study group for girls in the 10th grade. After the 10th grade they take an exam called the Breve (sp?), which determines whether they are allowed into high school. I have heard that only 10% of students passed the mathematics exam this past year. (In high school they have three tracks, social science, natural science, and experimental science. Natural science has some math but a lot of people don’t have the necessary background. Experimental science is like a melange of the other two I think.)
Also, because of protests in Conakry, I have decided to apply to law school this fall. It is unlikely that we will be evacuated, but given the elections in January and the possibility that they will not happen, I wouldn’t be surprised. This way if we do get evacuated I will be able to go to law school in the fall, and if not I can request to defer until my service is finished (assuming I am accepted).
