It will be the end of March before I can send this with the mail run. Sorry for the delay. Only 7 weeks until In-Service Training, when all the volunteers in Chad will reunite for a week of reflecting, processing, analyzing and applying all the things we’ve learned. I have an education degree. I know how to play that game real well. We’ll all be staying at a French hotel near N’Djamena which has, among other things, a pool, beer, a captive tortoise, beer and white people. Don’t judge me – sometimes a girl just wants a beer with her boule.
I adore my sisters. Sometimes when I’m sitting with them, I just get a little bubble of joy in my chest at how lucky I am to have them. So then I jab one of them in the side and make her stick her finger up her nose because that’s how we Van Roekels show our affection. We were talking about marriage the other night and it’s one of the things in this culture I have a real hard time swallowing. Girls are given away as early as 12 and 13 with absolutely no choice in the matter. My sisters know lots of girls who have died giving birth at age 14 or younger. They say lots of times, the dad will give away a girl (to a much older man, mind you) and the girl won’t even know it until the day of the ceremony when the women come to henna her feet. Some dads are better – the mayor (host dad) told his girls that he wouldn’t give them away unless they liked the man. So that’s how my sisters have managed to stay in school this long.
My school principal’s wife, Josephine, is one of my very good friends. She married the proviseur (French word for principal) when she was in 6th grade and had 2 kids by the time she was 18. But she kept on with her schooling all through high school, she passed her Baccalaureate (big end of HS test) on her second try (first try, she’d just had another baby and didn’t have time to study). She went on to teachers’ school, all the while caring for her family and home and is now an elementary school teacher with 8 kids, the youngest of whom is 4. She’s an absolutely incredible woman. There are so many odds stacked against girls here, it’s mind-blowing that she was able to succeed as she has. But still, she’s 100% subservient to her husband. They had all the English teachers over for dinner (all men except for me) and she brought the food, brought the cups, poured the drinks, kept her head bowed, and shuffled off to the kitchen hut. She’s normally a sassy, loud, funny woman, but around men….bah…it’s hard to deal with.
Another issue that goes hand in hand with the above is the total lack of western-style respect for women. Most of my colleagues are very nice and respectful but there’s 3 or 4 who leer at me and invite me to their house (big no no – it’s definitely not a friendly invitation) and ask me if I’m going to marry a Chadian. It’s not just the teachers either, its CONSTANT around town – men I don’t even know! YUCK! My sisters in America, there may still be many aspects in which we aren’t totally equal with the fellas but we have it so much better than the vast majority of women in the world. But no worries on the safety end for me here, the mayor and his oldest son (my next door neighbor) totally watch out for me. Don’t nobody mess with the Adam Moussa family.
The proviseur’s house is right on the school grounds, so I go hang out with Josephine everyday after class. She’s great. Even if I’ve had a terrible day and all my lessons have bombed and the kids have harassed me in Kanembu, I leave Josephine’s feeling sassy and happy to be in Chad. She always force feeds me fried fish or beignets (balls of fried dough) or at least sugary sugary my-teeth-hurt-there’s-so-much-sugar (delicious) tea. Thus, I have actually gained weight since being at site. I initially lost a lot during the first 2 months of training at Darda, then gained some back during the month in N’Djamena. And now here I am in Bol gaining more. I’m still thinner than when I left USA, but it sucks cause I was totally going for the wiry, sunburned, malnourished Peace Corps look and instead I’m lightly tanned (I never leave the house w/o sun block) and healthy. Oh well, nothing a case of amoebic dysentery won’t take care of.
