FACULTY AROUND THE W ORLD : SUMMER TRAVEL
As a participant in Read Around Grenada, Amanda visited a government school, the one that her adopted sister had attended, to spend the day and to read to seventh graders. The children listened and then eagerly asked questions about life in the United States. Amanda observed that, like kids everywhere, some of them napped during the reading! At the outdoor assembly, Amanda stood with the students and teachers outside in the sun and joined in singing some of the same songs she had sung as a student in Grenada. Amanda also noted changes in her hometown: a great deal of development, new neighborhoods, and an expanded stadium. She visited the Junior Murray Cricket Academy, named after a local cricket star and hero. But everywhere she went, Amanda felt the deep sense of community that she remembered from her childhood. When she visited her grandmother’s grave, she noted that the cemetery wasn’t sitting on the outskirts of town, but in the thick of things, surrounded by houses and activity, and she recognized this as a testament to the respect for community, heritage, family, and continuity that she sees as a hallmark of Grenada’s culture.
BRADEY BULK: DISCOVERING TERANGA
AMANDA MCMILLAN: A TRIP HOME For her summer travel funded by The Reilly Family Faculty Travel Abroad Program, middle school English teacher Amanda McMillan returned to Grenada, the home she left at age twelve and had not visited since she ZDV ˉIWHHQ 6KH ZDQWHG WR UHFRQQHFW ZLWK KHU FKLOGKRRG DQG FXOWXUH WR KRQRU KHU JUDQGPRWKHU 7LWL ZKRVH IXQHUDO VKH KDG PLVVHG WR YLVLW D VFKRRO similar to the one she had attended, and to explore two programs: Ashanti Footprints, which uses the arts to help young people in Grenada connect with their African heritage, and Read Around Grenada, a literacy program to which Amanda donated books. Her journey was physical and also profoundly emotional. Amanda met and spoke with the woman who had cared for her adopted sister for years, thus ˉOOLQJ LQ SDUWV RI KHU IDPLO\ KLVWRU\ WKDW VKH KDG PLVVHG +HU VHQVHV EHFDPH UHDWWXQHG WR WKH VRXQGV DQG ˊDYRUV RI KHU FKLOGKRRG &DO\SVR PXVLF VSDUNing certain memories, the tang of mangoes and breadfruit evoking others. Every day at dawn, she walked on the beach near her childhood home, recalling the smells and sounds of the ocean and sometimes striking up conversations with current residents. One day, she climbed Mount Qua Qua, the highest local peak and one she had climbed as a child. At the Ashanti Footprints gathering, she watched children and young adults learn, very deliberately, dances, songs, and patois phrases that she had learned organically. She observed adults passing along stories and songs so that the children could hold onto a sense of their heritage. Amanda danced and sang and drummed along with everyone. 16
Winter 2020 • QuakerMatters
$QRWKHU EHQˉFLDU\ RI WKH 7KH 5HLOO\ )DPLO\ )DFXOW\ 7UDYHO $EURDG 3URJUDP upper school French teacher Bradey Bulk traveled to the Francophone West African country of Senegal determined to immerse herself in the daily life of the place. She planned to talk to as many “regular people� as possible, to eat the food families serve in their homes, to observe children at school, to pay attention to both the beautiful and the not-so-beautiful, and to bring home photographs, impressions, and ideas that she could integrate into her curricula at Friends. Her contact in the city of Dakar, Jean-Baptiste Seck Sarr--history teacher, director of curriculum, and founder of Ecole Jean-Baptiste, a Catholic school in a mostly Muslim country--quickly became a friend. Teranga is the Senegalese tradition of hospitality, community, and solidarity, and Bradey found Jean-Baptiste to be a living example of this tradition. When she asked to observe for a day at his school, not only did he say yes, but he invited Bradey to his family home in M’Bour and to his village for the weekend. She had meals with Jean-Baptiste’s wife and many children, which took place in the community-friendly Senegal way: around one large, shared bowl of delicious food. Bradey discovered that Senegal is a country with no minimum education requirement and limited educational opportunities. For instance, JeanBaptiste’s wife was not formally educated because there was simply no school in her village. Ecole Jean-Baptiste was funded through donations and is partnered with a school in France, with its classroom structure following the traditional French model, including the IB program. Although it is a Catholic school in a Catholic village, all students are welcome to attend, so that its student body is a combination of Catholic and Muslim students. On her visit to the school, Bradey brought her gift of school backpacks to give to the children, and because she found that taking photos herself interfered with her truly interacting with the students, she handed her camera over to the kids, so that they could take photos themselves. This left Bradey free to converse with the students and to observe activities, such as boys practicing Senegalese wrestling for an end-of-year performance.
