Snake Encounters

I appreciated the chance yesterday to see the Lillian Lincoln Foundation documentary, “Minutes to Die: Snakebite, the World’s Ignored Health Crisis,” which was followed by a Q & A session with Dr. Robert Harrison from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. The film highlights that simply ignoring the snakebite problem is a social injustice, because throughout history it has inequitably plagued the poor. The hope now is that access to quality treatment, especially throughout the tropics, will result from WHO’s recent (and long fought for) recognition of snakebite envenoming as a neglected tropical disease.

Probably in part because in Sierra Leone when people are bitten they seek help from traditional healers rather than clinics or hospitals, the country lacks quantitative snakebite data. Anecdotal data on snake encounters, on the other hand, should be readily available. Here is some from SELI’s Young Writers clubs, which illustrates the ways children come in contact with snakes.

A Snake Hissed at Me

Hawa K., REC Primary, Kent

One evening, I finished cooking with my mother. She dished out the food and we ate it. Before long, I went to the toilet. As I pushed the door open, I saw a large snake with black colour, raising its head hissing at me. I ran quickly to tell my mother. But when my mother came with me to see the snake, it had disappeared.

Snake Bite

Hamza D.C., New Apostolic SS, Lumpa

Once my mother and I were going to the farm. On the way my mother said I should go to the bush and bring a large amount of wood.

On the way to the bush I was holding a stick in my hand. When I reached there I was removing the wood. Suddenly, a snake in the bush came and bit my foot and I shouted, “Help me! Help me!” two times before I saw an old man come down from the trees with a cutlass and I knew that old man was called Pa Turay. If someone was not there, I should have been dead. The old man looked around for some leaves that he would use to put on the bite of the snake. The date was August 23^rd 2005.

The old man asked, “Who sent you into this bush?”

I said, “My mother told me to come and collect wood to go and prepare meat for my father.”

The old man took me to my house in Muska Village. I was not feeling bright. The old man said to my mother, “Take your child and let him have some rest.” When my mother went and laid me on the bed she said, “Let me give you some money because I haven’t prepared a meal yet.”

The old man said, “I don’t need your money. Just take some medicine and place it where the snake bit him. And it is necessary for him to eat after he rises.”

Suddenly my father came and saw my foot got swollen. My father asked my mother, “What happened to my only son’s foot?”

Then my mother said, “It is I who did this. I sent him to the bush to collect wood for you to prepare meat,” and she said, “I will not do it again.”

In the morning my foot became normal again.

A Snake Bit my Sister

Adama K., Wenner Kuhhnle Primary, Lumpa

It was Sunday afternoon. My younger sister and I were walking along the bush. A big snake came out of the bush and bit my younger sister and she began to shout. I did not know what happened to her.

Immediately I took her up and carried her to Howa Uncle. I was afraid because the place where the snake bit my sister began to spread over her body. I took her to Howa Uncle because Howa Uncle knows different types of medicine. If a person has an animal bite, he will heal the person. That’s why I took her there.

Before my uncle could go to enter the bush to prepare medicine, it was too late because at that time my sister began to feel weak and after one hour thirty minutes, my sister died.

I cried and cried as if she was going to return but there was no way to do so and when my mother came back from Bo, she found her daughter had died. She cried and cried and my father talked to my mother to stop crying, she would not return again. “So you have to wipe your tears and keep praying God will provide you with another one.” My uncle said that he could prepare something. As my uncle said that word, my mother started to cry again. My father asked her if she wanted to kill herself. “You have to keep praying for the ones who have left, let God bless her for us.” And my uncle said, “As for me, I have done my best.”

A Snake Accident

Foday A.K., Dankawalie SS

The 16th August 2010 my brother sent my friend and me to go and search in our farm for all the palm kernels. The name of my brother is Yanka Lansana and the name of the farm is Papa Yefie.

As soon as we arrived we saw the first one. Because I was happy to go to the farm, I was the first person to climb the palm tree.

When I started to cut the branch and I saw a big snake called a cobra. It usually hunts birds on the tree. It was angry when it saw me and it rushed towards me. I shouted, "Ah! Ah!" My friend told me to climb down the tree. The snake, too, was afraid of me but that was unknown to me.

So I decided to hold the snake but my hand missed it because I was afraid. Then I got to the other side of the tree. I saw the tail part of it. I drew it and I fell down on the ground. By that time my brother, Kalie, was there. He rushed and killed the snake.

I was seriously wounded on my leg. I had fallen on a big stick. For two hours I could not stand up. My brother shouted. At that time two little boys were passing on the road. They heard my brother crying. They came but they could not carry me from the farm to town. It was three miles. I was bleeding.

My brother gave me first aid treatment. He asked me, "Can you go to town?"

I said, "Yes, I will manage." I didn't want him to be afraid.

We left the farm at 11.00 am. Because I couldn't walk fast, my brother walked with me step by step until 4.30 pm. We reached the hospital compound. When the nurse saw me, she shouted, "Ah, what is wrong with you?" At that time I couldn't explain anything. They called Yanka Lansana, "Your brother has come with a problem." The nurse treated me but she wasn't able to cure my wound so my brother took me to Kabala for good treatment at the Kabala Government Hospital.

After two days I was better. I will never go there again and I will never forget that day.

Snake Bite

Sheku M.B., Kabala SS

Any day I see a snake I remember my snake bite on the 25th March 2007. I was going to the farm to do some brushing where I planted my cassava. On that day I was not happy. My elder brother and I had had a quarrel over a cutlass. He said I took his cutlass. I said, "No, Brother, I can't do this to you—take your cutlass and refuse to answer." I appealed to him and he accepted. 

Then I took it and told my mother goodbye. The distance from the farm to the town was seven miles. One man was going to the farm on a motorbike. I stopped him and asked him to take me. He said I should pay Le 4,000. I paid and he took me as far as the farm.

I saw rabbits and monkeys were destroying my cassava. As the animals saw me they ran away. What caused the monkey to destroy my cassava was because the place was very bushy so I started to brush. When I approached I cut a stick that fell on a snake. I didn't know that the stick fell on it. The snake became wild and bit me. I fell down and began to cry for help. I took my cutlass and cut where the snake bit me and it bled. I tore a piece of my clothes and tied my foot.

I went to the road. Soon a woman called Jarrie came and saw blood all over my foot and she asked me, "What is wrong with you?" I told her and she called her husband, Chernor, to come. He carried me on his back. Jarrie took me to the doctor. He put something like a stone inside my foot that helped me feel better. The woman sent a message to my family to come. As soon as they heard the message, they came for me. They thanked Jarrie and also her husband. My mother paid the doctor Le 12,000 and told him he was her son, and thanked him, too. Then we returned home.

"My Life" books

Each year the SRWP prints up personal booklets containing all the experiences written by Young Writers who have completed final drafts on at least five topics. We call these books, My Life. The students prepare dedications and "About the Author" paragraphs for their books.

We congratulate these students who qualified to receive My Life books for the 2016-2017 school year:

Dankawalie Secondary School, Dankawalie: Amara Ferenka Marah, Foday P. Kamara, Karifa M. Kamara

UMC Heritage High School, Kabala: Ibrahim Marah, Fatu B. Bah

Abundant Grace Int'l. School, Sussex: Vallentina Johnson, Isha Kanu

New Apostolic JSS / Winner Kuhhnle Primary (combined club), Lumpa: Hamza D. Cole, Santigie S. Sesay

Heaven Homes, Joe Town: Kadijatu Karim, Zainab Faramah, Gadsonna Cole, Mariatu Sesay, Mohamed Kamara, Marion Cole and Alie A. Kamara.

We wish all sixteen of them many productive years as Sierra Leonean authors!

Young Voices Newsletter Issue 6.1

The newest issue of the Young Voices newsletter, issue 6.1, is out, and you can read it here!

This newsletter is one of the ways the Seli River Writing Project publishes student work. Copies are given to each member of its SELI Young Writers clubs. The students would love to hear your feedback on their writing. Check it out today!

The Best Writing Teachers are Teachers Who Write

Leading Young Writers Workshop Part Two

Just a year ago, with the support of funds from the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Midland, MI, SELI opened new SELI Young Writers clubs

in five rural primary schools in the Waterloo area, outside of Freetown.

Because we did this at a time when schools were trying to catch up after many months' being closed during the Ebola crisis, we were only able to provide a single day's training with the hope that our follow-up visits to the school could solve any problems they were having carrying out their workshops. We called it Leading Young Writers Workshop Part One, and we have great admiration for these teachers who forged ahead anyway.

Yesterday we held LYW Workshop Part Two, and it was a delightfully different group. They were no longer the slightly dazed but polite, brave learners from from last year but confident and outspoken process-writing teachers. Here they are doing self-editing on their own personal writing drafts we asked them to bring so we could carry out the editing process together—a stage that we had not had time to cover thoroughly in our first workshop.

We started the workshop asking for problems they were having in their clubs, and kept referring back to the list throughout the day, trying to work those through. When we asked whether they were seeing any benefit from the clubs, their enthusiasm nearly blew me away!

• The children have gained great confidence and skills in both reading and writing from reading their work aloud during conferencing.
• Any club facilitator who says a child who attends regularly is not improving, must not be taking them through all the stages. Every child who attends regularly, benefits.
• The children see themselves as authors: some even write creative work on their own now, and bring it to school to show the teachers.
• They have such self-confidence (boldness, it is called here)! When students are to conduct the morning assembly, it is the club members who always volunteer, and carry it out well.
• They communicate more: rather than sending someone to tell a teacher something, they will now write a note. They are much more willing to write.
• The club helps the teachers in their own writing tasks, with both skills and confidence.
• The club has changed how the teachers teach writing in the classroom. Even teachers who are not facilitators but only observe what is going on, now teach writing in class by telling students to draw on their past experiences for topics and by giving students choices of what to write on.
• The students in the club are more responsible in school, because of the club tasks that they perform and the understanding they have of management of the club.
• The club members are more able to read or answer questions written on the board during their regular classes than other students.

We have heard this before, but not so clearly explained and not from so many different angles. Maybe it is because their clubs started so recently that they are able to see the differences more starkly than club facilitators in a school that has had a club for several years. Or maybe it's because these are primary schools; we've always worked with junior secondary schools before.

2017 Update

The new year has been a busy one at SELI, what with visiting SELI Young Writers club schools and  giving daily Business Writing mentoring classes, an in-servicing we offer to businesses and organizations in Freetown.

In mid-March, we traveled to the Koinadugu District in the northeast of Sierra Leone on a trip made possible by support from Edward Davies & Associates Consulting Engineers Ltd. One of the things we do there is to check up on the progress of the Kuranko Karan (shown here), a mother tongue adult literacy class in Dankawalie Village. We have nothing but praise for this group, that meets three times a week from 8-9:00 pm after a full day's work and was asking for Books II and III of their text. We have been able to send them thanks to the resources of The Institute of Sierra Leone Languages (TISLL) who also trained the teachers (in the back row in orange and white shirts) and are monitoring the program. On its own, the group hopes to revise the text, as well as compile a Kuranko reader: they will soon need Kuranko books to read, and they are very hard to find!

We also go to the Northern Province to visit our writing clubs.

We found most of the schools involved in their annual sports competitions, but we talked with the teachers and delivered supplies they'd fallen short of. Here you can see Dankawalie Secondary School's red house (and supporters) heading off for the competitions.

While they had been practicing, I had been working in the school library SELI helped to set up several years ago with a grant from the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives and continues to support, mentoring DSS's teacher-librarian in this very rural setting.

Join Our Writing Community

The Seli River Writing Project is growing an online writing community at the SRWP Workshop. It's free! Join us to share in the fun of trying different kinds of writing for the reward of gentle critique.

Our goals are

• developing life-long habits of writing, 
• building a writing community that believes everyone can learn to write, and 
• improving our writing and communication skills in English.

You're welcome!

Back to Basics

While we are arming our ESL literacy class for adults with oral language and phonics skills, we also use other strategies to get them reading.

One strategy is using early-grade high-frequency word lists. Together the items on these lists make up a high percentage of the words found in early readers and words children use when they write. Being able to recognize them by sight gives a big boost to literacy learning.

Usually, the most basic list contains words whose pronunciation could be difficult to explain. For example, while the list contains go, no and so, it also includes to and do and you—three words where the sound of o is very different. Because all six words are so common, it helps just to teach them all as sight words.

You would think that this strategy would be a cinch in Sierra Leone; that learning to read by rote, or by sight, would not be a problem because it is the way reading has always been taught in Sierra Leone. However, sometimes even teaching sight words can get tough.

Here's an example: one of the words on the most basic list is the. The pronunciation of the in standard English is [ðə] before consonants and [ði] before vowels. However, by far the most prevalent pronunciation of the word in Sierra Leone English is [di]. The consonant is different from standard English, and most people do not alter the vowel according to the beginning sound of the following word. Evidence for this prevalence is the widespread use of the spelling di for the word the in texting language in Sierra Leone.

Therefore, as we alternate drilling twenty-five basic sight words with guided reading activities in our class, the word the continues to be a bone in our throats. Neither [ðə] nor [ði] sounds like a word to our learners. We have the option, of course, of saying that Sierra Leone English is our students' target language, so why not teach the word as [di], and continue substituting the [d] sound for [ð] and [t] for its voiceless counterpart, wherever th occurs?

Uh, I don't think so. It’s time to move back to oral language activities. Those early exercises with indefinite articles (“Is this a book? No, it's not a book. It's a chair.”) need to be made definite, even if we have to introduce adjective clauses in the process (“Is this the pen you gave him? No, that's the orange I gave him.”). 

Workplace English with SELI

We've also been busy this term teaching ESL Workplace English to a selected group of employees in an organization.

The members of the class have in common that for personal, family reasons their schooling was interrupted—perhaps multiple times—in their early lives. Although all these men are skilled at their jobs, the organization, SELI and the participants all see a benefit in improving their ability to communicate with others in the organization and in enhancing their employability.

Using a variety of resources and teaching methods, we are therefore working with a group of preliterate and semiliterate English-as-an-additional-language learners. They are faced with two tasks—learning literacy and learning English—but they are quick and eager. In our latest class, our preliterate members began reading their first book, Here We Go. They're especially enjoying interpreting Claudius John's illustrations.

Much as I like teaching this class, I can't help repeating that it is a pity that in schools in Sierra Leone literacy is tied to the English language. It only means that any students who do not have the opportunity to continue their education beyond the primary or early junior secondary level, lose their literacy after a few years simply because they no longer have a reason to use English. We need to teach all students to write and read their first languages in early primary school so they will own their literacy for life.