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Today’s the day! I’m sitting at gate C30 at the Philadelphia International Airport, trying to cool down because I’ve been running around like a madman all morning. I have begun my journey to Sierra Leone, where I will spend the next seven weeks. The journey began with a daredevil attempt to get my last taste of Buffalo wings and fries for almost two months with my gas tank on E, forgotten malaria-prevention medicine, a canceled flight and TSA pulling me aside to test my batteries and baby powder for explosives and cocaine. However, soon it will all be worth it.
Photo courtesy of megduerksen.typepad.com
In about 20 hours I will be back in Sierra Leone, reunited with my father who I haven’t seen since moving into Bostwick last August. After settling in, I’ll delve into a case study of the influence of the country’s devastating civil war on education in the small rural town where my father grew up. More specifically — and more excitingly — I’ll be studying the same primary school he attended 40 years ago, the Sierra Leone Muslim Brotherhood Primary School (no relation to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood). This research will help me to better serve the school — called SLMB for short — through my non-profit effort Project EqualAccess. The goal of Project EqualAccess is to improve and modernize Sierra Leonean primary education.
Yesterday I also ran around like a madman, but it was much more enjoyable, as I was gathering fun posters, supplies and educational CD-Roms for the school library I opened in the SLMB Primary School as a high school senior (so, the way I just mentioned my opening a library in SLMB was pretty casual, right? My bad. If you’d like to read more about that adventure, I welcome you to check out projectequalaccess.wordpress.com!) While I’m conducting my research this summer, I will also be working towards the computer literacy of the teachers and students at the school, as well as improving the library’s efficiency.
You know, in the 13 days between leaving Wake and today, I worried. A lot. Am I rested enough to start this research and teach? Is my Krio (the most widely spoken language in Sierra Leone) good enough to conduct interviews? Will the product of my research be worthwhile? By far, the question that I was most ashamed of asking myself was — do I want to do this anymore?
But the minute I started sifting through old copies of Math Blaster and Jump Start at my local Goodwill, I instantly realized the answer to all those questions was yes. Yes, yes, yes. While I often feel a sense of duty to Sierra Leone, the country my parents left behind some 25 years ago to provide a better life for me, I am also incredibly privileged to belong to two beautiful countries and cultures, to have a loving extended family and 500 school children eagerly awaiting my arrival and to have Wake Forest supporting my research and philanthropy whole-heartedly — academically, morally and financially.
I hope I remember to let this sense of privilege and duty motivate me when faced with rain, mud, heat, bugs, fatigue, people laughing at my American accent and whatever else may come.