Who inspires you?

I asked Kalil to share some words that he has found inspiring. What motivates someone to keep trying after all he had  been through?

Au moment que je faisais la 11ém année, un jours j'avais beaucoup faim et je n'avais rien comme mangé ce jours là, seul dans la chambre, jai pris un livre de litterature pour la lecture, arriver à un certain niveau, jai vu une citation de Abraham Lincoln en disant ( Rappelez-vous toujours que votre résolution de réussir est plus importante que toute autre chose). madame, soudaiment jai retrouvé larme sur mes yeux et je me suis motiver de plus.

C'est juste une petite histoire que je viens de me rappeler madame

Translation:
One day, when I was in eleventh grade, I was really hungry and I hadn't eaten that day. I was sitting alone in my room And I picked up a literature textbook to read. Flipping through it, I saw a quote from Abraham Lincoln, which read "Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other." 

Madame, suddenly I felt tears well up in my eyes and I found my motivation again.


It's just a little story that I just recalled, Madame.





(Mary again) I swear, every time I talk to him I am reassured that if there was one kid whose life I really should have tried to change, I picked a damn good one. He inspires me. And it's no wonder he was Slac's best friend, despite the ten years between them.

Kalil's Life Story (get tissues)

In his own words,

Un orphelin engagé, un orphelin déterminé et courageux, un orphelin pour la paix et pour le développement. Un orphelin pauvre. 

Orphelin de mére à l'âge de 2 ans et de pére à l'âge de 4 ans. 

Ma pauvre grandmére maternellle trés frapper par l'âge s'est occuper de moi au village sans espoir. A l'âge de 7 ans je devrais être scolariser mais hélas, par manque de moyen je suis aller à l'école à l'âge de 9 ans sans espoir dans une école communautaire. Chaque parent d'éleve payait 10000fg par mois, jai fait 2 ans dans cette école avec un ami d'enfance qui etait l'origine de mon inscription, de 3eme en 6eme année je fréquentais une école publique qui était situer à 12 km de mon village et je marchais chaque jours d'aller et retour. Ensuite, quand jai décrocher l'examen d'entrée en 7eme année, l'aventure difficile de l'orphelin engagé a demarrer là, car il fallait forcement un changement de lieu pour poursuivre les études. 

Cependant, beaucoup de questions ont été posées concernant sur mon avenire à l'école. A savoir: Où je peux aller? Chez qui je peux aller? Comment je peux me nourrire? Et qui va me soutenir làba? Les questions étaient trop et multiple. C'est pourquoi jai perdu les cours des 2 premiers mois de l'ouverture des classes. Alors que les colléges se trouvent dans les sous préfectures, les préfectures et dans la capitale conakry. Soudainement, on ma envoyer à tanéné carrefoure, l'une des sous préfectures de la préfecture de Dubréka à 305 km de ma grand mére. 

Arriver à tanéné, je vivais dans la souffrance, la miseur, la famine, dans un logement à l'image d'un abandonné, je mangeais une fois par jours. Malgré que tous ceci, j'ai été trés tranquille dans la tête et sans ambitions si non que des études. 

Au collége j'était beaucoup félicité et aimé par les professeurs et les ami(es) de ma classe car je figurais toujours parmi les cinq (5) premiers de la classe. 

Dans les jours du grand marché de tanéné (samedi), je partais pour pousser les sarrètes pour transporter les bagages des commerçants et des femmes commerçantes à 500fg par bagage, si j'arrive à cumuler de 20000à 25000fg je pouvais économiser ça pendant une semaine. A un moment donné, j'ai faillit même abandonner les études par ce que la souffrance était plus puissante que ma personne et la durée de la vie était trop longue pour moi, j'avais le decoùt total de mon existance, j'était fatiguer. 

Arriver au lycée, je commençais à avoir le vrai coùt de l'étude malgré que moi. Avec la pauvrété, j'ai utiliser un seul complet de tenu bleu blanc pendant 3 ans mais j'ai été toujours le premier de ma classe durant tout le lycée. Un orphelin qui n'a jamais redoublé la classe. 

Quand j'ai décroché le BAC en 2013, ils m'ont orienté au centre universitaire de kindia (CUK), ville situer à 135 km de la capitale conakry. Un autre probleme, la difficulté c'est multiplié , la souffrance sur elle même, la licence1 trés amer et décourageante. Ah le bon Dieu tu es le tout puissant. Sur le cout en licence 2, un de mes professeurs au lycée qui connaissait mon état, ses penser en moi et elle est venu au secours, une excellente enseignante trés engagé, déterminé et trés soucier pour les études de ses éléves en générale et pour les ormhelins en particulier. 

Grâce à ses soutiens, aujourd'hui je suis l'un des meilleurs etudiants de ma promotion et par son excellent travail, je suis aujourd'hui un futur étudiant pour la maîtrise à l'Université de l'aval au canada. Je veux être l'un des meilleurs agents dans le cadre du développement de mon pays et dans le reste du monde afin de venir au secour de mes ami(es) orphelins de mon temps. En somme, je veux lancer, un appel trés respectueux aux institutions nationales et internationales et aux personnes de bonnes volontés, de venir à l'aide de madame Mary pour me soutenir à fin de réaliser mon rêve et surtout de sauver la vie des autres orphelins dans le monde entier. Nous contons énormément sur vous.

Which translates roughly to:


This is the story of an orphan. A committed orphan, a determined and courageous orphan, an orphan for peace and development. A poor orphan.

I lost my mother at the age of 2 years and father at the age of 4 years.

My poor maternal grandmother, struck hard by age, took me to the village to take care of me without hope. At the age of 7, I should have been in school, but alas, for lack of money, I didn't go to school until I was 9 years old.

First, I went to a community school where each pupil paid 10,000 franc guinean (about $1.25, but very costly), which was covered by a childhood friend. I went there for two years

For 3rd through 6th grade, I attended a public school that was located at 12 km from my town and I walked every day back and forth. Then when I passed the entrance examination in 7th year, the difficult adventure of a determined orphan started. It was necessary to change locale in order to study further.

However, many questions remained about my future. Namely: Where could I go? Which schools could I afford? How can I find housing and food? And who will support me there? The questions were too much and many.

That's why I missed the first two months of classes in junior high. You can only find junior high schools in the sub-prefectures, prefectures and the capital Conakry.

Suddenly, I was sent to my Tanéné Carrefoure, one of the sub-prefectures of the prefecture of Dubréka. It was 305 km away from my grandmother.

Once I got to Tanéné, I lived in suffering, misery, and hunger. I stayed in a house that looked run down and abandoned. I ate once a day. Despite all this, I was calm and focused solely on my studies.

In junior high, I was much welcomed and loved by teachers and friends in my class because I always figured among the top five in the class.

On the days of the large market in Tanéné (Saturday), I would help carry luggage and goods for women and traders for 500 FG per bag. If I could accumulate 20,000 to 25,000 FG, I could make that last the week. At one point, I almost had to drop out because the suffering was too much. Life was too hard. I had been cut down, and I was tired.

When I arrived in high school, I began to really feel the costs of making my way in the world. Despite all my work, I was so poor that I had to use a single uniform for three years. However, I was always top in my class. I was the rare orphan who never repeated a year.

When I passed the BAC (like the SATs) in 2013, I was assigned to go to the University Center of Kindia (CUK), in a town situated 135 km from the capital Conakry.

It was another level of trials and difficulties. The first year was full of suffering, and I was bitter and discouraged.


Ah the good Lord you are the Almighty.


When it came time to pay for the second year, one of my teachers knew of the conditions I was living in and came to my rescue. She is a very excellent and committed teacher, who is very concerned with education in general, and orphans in particular (I think he's talking about me).

Through her support, I am now one of the best students in my class, and even better, I am now about to begin a master's program at Laval University in Canada. I want to be one of the best development agents in my country and in the world. I want to help my fellow orphans as my life work.

In short, I respectfully appeal to national and international institutions and people of good will to come to the aid of Madame Mary and I to support my dream and especially to save the lives of orphans worldwide. We're counting on you to help make a difference.

Current projects

Well, I'm at MIT, but that's not what this blog is about. I've got two projects going on right now, one is going back to Guinea for a STEAM (STEM plus the arts) camp in July. Any donations to defray costs to volunteers is appreciated here.

However, I'd rather you send your donations toward me. Or rather, toward Kalil through me.

Kalil is one of my former students, and he was also Slac's best friend. Because of that, I spent a lot of time with Kalil, and I was always impressed by his determination in school, his kindness, and his sense of humor. Additionally, he was always first to advocate for girl's equality.

Last year, Kalil told me that he wanted to do a master's program in a social sciences field so that he can help develop Guinea. So we started with a computer and computer classes, and some of you helped me raise money for that. Thanks!

Then we applied to programs. I'd send him the essay prompts, he'd send me back his drafts. Wiatta brought his transcripts over when they got lost the first time. And guess what????

HE GOT IN!!

Université Laval: Social Work. It will be a three year program, and I've already set up his on campus housing, his passport, his flight. His visa and study permit are still pending. We hope he'll get financial aid, but he could use some money for rent, some spending money, and I could use some help paying for all the documentation that has been required.

So we talked about ways to raise money, and I said "Kalil, why don't you tell your story, and we'll put a donate button on the blog?" And he said, "Madame, I will do that right away!" And overnight, he wrote me his story. I haven't made it through the whole thing yet (translating it for you) but I already teared up.

Kalil has hope that his life is going to change, and I am so blessed to be a part of it. I hope you'll enjoy his posts, and I hope you'll consider donating for his living costs once he gets to Canada.

Oh man, just wait.

I'll post his story tomorrow.

Slac, post 3

I couldn't bring myself to say anything at first, because it was too hard. But it's been nearly 3 months, so if you read this and you haven't seen my facebook, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news. My best Guinean friend, Slac, died on Sept 22, early in the morning. Kidney failure. At the MSF hospital in Conakry that is also an Ebola ward, so I have to wonder if he is a secondary casualty of that terrible event. I miss him terribly, every single day. I was privileged to have known him and to have been able to call him my brother. There are very few people that you meet in this world who are as joyful, honest, and accepting as Slac. I have no idea why he took me under his wing so immediately and so selflessly, but I wouldn't have made it through without him. We talked weekly when I came back. For a full year, which any PCV will tell you is impressive. I still can't believe that I'm never going to hear his laugh over the phone. I still can't believe that when I return to Guinea, maybe with a family of my own, I won't get to meet his family. Instead of laughing with him and drinking tea, I will visit his grave site and remember all the memories we shared. I have no bad memories of Slac. Even in my darkest times, he was my support and a ray of lightness and laughter.

I thought this story was closed. I suffered, I came home, I healed. In the novel version of my Peace Corps, the end comes when I stepped into the counselor's office in Georgia. Happy ending. Protagonist survives, finds tools to be whole and healthy, epilogue about keeping in touch, maybe a scene of her return to her village.

Alas, life isn't a balanced novel. Slac is gone and I'm learning to live with a hole in my heart. I'll leave you with this poem by Victor Hugo, entitled "Demain, dès l'aube."

As the Anniversaries Pass...

I suppose the anniversaries I mark from my time in Guinea will become fewer the further I get from Guinea. First there was the counting up of months since I had been home, and suddenly it's been 10 months since I came home. Then there were the things I missed--Ramadan, Tabaski, the return to school, the gradual passing of time as my life and the life of the people I left behind return to yet another normal.

I've been home long enough now that the nostalgia is here in full force. I miss a lot of things about Guinea. I miss the people, ma famille guinéenne. I miss knowing I was doing something tough and worthwhile. I miss some of the food, and the beauty and speaking Susu.

There are also a lot of things I haven't been sad to miss. The elections stress, the recent Ebola outbreak, the propositions, the heat, the mosquitos. And honestly, I don't miss the person I became at the end of my service.

It's been 2 years since I was tackled by a fou. It's been 7 since I survived Lemierre's Syndrome, a rare bacterial infection that nearly killed me in high school. It's been 4 years since I was in a terrible fire in France where 1 student died needlessly in an un-sprinklered dorm. Incredibly, all 3 of those events happened in April. It's also been 1 year since I got a terrible sore throat while in Conakry and started suffering from PTSD, although it's only been about 4 months since I realized that that was what I was going through. Most of you probably had no idea, which I guess means I'm really awesome at coping, but it's been a rough year.

I'm a firm proponent of speaking out about mental illnesses, because I don't think there should be any stigma attached to an illness that I had no control over. I also think it's important that future Peace Corps volunteers don't go into their service unprepared for the possible consequences. I was not unaware. I wrote myself a letter before I left that was intended to be read if anything bad happened to me, to remind myself to make it through, that I am strong and resilient and I can survive anything but death. I read it fairly often, especially at the end, when my mental state was a mess. Huge thank you to my G20 folks, who supported me through my breakdowns and insanity. I wanted so much to finish my Peace Corps service that I pushed myself to a rock bottom place. I cried every day. I laughed every day too, so don't get too lost in that idea that I was just a sad sack, but I was a complete emotional roller-coaster, and it wasn't pretty.

So I came home and didn't really help myself until I started working at the Army, and heard a lot about the Army's efforts to use technology to help their veterans suffering from PTSD. And it sounded incredibly familiar. It turns out that you're more likely to get PTSD if you've had more traumas. So I'm getting help and I'm doing much better, and you know what--I am a survivor. It never even occurred to me that I could take a hit and just stay down. It never occurred to me to put my dreams on hold to heal or live a small, safe life. I jumped directly into grad school and work, and it is very rewarding. I hold on to that knowledge, that I keep taking risks in the face of my fears, on days when I wonder if the fou, the fire, and the disease have won.

I'm the sort of person who marks time very concretely. If you know me, you know how significant my Life Day is, the day I got out of the hospital. Tomorrow is a different sort of anniversary, and I'm not really sure how to feel about it. I just know that it's hard not to wonder "what if". What if I hadn't been in Conakry? What if we'd had our meeting inside? How different would I be today? Would I be more whole?

Many people have asked me, especially after I tell them about all this stuff, about all the pain, mental and physical, that I came home with, whether or not I'd do it again. And you know what my answer is?

Yes.

Yes, I'd do this. I'm not permanently damaged. I had an adventure, and I came back with bruises. I helped some people and had some tough lessons in learning about myself. I saw painful realities and gained an inescapable gratitude. Would I choose a life without Peace Corps? No, never. I made my dreams come true, and my dream was to live without rose colored glasses and still retain my compassion and optimism.

Next Phase: Grad School

I am registered for research credits at UMD. Going back to where I did my undergrad, and I couldn't be happier. I traveled for nearly a month, and no place felt more like home than McKeldin Mall. This all came about in the most sudden way, but now that I'm an RPCV, it's not stressing me out as much that I don't know all the details. It'll come about.

I had some really great travels. I got to see lots and lots of my college friends and even some high school friends in DC/Baltimore. I ate out for restaurant week twice. I hemorrhaged my readjustment allowance on delicious food. Ask me if I regret this after I start paying rent and car payments. Currently, no regrets.

I explored Philly, from fine art to dive bars, from beer gardens to one of the top 5 beer bars in the states. There was beer. I also had a cocktail with Tang. Because, why not? I had a great time in Philly and stayed in the best 4-star hotel ever. Actually Chris and Michelle's apartment, it was sweet. I owe them a fantastic time. You guys rolled out the red carpet!

Then it was on to the hometown, and I thought I was done with my gastronomic adventures, but no! There was Skyline and Graeters and Marion's and Laura's cookies. It was fabulous to "come home" and see where I come from. And yet, I don't see myself living there. But who knows?

Then on to Erie for my niece's birthday. She had a blast at Chuck E. Cheese, and then we had a special night out. I picked her up from school and we went to the mall, where she got to pick out an outfit. We also got matching shiny gold belts, soo anyone with fashion advice on how to wear a children's gold belt, lemme know. Then she got to pick where we went for dessert, and she picked Red Lobster, because she loves to touch the lobsters, even though every time she gets shy. She is awesome and smart and sassy and good God, I love that kid to death. I'm hoping this can be a yearly tradition, even if I don't make it for her birthday every year. Here's Shae in part of her outfit: (not pictured: hoodie, leggings, socks, and sparkly purple belt)

Mary No Longer in Guinea

FIRST:

I just heard that at least 3 of my students passed their BAC, meaning they can go to college! I can't tell you how much of a success this feels like. One of my science girls passed--the one who came nearly every afternoon to study physics and English! Sooooooooo happy!

Now then:

I've been home now for nearly a month, and I just haven't been able to bring myself to update this.I'm already feeling much better--I came home with a nasty ear infection and stomach problems, probably from taking too much ibuprofen. My arm is improving, but not "better" yet.

It's been a relief being home. I'd say I'm definitely still in the honeymoon phase, no matter how much US politics/judicial decisions have gotten me down. I haven't been having nightmares, and I haven't run into any fous yet!

I'll try to update more often about my readjustment.