I have began my training program to educate youth with research and urban planning skills. It was difficult at first because only 7 of 12 students had come to the first class. However, today I had 17! Initially I was also disappointed by the selection of youths as they were quite homogenous regarding age, ethnicity, and gender. However my new group is much more diverse, with students ranging from 18 to 27 from Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia and I have 3 females now. I wish I had a higher proportion of women, and I wish the participating women would actually speak in class, but it is difficult to fight cultural barriers. On one hand, I am fortunate to have females in the class at all, but on the other, I hope the women can find the courage to become more engaging with this opportunity for education and empowerment. One of the girls is completely covered, with nothing visible except her eyes behind a black veil. It is a little intimidating for me, and her persistent silence doesn’t help matters – but I make constant direct eye contact and made it a point to memorize her name right away. After speaking to a man who travels the world providing training to teachers in development situations, he told me that local teachers often neglect female students and will refer to “the girls” when asking a question as opposed to using their names and having any individual interaction. Consequently I am doing everything I can to interact with each student individually, although it is obviously a difficult situation to provide an education within an African refugee camp which host a primarily conservative Muslim population.
I rather enjoy teaching, although it is certainly a great deal of work. You may well imagine the education that these young men and women have received is greatly different from my own experience and it is therefore difficult to determine appropriate expectations. In compensation for attending my class and doing the required research I have arranged with a restaurant in the refugee camp to feed them after each class. I ate with the students yesterday and was quite surprised by the quality of the food, as I found it rather delicious. We were served an entrée of camel meat with peppers and onions, two loaves of bread, chai tea, and sodas. I believe that most of the students are honesty enthusiastic about the course material, and are not just there for a meal and an education certificate. As long as that remains true, I believe the process will work out quite smoothly.
As the Workshop takes place from 8:30 – 10:30 every morning, and preparation is only an hour each evening, I am having quite a bit of free time. While I hope to get some work with the UNHCR, I decided to begin doing one or two more studies while I am here. I am beginning another project this week analyzing the effectiveness of the UN and NGO shelter systems for vulnerable populations. I am also investigating the sociological impact of water tap placement. I am doing these studies with the assistance of an interpreter and in a traditional survey method, accentuated with a collection of semi-structured interviews. This way I can balance the qualitative and quantitative attributes of the situation to provide a more insightful conclusion regarding the success of the various shelter/infrastructure strategies pursued within the camp. Although similar studies have been conducted within temporary settlements and slums throughout Africa (especially Malawi), I have never encountered a single published study of this sort from a refugee camp. I might as well use this opportunity to break some new ground while I’m here and have the time.
I was lent a book called Islam in Focus, which is apparently a very popular text among the pious Muslims around here, which is nearly everybody. When people see me reading the text, they get excited and start talking to me, as they think I am considering converting to Islam. They are obviously a little disappointed when I explain that I am interested in studying all faiths, as all faith traditions are merely geo-political interpretations of universally human ideals. Most people initially agree, but it is immediately clear that they have a dramatically limited knowledge of understanding any religion outside of their own, and therefore are inclined to claim their faith tradition is better than others’. Of course how many Christians can explain the Five Pillars of Islam? Within the polarity of global religions, the behavior is consistent in both directions. It is nonetheless apparent that Muslims know a great deal more about Christianity than Christians know about Islam, as their faith stems from the same Judeo-Christian tradition of Abraham and Jesus.
Aside from that, there is little else to discuss. The crazy news is that it is raining outside! I may have mentioned this in another post, but the heat frequently disallows precipitation from ever touching the ground. Rain may fall from the sky, but it will evaporate before ever touching the earth (?!?!?). It rained a little this morning, and driving between the camps I was amazed to see the desert suddenly turned green. Now it is actually raining steadily, which makes people nervous around here. As much as people appreciate some rain and greenery, the earth is so scorched in this area that a steady rain can cause terrible flooding. In November, 5 days of rain managed to displace nearly 30,000 refugees as the water destroyed homes, roads, schools, and infrastructure. The US was hired by the UN to parachute supplies into the area. After such events the rain is certainly a cause for apprehension.
One more challenge to teaching here, nearly half of the boys are named Mohamed!
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