Learning

Bonjour, mes chers amis! (Hello, my dear friends!).

Well, I am happy to report that the same sentiment I had when I wrote the first blog is still with me. I love this place. I love it for the people's warmth, its generosity, its spirit. I am now in Daloa, which is the third largest city in Cote d’Ivoire. Around Daloa are many villages, some with electricity, some without. Our literacy program is focused on these villages. The vast majority of their inhabitants are cocoa and coffee farmers. In fact, 46% of the world’s cocoa supply comes from Cote d’Ivoire, and 80% comes from CI and neighboring Ghana. So the next time you eat “Swiss chocolate,” you’re actually probably eating West African chocolate. It was just made into a candy bar in Switzerland, hence the name. It's better for advertising to say it's "Swiss."

We visited one of these villages called Sokoura. After a bumpy journey we arrived - The roads are so bad I honestly thought we were going to tip over a couple times. Walking through the village, we saw recently harvested cocoa and coffee seeds laid out on huge mats. Our host led us to a little schoolhouse where we met with about 35 members of the community. There, the chief told us their main problem is not having safe drinking water. When rain comes, the people wait for a pool of water to form, then drink from it. He knows this is not healthy, but what other alternative do they have? I actually found out later that 75% of the health problems here are from not having safe drinking water.

Despite this, the people exhibited a generosity I honestly have never seen before. As we left, they brought us two huge bags of oranges. They also gave us bananas and cassava. I couldn’t believe it. We came to help them, and they don’t even have clean water, and they gave us food. Later in talking to Ivoirians, I was told that you can’t receive someone without giving them something, just honoring the fact that they came to see you. As if it was a great kindness just to introduce ourselves. What if we were all like that? The next person we meet, so grateful to have met them, that we gave them a gift, even if we had very little? Doing this, instead of looking someone up and down and trying to discern who they are and what they’re about. Doing this, instead of judging them. Their generosity reminded me of a line from the movie "It Could Happen to You," wherein a couple lost all their money, and “in their darkest hour,” invited a homeless man into their cafe for a bowl of soup. This is not the village’s darkest hour, but it’s the same theme – giving when one has so little. A Christian parable discusses the same type of generosity: A poor woman gives her last penny to the Church, while a wealthier man gave a lot but made sure he had his personal stuff in place, and Jesus pointed to the woman and explained that she gave more.

I am learning so much about how to act out all the positive things about my humanity here. Ironically, I came here to assist with education, yet I am the one being educated. I am so glad that I am here for nine months. I have a lot of time for friends and colleagues and experiences to continu to teach me.