Ups and Downs

The past couple of days have been quite up and down – as always here. Had a upsetting experience on Thursday. I was walking back from school when I heard a commotion behind me. A boy of about 3 had been running towards me, excited to see a white man, and crashed into someone holding a pot of boiling water, which went all over him. He was bawling and his mum was jumping about, screaming and tearing her hair out. Other people started throwing dust from the ground over him. I could hear people saying “he was going to the white man”. I was rooted to the spot – my first instinct was to run over and help (I was about 20m away), but there was absolutely nothing I would have been able to do, plus I had the strange feeling that as an outsider it wouldn’t be appropriate to interfere, especially when there was nothing I could do. That probably sounds weird to you at home, but the other volunteers here said they’ve experienced similar feelings. So my next thought was to just carry on home – there was nothing I could do.

I decided instead to run to the nearby volunteers’ house and come back with water and savlon cream. As I returned, the crowd of 20 or so people who had formed turned and stared at me approaching. They’d already put some yellow herbal ointment on him. It took a while for me to convince them that the water I’d brought should be poured over him, rather than given to him to drink A few people were going “listen to the white man” (we’re sometimes given disproportionate authority here); others were saying “look at him, he’s still looking at the white man”. Being constantly referred to as “the white man”, and the way people seemed to be taking note of everything I did, gave me another weird feeling – that I should make sure I did the right thing as it would reflect the image of foreign volunteers on camp. I was just standing around on the fringe of the group, trying to get them to apply the cream but not wanting to impose myself and say I knew better. In the end I asked if there was anything else I could do, and left them to it – they’d poured water over him as much as possible, and said they would apply the savlon and take him to the clinic. His skin was going pink, and blistering on his back. It was one of those experiences that I think will stay in my head for a while.

I went back yesterday and he seemed OK – but had a patch of skin missing on his head, and another on his back. His mum still said they didn’t need help. I was a bit concerned they hadn’t taken him to a clinic, but he didn’t seem too bad to me. His dad (who hadn’t been there) later came round to say that the mum had been confused and panicked which is why she had refused to take help, and actually they could do with some money to buy him ‘some pills or food or something’. I wasn’t happy to just hand over a wad of cash, especially as it didn’t seem like they were going to take him to a clinic. I said would be happy to pay directly for any medical treatment or supplies, and the mum agreed we would go to the clinic. They took good care of him there, so I’m quite satisfied I’ve done my bit to help. The dad still tried asking me for more money; I just said he should come to me if any more treatment was needed but I wasn’t going to just give cash.

I said it’s been up and down; that was the ‘down’. The ‘up’ was the classroom management workshop I ran today, after lots of work. The turnout wasn’t brilliant, but the teachers got really into it, appreciated the input, and seemed to get quite inspired and enthusiastic to improve. They also agreed some changes to the school policies. Just as important was that the workshop had a motivational effect. It’s always good as a teacher to step back, remember the reasons you’re in the job (I spoke lots about how impressed I was with what they’re doing, how they’re building Liberia’s future leaders etc), and to realize that there are ways to improve and get more out of it. You could actually see the teachers getting more positive and motivated, and they said themselves it had that effect. I was really happy, as I’d hoped it would be a boost – especially after I found out the teachers didn’t get paid on payday (Thursday), due to the ongoing pay dispute (for that reason, I abandoned my position of only paying for a bare bones workshop, and provided proper food to help make it an upbeat occasion).

A side point about the money issue. Turns out that the charity’s Central office – which wouldn’t fund my workshop at 250,000 cedis (about £15; not an insignificant amount here – more than a month’s salary for a teacher), or the HIV workshop at 2,000,000 cedis – just donated 1,000,000 cedis (enough for 4 classroom management workshops) to the ‘Miss Liberia in Ghana’ pageant’. Hmmm…