MOST IMPORTANT THING TO DO WHILE IN SIERRA LEONE

Between time spent with family, going to the beach and all night booty shaking at Paddy's there is a lot that a returnee can do. Since the summer of 2003 I have been back home 4 times. I spent both the summer of '03 and '04 at home and christmas 04 and Christmas 05. So its easy to see that i'm clearly addicted. There are many people out there who havent been home in a long time and when ever they do think of going home they wonder what they'll do when they get there. In an effort to encourage and promote the return home i am going to share with you some of the things i've done or dreamt of doing while at home.NUMBER 1 AND MOST IMPORTANT IS VOLUNTEER/COMMUNITY SERVICE. As you well know our country is in its reconstruction period. What better way to pass time than to give your time. My favorite form of volunteering is teaching. I have an ongoing relationship with the FAWE SCHOOL at fort street. The first year (2003) I was there I taught class 4 and class 6....mostly English but also a bunch of stuff really....as long as i thought it was relevant. I organized i field trip with my students to the SL Library by Victoria Park. None of my students had even been and we got a tour of the facility. I remember that when i went to Mereweather that we use to go to the library and the British council.In the summer of 2004 when i went back to FAWE I only taught class 6. This time it was more fun as i was more comfortable teaching. I also had the honor of writing and directing the theater performance at the class 6 graduation ceremony. It was a 4 act play called ISSUES that dealt with girl child education, self love and respect for culture and tradition. So much fun and stress rehearsing but in the end it all went well. And as a bonus i got to give out the diplomas and prizes at the graduation. I was soooo proud of my FAWE girls!!! I forgot to mention that i also taught them the hook to Nas's I KNOW I CAN...which they loved and I took the rhythm from a UNICEF CD and I wrote another song with the class....that went a litttle something like this....hello, bonjour, buenos dias, good day, guttentag, koniciwa, ciao, shalom, Kushe, ow di bodi...etc. Anyways what i'm trying to say is that VOLUNTEERING IS SOOOO COOL!!! Also, for those of us who easily tire of complaining about the state of things in Salone...volunteering means you can do something. And outside of FAWE there are a million other things you can do