Things I urgently feel you should know:

·         One of the cooks here has a young daughter. Her name is Kevin. I don't know why that is; it just is. Sometimes you have to accept that.

·         Two weeks ago we were in a 2.5 hour meeting with the engineer in charge of our new building to renegotiate a labor expense (long story short, the original bill of quantities is for his crew to do all the interior prepping and painting of the ceilings and walls, they are now only prepping, thus a new, lower price needed to be reached). This meeting began at 8:45. At night. But we negotiated a new price. We even wrote it up a memorandum for his home office informing it of the method by which we agreed on the number.

·         Today the engineer informed us that as they have done the work, the new price was too low.

·         I will not renegotiate the price.

·         This is not because I am a hard ass but because I haven't had a meeting with the engineer that has been shorter than 2 hours (the aforementioned meeting was meant to last 15 minutes), and I don't think I can summon enough determination to do another meeting so soon.

·         There is a cow chewing on her upraised hind leg outside my door as I'm writing this.

·         There is often a cow outside my door.

·         As an American in Africa, I think I'm contractually obligated to make a mention of something called a jacaranda tree (or maybe a bush?), but I have no idea what this tree (bush) is. Obviously.

·         Sarah has begun cooking. Three of the last four nights she has prepared food for our administrative staff.

·         Dishes Sarah has prepared: Indian eggplant, curried okra, spaghetti with tomato sauce.

·         Sarah is cooking using a wood fire. The food doesn't reflect that massive limitation at all. In fact, I'll probably regain the 5 kg I've lost since we've been here sooner than later.

·         While I was working in our house and Sarah was on our back porch chopping vegetables with two of our girls, 12-year-old Lily Jane and 13-year-old Muja Joyce, I overheard the following exchange- Muja: My mother used to make this... She was so happy. Now she died. Lily: My father died. I cried and cried. There was a short pause, then Lily began laughing, Muja joined and they went on with chopping.

·         More than anything, exchanges like that are why I'm so happy Sarah is cooking. The girls love to cook with her, and they haven't had someone here to act as their mother since, well, ever.

·         I took Lily to the hospital the other day for a case of stomach cramps.

·         We were at the hospital for four hours, I kid you not.

·         While we were sitting in the open air waiting room, under the tin roof, with the paint peeling off the walls, the hospital employees brought out a TV and put on a DVD.  It was completely surreal.

·         Uploading photos takes forever here, so I can't show you the million cute, wonderful, or brilliant things that the kids are constantly doing.

·         Not numbered among those million things are the kids who became so excited about moving into their new home that they stayed home from school today to help us paint.

·         They made this decision without our information or consent.

·         We did not let them paint.

·         Also, we couldn't send them late to school because students who arrive late to their school are sent home.

·         That policy doesn't make sense to me either.

·         Numbered among the million things is the handful of 6-8 year old girls who crowded around an old mattress that they had laid out on the ground, and when the mosque next door to us began the call to prayer repeatedly knelt down, pressing their faces to the ground, calling out "Allahu Akbar," and giggling like banshees.

·         I'm not sure our neighbors like us.

·         Except Sylve, who is constantly stopping by and is constantly drunk. She likes to steal our sugar when we're not looking. She also like to throw rocks not at but in the general direction of our children. She also likes to threaten to beat them. And to randomly break into screeching, wailing sobs. And to stand in rooms where our children are trying to study and yell very random things such as, "Organization Airport!"

·         There's a long story behind why she yells things like that, but it'll have to wait.

·         We've tried to be patient with her, but we're getting to a point where we just can't have her around. We've set boundaries with her (like, "don't come here when you've been drinking"), and she's ignored them. She's becoming increasingly agitated and stubborn lately. We've had long discussions about what to do and settled on ignoring her.

·         If you have ideas for how to convince 60 kids to ignore the drunk lady who is standing in front of them saying, "Organization Airport" and cursing their (deceased) mothers, we are open to hearing them. 

Things I urgently feel you should know:

·         One of the cooks here has a young daughter. Her name is Kevin. I don't know why that is; it just is. Sometimes you have to accept that.

·         Two weeks ago we were in a 2.5 hour meeting with the engineer in charge of our new building to renegotiate a labor expense (long story short, the original bill of quantities is for his crew to do all the interior prepping and painting of the ceilings and walls, they are now only prepping, thus a new, lower price needed to be reached). This meeting began at 8:45. At night. But we negotiated a new price. We even wrote it up a memorandum for his home office informing it of the method by which we agreed on the number.

·         Today the engineer informed us that as they have done the work, the new price was too low.

·         I will not renegotiate the price.

·         This is not because I am a hard ass but because I haven't had a meeting with the engineer that has been shorter than 2 hours (the aforementioned meeting was meant to last 15 minutes), and I don't think I can summon enough determination to do another meeting so soon.

·         There is a cow chewing on her upraised hind leg outside my door as I'm writing this.

·         There is often a cow outside my door.

·         As an American in Africa, I think I'm contractually obligated to make a mention of something called a jacaranda tree (or maybe a bush?), but I have no idea what this tree (bush) is. Obviously.

·         Sarah has begun cooking. Three of the last four nights she has prepared food for our administrative staff.

·         Dishes Sarah has prepared: Indian eggplant, curried okra, spaghetti with tomato sauce.

·         Sarah is cooking using a wood fire. The food doesn't reflect that massive limitation at all. In fact, I'll probably regain the 5 kg I've lost since we've been here sooner than later.

·         While I was working in our house and Sarah was on our back porch chopping vegetables with two of our girls, 12-year-old Lily Jane and 13-year-old Muja Joyce, I overheard the following exchange- Muja: My mother used to make this... She was so happy. Now she died. Lily: My father died. I cried and cried. There was a short pause, then Lily began laughing, Muja joined and they went on with chopping.

·         More than anything, exchanges like that are why I'm so happy Sarah is cooking. The girls love to cook with her, and they haven't had someone here to act as their mother since, well, ever.

·         I took Lily to the hospital the other day for a case of stomach cramps.

·         We were at the hospital for four hours, I kid you not.

·         While we were sitting in the open air waiting room, under the tin roof, with the paint peeling off the walls, the hospital employees brought out a TV and put on a DVD.  It was completely surreal.

·         Uploading photos takes forever here, so I can't show you the million cute, wonderful, or brilliant things that the kids are constantly doing.

·         Not numbered among those million things are the kids who became so excited about moving into their new home that they stayed home from school today to help us paint.

·         They made this decision without our information or consent.

·         We did not let them paint.

·         Also, we couldn't send them late to school because students who arrive late to their school are sent home.

·         That policy doesn't make sense to me either.

·         Numbered among the million things is the handful of 6-8 year old girls who crowded around an old mattress that they had laid out on the ground, and when the mosque next door to us began the call to prayer repeatedly knelt down, pressing their faces to the ground, calling out "Allahu Akbar," and giggling like banshees.

·         I'm not sure our neighbors like us.

·         Except Sylve, who is constantly stopping by and is constantly drunk. She likes to steal our sugar when we're not looking. She also like to throw rocks not at but in the general direction of our children. She also likes to threaten to beat them. And to randomly break into screeching, wailing sobs. And to stand in rooms where our children are trying to study and yell very random things such as, "Organization Airport!"

·         There's a long story behind why she yells things like that, but it'll have to wait.

·         We've tried to be patient with her, but we're getting to a point where we just can't have her around. We've set boundaries with her (like, "don't come here when you've been drinking"), and she's ignored them. She's becoming increasingly agitated and stubborn lately. We've had long discussions about what to do and settled on ignoring her.

·         If you have ideas for how to convince 60 kids to ignore the drunk lady who is standing in front of them saying, "Organization Airport" and cursing their (deceased) mothers, we are open to hearing them. 

A little historical reflection

Activity here slows down infrequently, but when it does I tend to find myself confronted by a couple glaringly obvious truths:

1. We live in Sudan.

2. Life in Sudan is quite different from life in America.

And usually those two truths beg the question: What on earth are we doing here? If I have enough time before the frenzy of activity resumes, I spend an awful lot of time pondering that question. People's decisions and actions are propelled forward by their beliefs, values, and ideals, whether consciously or subconsciously. I think it's safe to assume that a person who moves across the globe is acting consciously, but some days I have a very hard time pinning down exactly what were the beliefs, values, and ideals that brought me here.

Should the time before I'm swept up in the needs, desires, and whims of 60 children really stretch on, I usually find myself thinking about St. Benedict - not the present Pope who I find pretty creepy and who isn’t a saint (sorry to any devoutly Catholic friends I might have), but the Italian monk who started monasteries all over Europe during the Dark Ages.

A quick historical refresher: after the fall of the western Roman Empire in 476AD, most of Europe devolved into chaos due to the absence of any coordinating central power that had enough authority to ensure order. It was a time of regular warfare, high poverty, appalling lack of education, and, for most Europeans, general misery.

Benedict's rather revolutionary idea of the time was, "what if authority could be used not to force people into a certain course of action but to mobilize people to improve their own lives and communities?" So was born the Benedictine monastery - usually a few acres of low quality land that Benedict and his order worked over diligently until it became useful for producing food and raising animals for both food and clothing. On the same grounds the Benedictines built a church, a school, a community meeting hall, a library, and a guesthouse for the weary traveler who managed to survive the widespread banditry on just about every road.

The monastery was more than self-sufficient; in most cases it produced an abundance of food and materials that could then be used to enrich the larger community.

Benedict was a guy who looked beyond the prevailing survival mentality of his time and tried to imagine how the world was meant to be. Then he set about trying to transform his world to more closely resemble the ideal that he held in his heart, what he thought the kingdom of God that Jesus spoke about should look like.

It is no accident that I find myself thinking a lot about St. Benedict, I suppose. I think about him when I look at the soil Sarah is preparing for planting and the skeleton of a structure that is slowly becoming a chicken coop. I think about him when I walk through the village not too far from our home in the middle of a school day and see scores of school age children who aren't enrolled in school. I think of him when the women's savings group meets on the veranda of one of the buildings on our compound.

I feel both uncertain about and uncomfortable with the proposition that I should be one of the people who seek to affect transformation in this community. I don't know what it says about me that I moved across the world to help transform one community and left behind another that was also in need of transformation. Here I find myself, though, and as Sarah and I delve deeper and deeper into our new community, I find that my heart bonds to it more and more. And the needs here are great, so I end up asking myself a lot, "do I believe in something worthwhile and valuable, not just for me, not just for people like me, but for all people?"

And then a bleeding kid interrupts me with eyes imploring me to dress his wounds.


Now Hiring

Cornerstone Friends made three Sudanese hires this week! We’re so excited about the people we are working with to begin our programs. I thought I would tell you about them.

Mandela Joseph

Mandela came to live at Cornerstone Children’s Home a few years back when he was 12, he was living on the streets at the time, finding work when he could. He left the program a few months ago when it became clear there was not much more the home could do to for him. Seth and I were very sad to hear Mandela was not living here anymore, as we both have a strong fondness for him despite (or maybe because of?) his moodiness and sometimes difficult personality.

He’s been showing up here every evening for the last week, wanting to take his anti-depressant medicine and wondering if there is any way for us to help him get into a trade school. Unfortunately he is illiterate and so trade school is not possible right now. We came to a new agreement that Mandela can work in our agriculture program and join the tutoring groups Seth is beginning next week.

I genuinely enjoyed working with Mandela today , digging and preparing the soil. I hope he shows up tomorrow.

Joska

About 8 months ago we got a very sad and heavy call from our friends here in Sudan letting us know one of the best and brightest girls at the home was pregnant. The director of the home found out because one of her sisters became afraid Joska was going to the witch doctor to try and terminate the pregnancy.

It amazes how nine months and child birth can change a girl’s heart and now Isaiah is here and couldn’t be more loved or adored. Unfortunately, the reality of her situation remains the same. She and the father can no longer go to school, he is not working and they are living in poverty.

Seth met with Joska to test her literacy level and she will start tutoring our small kids next week. We have plenty of willing free babysitters for Isaiah and for $1.50 a day we hope to create opportunity for him, Joska, and the kids she will teach to read.

Aturus

Aturus lives here at the home, he came to me the other day and said he was very interested in planting food and raising chickens. We made a plan for the chicken coop and by that afternoon he had purchased materials and dug the holes for the posts.

Aturus is about 18 a freshman in high school (or senior one as they say here) and reading at maybe a third grade level. He is just the kind of kid for whom we want to create opportunities.

Yesterday Aturus and I put together the beginning of our chicken business plan. We expect it to recoop our start up costs (about $150) and turn a profit in 5 months. Aturus will receive a percentage of the profits and the rest will go towards funding the home. We’ll keep you updated on the progress!

The internet is not letting me post pics at the moment but if you get on our Facebook page "Cornerstone Friends" I'll put some there.

A Report on Literacy/A Report on Illiteracy

Born out of my conviction that you often have to know the severity of the problem before you can start to address the problem, I spent a large chunk of time putting each kid who lives in the children's home through a simple literacy test. My intent was to discover how fluently they read - you'll see that I paid absolutely no attention to comprehension, and you'll hopefully see why I made that decision initially. I also should disclaim that I'm trying to create an approach that can be reproduced by an African teacher with very few resources and many students in his or her class.

Be forewarned: this post reveals the full extent of my dorkiness, particularly when it comes to data. Proceed at your own caution. If you came here for my glib assessment of life in rural Africa and the accompanying anecdotes, I'll be back with more of that soon.

First a word about methodology, and I'm offering this mainly because I'd love to hear from others about how this methodology can be improved, where it is lacking, what it overlooks, etc. Here's how I tested the kids:

·         Before we came to Sudan I stopped by Bookies, Denver's finest educator bookstore, and picked up five editions of the DK Reader series, each of which was rated at a different reading level - all the way from a child who is still learning to read up to a fully independent reader. The total cost for all five books was $15, making it replicable for others trying to reproduce this system.

·         When I met with each child, I had them start with the lowest book and read the title. If they were able to, I moved on to the next level and had them do the same, until I came to the highest level book of which they could read the title. For a few of them, you'll see on the chart below, I had them read a couple different books in order to get a fuller picture of their abilities. This was the most subjective part of the process; for many children I could tell from listening to them read for two minutes what they were capable of and where they struggled, and for some I needed to see them attack more difficult material to see what they would do.

·         I then had the child read to me from that book for two minutes. During that time I kept track of how many mistakes they made in reading, and at the end I tabulated how many words they had read total, and divided by two to find their average words per minute. Both words per minute and mistakes are recorded on the table.

·         In general, I was looking for the level where the child was pronouncing 80% of the words correctly.

·         While the child read I was primarily listening for the following things: phonetic awareness, familiarity with simple & complex vowel sounds, ability to divide longer and more unfamiliar words into chunks, ability to read with expression.

The full results are below, but I want to draw your attention to a few things:

·         Age doesn't necessarily correlate with their progress in school. Because of the instability in this region, many of the kids have been in and out of school for a long time, and this has seriously impacted their progress.

·         To read the notations for their year in school, know that the system is divided into three schools: nursery school (which has 3 years), primary school (which has 7 years), and secondary school (which has 6 years). A student marked p7 is in their 7th year of primary school, "s" is for senior, and "n" is for nursery.

·         You'll notice a handful of kids who seem to be reading at a remarkable rate but with a similarly remarkable number of mistakes. Those children, without fail, are not actually reading - they just have incredible memories and have memorized a ton of sight words and are using that knowledge bank to guess at everything else.

·         You'll notice an even greater number of kids - 23 to be exact -   who have only a 0 in the first column. Those children, unfortunately, are completely illiterate. Some are in nursery school, so it's not too shocking, but many are in the middle and upper levels of primary school. Most of them can recognize all the letters in the alphabet, but they have no ability to put those letters together to form words or even identify the sounds each letter should make. These are the children I'm most concerned about.

Alright, have a look at the data. If you have thoughts, share them in the comment section.

Update: So, Blogger isn't super kind to this table - you can highlight it within the browser to see all the data.  You can also copy it and paste it into something that makes it easier to look at.  I'd do it for you, but be thankful that I get internet at all here - let's not ask too much.

Age	School Year	Pre-1 WPM	Pre-1 Mistakes	Level 1 WPM	Level 1 mistakes	Level 2 WPM	Level 2 mistakes	Level 3 WPM	Level 3 mistakes	Level 4 WPM	Level 4 mistakes
20	s4									107	5
20	s4									82	6
16	s2					70	15	81	22
19	s2			48	13	48	19
18	s1			39	22	34	17
17	s1					96	26
17	s1							79	14	80	8
17	s1			39	7
17	s1					49	9
19	s1					40	9
19	s1					32	11
18	s1					58	14
17	p7			48	9	37	7
16	p7			94	15	61	16
17	p7					64	7	58	14
16	p6					58	8
15	p6			44	16
15	p6					60	13
17	p6			36	12
13	p6			20	13
15	p6			60	18	36	21
15	p6	0
14	p5	35	10	28	23	26	18
14	p5			43	41
14	p5	26	8	20	25
14	p5	0
14	p5	0
15	p5			37	41
15	p5	0
16	p5	32	8	26	18
15	p4	0
15	p4	0
14	p4			18	13
11	p4	23	8	23	16
13	p4	0
15	p4	0
11	p3	0
13	p3	0
13	p2	0
13	P2	19	6	18	9
11	p2	0
10	p2			21	7
8	p2	15	13
8	p2	0
14	p2	13	9
11	p2	0
11	p2	0
7	p1	0
15	p1
10	p1
8	n3	0
6	n3	0
5	n2	0
6	n2	0
4	n1	0
15	p4?	0