Fwd: Greetings from West Africa

Dear all-

 

What follows is an email i sent to my old elementary school, in hopes of starting a collaboration / cultural exchange with students here in Sabce. In previous emails I believe I mentioned my desire to create such liasons, so I thought I’d share some of my endeavors thus far.

Some names have been blotted out for privacy purposes. Teachers names have not been blotted out, both because it’s better reading that way, and a public school strikes me as, well, public.

 

Must jet!!!

Best

 Aaron

 

)))))))

 

Dr. —

 

My name is Aaron Buchsbaum.

For kindergarten, I had Mrs. Powell.

First grade, Mrs. Czechelski (butchered the spelling on that name…).

Second grade, Mrs. Robinson.

Third grade, Mrs. Legato (to whom I owe a long lecacy of literary endeavors)

Fourth grade, Mrs. Hess.

Fifth grade, Mr. Jeavons.

Sixth Grade, Mr. Pitblado (again, spelling is off…. everyone called him ‘Mr. P’ anyways).

 

I’m not at all certain any of these teachers are still to be found at West Amwell, but they were there when I made the rounds some 20 years ago. The school was smaller then, painted a different color, and there was no fancy message board out front. In 6th grade, I remember taking the flag down one afternoon, and it touched the ground. A parent was driving by and happened to see this unfortunate event. She told the principal, and I received a stern talking to. Otherwise, things in elementary school were great.

 

Fast forward to 2009: I’m now 26, and working for the Peace Corps as a health volunteer in the country of Burkina Faso, in West Africa. I believe that Mrs. —- mentioned I’d be getting in touch with you regarding some as yet unknown process of collaboration with schools over here in Burkina, so hopfully my message doesn’t come completely out of the blue. I do apologize for the delay between Mrs. —contacting you, and me finding the time to pen a proper message. Internet is available here, but my situation makes access infrequent (I live in a village w/out electricity). At the moment I’m in the capital, and have the luxury of a.c. and a respectably fast web connection. Thus I can finally make good on my desire to connect my student days with some small works I’ve been doing as a teacher over here.

 

Let me give a very brief idea of a.) what I do over here, b.) my relationship to the primary schools in my area, and c.) an idea of the fun little movie in my head that has West Amwell students learning about Burkina and Burkina students learning about West Amwell.

 

a.) I live and work in the village of Sabce. As a health volunteer in the Peace Corps, day-to-day work is very flexible, which is both exciting and challenging. Broadly, the goal is to improve the well-being of people living in Sabce and in several villages nearby. The way in which I attempt to achieve this goal can take many forms, from tree-planting, to supporting govt. vaccination campaigns, to building latrines, to talking about hygiene, to serving on local health committees, to teaching people how to make soap…. it really runs the gamut. I believe the buzzword is ‘Participatory Development’, meaning I listen to what people in the community want – principally as concerns the health domain – then attempt to provide what assistance and knowledge I can. It’s quite an intriguing position.

 

b.) The nice things about schools, is that they are organized. One can walk into a building and have a captive and generally interested audience already provided, 5 days a week. From my standpoint as a community health worker  (that job title tends to work best), this is a fantastic way to spread the glories of soap of handwashing to hundreds of people over the course of a few hours. For these reasons I’ve been in and out of a couple of the primary schools here, and am pretty excited to enhance my collaboration with the students and the teachers there-in. They, likewise, are pretty happy to have me stop in and take over class when appropriate.

 

c.) For whatever strange reason(s), I put a lot of value in establishing links between people here in Burkina and there in the US. For example, I pen very looooong mass e-mails (can you tell I still enjoy writing?) every few weeks to a list of about 100 people, and am thrilled by the responses I get each time. It’s extremely interesting to see what little tidbits of info catch the attention of my friends and family.  

Regarding schools, a lot of people responded to a previous e-mail describing classroom-life over here, and several photos showing oodles of students packed into a classroom that, by US standards, is woefully sub-par. In response, an after-school group in Ohio (we were put in touch via a Peace Corps cultural exchange program) offered to organize a collection of notebooks, pens, etc. In addition, one of my cousins who serves on a school board, circulated a note to teachers explaining my position and my interest in forging connections between here and there. 

 

I’m really excited by these responses, BUT the idea is not simply to dump some schoool supplies over here and have West Amwell students talk about Burkina for half an hour. I’d argue it’s much more interesting to have a genuine exchange between hither and yon; yes, the material reality over here makes us (i.e. Americans) think students here are constantly in want and perhaps evoke feelings of pity, but as a West Amwell grad living Burkina Faso life, I really feel people should just try to understand what the heck is going on 1/2 way across the world. Once reasonably well informed, then each one can decide when life in Burkina is better or worse, and when it is simply different. It’s a worthwhile debate to have, because it helps make people living in different situations seem like people, as opposed to (from an American standpoint) poor dirty kids who are in need. Likewise, Burkina students may find some facets of our public school system quite bizarre, and not as shiny and amazing as they often think the US to be.

 

In concrete terms, I envision something like (at least to start off) pen pals, students asking questions to fellow students, telling them a bit about West Amwell life, and integrating some lesson plans about Burkina (I for my part will try to spread the glories of New Jersey to students over here…). If people over there are interested in donating school materials, we can absolutely organize that; I should mention that I’ve already talked with the director of primary schools for the entire district of Sabce, and he is on board with any sort of donation campaign and also the idea that it would mark the beginning of collaboration between schools, and not a one-time air drop.

 

I hope this is enough of a picture inside my head to attract some attention at West Amwell. The school year ends in late May / early June, so it is possible to get in one rround of mailings before the kids get out for the summer, should we so desire. In any event, please do respond when you are able, and we’ll see how we might collaborate and bring some good ‘ol learnin’ to West Amwell and Sabce, Burkina Faso.

 

All my best-

 Aaron Buchsbaum

 

 Peace Corps Volunteer, 2008-2010

 Village of Sabce