Wednesday, July 1, 2009

I went back to Sakingomso today and started my research. I had to basically spend an hour and a half interviewing her. When I called her the day before, she did not mention that the crèche were going to be under construction this week so this ended up limiting the interview. She had no financial documents to show me so we just had to stick with questions mostly concerning infrastructure, curriculum, and staff training. Again, working for this organization is such a different experience. I never have been so informal in a work setting in my life. It was odd for me to have our interview basically in the middle of the playground. We sat in two chairs, no desk no electronics or anything to assist with documentation and I wrote on my note pad as I asked her questions. Having spent time there before, interviewing Phelisa, made the interview go much more smoothly. Phelisa speaks great English but she does not always understand what I am saying or asking so some things I was familiar with and could answer myself. For instance, I asked her to explain their curriculum and their daily activities and she didn’t exactly answer that with complete understanding of what I was asking. The thing that shocked me the most during this interview is how much it takes to open up a school. The staff do not get paid adequately because their salary depends on whether parents pay school fees. Phelisa explained that a lot of times they do not pressure the parents to pay because they know they are struggling to eat and pay for medical problems. She said that some of them only get paid $100 dollars a month. But this obviously sometimes decreases. It is hard to believe that people live on such little money.

The meals they serve the children also depend on the money they get from parents. The meals don’t have very much nutrients and proteins. I brought my lunch to the crèche today and I shared my food with the staff. They seemed really excited to just have some sliced cucumbers and strawberries. I was also drinking bottled water and all the kids flocked around me wanting a sip of my water. I didn’t understand at first why the kids wanted my water so bad because they get plenty of food and their parents pack them juice. One little boy wouldn’t leave me alone and followed me around for all his recess trying to get my water. He even tried to like hurt me by throwing stones and hitting me with metal rods. It was kind of frightening. He also kept punching my leg… I guess I will never bring my lunch again… The kids at Sackingomso are really violent sometimes…. It bothers me that the teachers do not do anything…. Today I also met another new little girl that had some sort of mental problems. After snack time she was running around with food all over her face and half chewed remnants still in her mouth trying to get my attention. She also followed me around most of the time.

Overall the day was eventful and a lot different than my first couple visits. I learned about the things that they actually needed. It gives me a better prospective of my so called public service in the US. While I know that community service is helping the community, I often give material things to organizations that need it. Many times I have run clothing drives and other drives to collect items to give away to organizations and groups that need them. But I realize that a lot of time I would be helping them out more if money was given because when we buy things and give it away we are deciding what they need… which is not fair, we are taking away their ability to make choices for themselves. The money would go towards areas that could help them out a lot more in the long run… the best thing I could recommend to people is do what I am doing and actually go and work with the organizations so you can actually see and ask what the organizations needs… Many times Americans do not want to do this type of ground work… I am not saying go to a foreign country or anything like that. I am just saying find an organization or a group of people that you’re interested and helping and learn about the people so that you can truly value and understand what your contributions are doing for them. I can guarantee if everyone did this, prospective would be broadened and more group and organizations that need help would get it.