With Our Eyes Wide Open We

 I had half a post written about the impact of Ebola on the academic calendar and the not-insignificant confusion and frustration that has caused, but I realized that what I really want to share is how I spent an afternoon with my students today. So here is a small story that really embodies why I love my work and life here so much.

I have only one section of students right now, a group that went through most of the semester with no math teacher and therefore were not going to be promoted with their fellow tenth graders at the end of July. But the VPI (vice principal of instruction) sat down with me when I arrived and asked me to work with them this month and bring them up to speed so they could move on. I agreed, so I now have two hours of geometry five days a week with forty students. This is vastly different from the two hours of algebra per week with four hundred students that I had last year.

Since I have so much to cover, my lessons (all two days so far) have been very notes-heavy and I was struggling to find ways to incorporate critical thinking into an introduction of basic geometric figures and symbols. Students here are very skilled at copying and memorizing notes, but one thing they don't practice much is applying the material they're presented with. One of my goals for my second year of teaching is to build more excited critical thinking into my lessons and assessments. A late-night lesson planning/Skype conversation with my best friend yielded an idea that I put into practice today.

I greeted my students ("Good afternoon, 10E" "Good afternoon, Ms. L"), put the warm-up in the board, and floated around the room listening to discussion and debate about the difference between complementary and supplementary angles. We examined the definitions of convex vs concave polygons, named polygons by number of sides, and explored special types of triangles. And then I introduced their assignment: explore campus and find examples of three different geometric figures or ideas from their notes, classify them, and illustrate their findings. I walked them through two examples (a convex hexagon shape formed by classroom windo bricks, the parallel wood slats on the back of a chair) then turned them loose for 15 minutes.

When I called them back in they were excited about how much fun it had been to have class outside and amazed that things like equilateral triangles and right angles were so plentiful outside their copy books. I was excited about how engaged they all were in the lesson after two hours of notes and amazed that they were so insightful and observant.

I usually leave class feeling accomplished enough just having presented material and kept order, but today was something special. I felt like I really taught, connected, shared small the reason I love math so much. 

Barbershop Quartet

 The fact Fresh starts come at all speeds. Today's was a slow, steady settling. I put away the books and cooking supplies I brought from America and sorted my clothes while Favor sat on the cool tile at my feet flipping through Mufaro's Beatiful Daughters. I erased the July and August calendar drawn on the chalk board on the living room wall that showed all the plans Heather and I had for last summer before the evacuation and drew a new board with some new plans for a new start. I hung out with the neighbors and beat Fatu at a game called Ludo, which is like Sorry! but with tiny dice, a board decorated with pictures of Jesus, and intensely cutthroat rules about stealing oponents' rolls. I took a long meandering Sunday afternoon walk halfway across town to reclaim it and explore the newest evolutions. And after my evening meal and cool bucket bath I sat with the neighbors in the falling light while the ladies braided each other's hair and one of the guys delivered super fly buzz cuts to his brothers and treated the rest of us to scathing analysis and commentary on the recent student council elections at Lango Lippaye. I ended my perfect day with conversation about community strength with Ben and another neighbor whose Unicef-sponsored t-shirt read "A friend who survived Ebola is still a friend." I have plans for a big market run and some meetings on campus tomorrow, and the makings of a tasy cucumber sandwich. And Ma Fata's new dog Lassie is warming up to me. 

My Kingdom Awaits

I lay in bed under my new white mosquito net watching heat lightning flash out my open window, waiting for the rain. I could feel in the air, smell it on the wind; every part of me was caught in expectation. It was coming. And then, like every biblical miracle, it broke over the house, singing on the tin roof and washing everything clean. I fell asleep to the lullaby of the Liberian rainy season for the first time in 10 months, and I had such sweet dreams.

I dreamed that when I came down the hill to my yard, Favor and Martin and all the other children came running up to greet me, taking my bags and hanging off my arms, chanting and beaming and so blessedly alive.

I dreamed that when I saw Fatu and Lydia and Maryline again they threw themselves into my arms and cried about sisters reunited.

I dreamed that 400 students left their classrooms to "bust" (fist-bump) me, exclaim in joy at my return, and ask where Ms. C was. I was not prepared for how incredibly happy I was to see Martin's face again.

I dreamed that the miracle of my return and the hard work of willing friends swept the dust and cobwebs from a home left housing only hope and ghosts for a year. And that small hands flipped through bright picture books while little voices chattered to one another about the strange things they were looking at.

I dreamed that humble gifts of cinnamon and vanilla were received like frankincense and myrrh.

I dreamed that Abel came and sat small to lecture with me, and broke my heart with stories of staying locked in the house all day to keep from getting Ebola, of families collecting the ashes of their burned loved ones to bury to mark their passing, of hunger and uncertainty and overwhelming fear. And that we laughed over how tall Mustafa has grown, and celebrated the possibility of these two bright boys getting scholarships to the vocational high school when they reach tenth grade.

I dreamed that Sunday morning brought an early wake-up call and a walk through rain-damp grass to a little church down the hilll, of singing and chanting, seeing Annie again, holding a baby girl and being in the beating, stomping, rejoicing heart of a community again.

I dreamed that we all came together for a meal of spicy potato greens and fish over rice, rewriting the memory of another, more sorrowful meal.

I dreamed that I walked through the market again, that everyone I met welcomed me back, that even on Sunday the market was full of life, rebuilding from a time of the exact opposite.

I dreamed that I was home.

And I awoke to find that it was not a dream.

I am home. And though time and suffering have changed this place, it still has room for me, and open arms to bring me in. I am home.

I'm coming home
I'm coming home
tell the world I'm coming home
Let the rain wash away all the pain of yesterday
I know my kingdom awaits and they've forgiven my mistakes
I'm coming home, I'm coming home
tell the world I'm coming home

Regain a Kind of Paradise

We weren't trying to sneak out, never mind that it's hard to be anything resembling stealthy in a convoy of SUVs and vans with hazard lights flashing. But from the group of cars carrying us to the airport at 2am it felt a little like we were sneaking out in the dead of night, through a ghostly Kakata empty of anyone living, haunted by memories of a war barely over and staring another lengthy, terrifying struggle in the face. So many people here are terrified. And they don't have the option of leaving.

It's good that Peace Corps is pulling their volunteers back from Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. I am sure it's the correct choice, even if I wouldn't have been able to make it on my own - I'm leaving too many important people behind. After we did a final check of our house, our neighbor Maryline asked if all the neighbor women could say a prayer with us. So they held Devotion, putting into God's hands the job of carrying me safely to my family in America, though Peace Corps leaving Liberia has deeply frightening significance for them. I stood in the circle with eyes closed as hymns and prayers rose around me and tears fell down my cheeks, Ma Fata's and Lydia's hands grasped too tightly in mine because that is how it works here: people hold on to each other. Even when they are looking for the strength to let go.

This last week has been one of the most physically and emotionally draining times I can remember in my life. I'm totally exhausted from shock, too-short goodbyes, the hurry-up-and-wait logistics of transporting a large group of people, and the battle to find a balance between looking forward and looking back, a way to hold within myself the conflicting emotions of excitement at seeing my American family and the shame, grief, and devastation I feel at leaving my Liberian family and fellow volunteers. I'm numb from travel and from feelings-overload. I haven't slept in three days. I don't know which way is up. This feels like a dream even while I'm living it. And then I read articles from news sources back home reporting on the facts of the situation, but they sound so strange to me,  foreign and distant.

Ebola has been everywhere in the news since American missionaries tested positive for the virus. There has been a lot of coverage this week discussing the numbers of this outbreak - the "unprecedented" death toll and catastrophic consequences, cost-benefit analysis of international aid, 90% fatality of patients, how many Americans have become infected, the chances of Ebola spreading beyond the borders of a few tiny, destitute West African nations. It's said that numbers don't lie, but they can tell an incomplete story. Here are my numbers, some of the things I've seen in this outbreak: There has been Ebola in Liberia for over five months, and the very catchy and informative smash hit single "Ebola in Town (Don't Touch Your Friends)" has been making radio waves for almost as long (no, seriously, it's a great song, go check it out!). Truly selfless and miraculous aid workers have been on the ground running isolation wards and distributing supplies since the very beginning of the outbreak.
In the last week I've seen signs posted, hand-washing stations introduced, and huge efforts to educate and protect the public, which gives me hope that the Peace Corps pull-back really will be temporary. Also in the last week, several incidents have precipitated huge international awareness of the situation and put pressure on the government. Many NGO's and other aid groups are pulling their foreign staff out. People are sick and dying. They are terrified to be dropped back into a crisis when most of them still vividly remember the last war their country fought. The last time there was an announcement on UNMIL radio that Peace Corps was sending their volunteers home was 1990. It took 20 years of fighting and rebuilding to bring us back.

My experience of this outbreak (the email the tears in Sonnie's voice as she told me hell was coming again now that the angels were going back, the way I couldn't speak to say goodbye to my principal because neither of us could believe I was going, the ghost-town of the Kakata market when they closed it on Friday to spray it with bleach and disinfectant) is not the only true story. I watched an amazing TED talk in which Chimamanda Adichie, a Nigerian novelist, discussed how damaging it can be to have a single narrative or perspective shape the story of an event, a group, or an individual. It robs them of their agency and dignity and severely limits everyone else's perception of them. So this is my truth, my story about Ebola. It is only one of many stories. All of them are worth telling. All of them are vitally important. Adichie says that the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. Allowing only one story to be the truth about anything robs people of the power to be more than one thing, to feel more than one thing, to express the complex and dynamic nature of their own identity and experience. And having that story be told by people who aren't even participants in it is even more harmful and demeaning. It's only by sharing many perspectives on an event that some of that power and dignity are returned, that we can "regain a kind of paradise."

My experience of this outbreak has a different setting and characters than anyone else's, has a heartbreaking climax that I couldn't have anticipated, and hasn't ended yet. And just like other experiences, it needs to be shared. I want an ending where I get to meet Lydia's baby soon enough that it won't be scared of me, where I can teach Fatu to bake pineapple upside-down cake, where my students learn how to graph a line. I want to go home and continue the important work I have yet to finish. I want to regain my paradise.

A glooming peace this morning with it brings

The sun for sorrow will not show it's head

Pomp & Circumstance

Fun fact about Liberia: graduations are almost a bigger deal than birthdays (does it make more sense to commemorate milestones achieved by more than just not dying? Yes and no in a country where daily life can pose no small threat to life and limb...). And summer is graduation season. Hair is plated, lappa suits are sewn, giant speaker sets are rented, and goats are slaughtered for all-night parties celebrating completion of twelfth grade on down to pre-k. Thanks to the speakers, even those neighbors within a two-mile radius who do not receive invitations get to enjoy second-hand sonic bombardment. It's like two months of non-stop block party for all of Kakata.

In the spirit of the season, then, it seems only fitting that I examine the last year of not-dying I have accomplished. So here, in no particular order, are some of my highest highs and lowest lows for the year, and some future hopes and dreams thrown in for good measure:

1. I am ridiculously proud of my first full year of teaching in my own classroom. I only cried in fromt of students twice, I learned more than I taught, and I am humbled and inspired by the efforts of my students, who work harder in a day than I do in a month. I will hopefully get to carry them to eleventh grade next year and puck up right where I left off but with 100% more after-school tutoring and learning all their names before the end of the year.

2. I love this place so much, but it is REALLY hard to live in a country where basic systems barely function on their best days. Where to make plans is to guarantee that they will fall through. Where your support system is your neighbors and for all that I love mine we are often on totally different wavelengths, sometimes at the worst times. 

3. I love the person I have become here, the people I am surrounded by, the family I've made here and the sense of peace and purpose I have every day. I want to keep living in the moment for as long as it lasts. And I'm grateful every day for my amazing, inspiring roommate.

4. Cinnamon rolls got baked on a coal pot. 'Nuff said. (Actually, I love food and cooking here in general. So satisfying in so many vital, fundamental ways)

5. We were cool enough to play this awesome board game, Pandemic, even in the midst of an Ebola outbreak. Because if you laugh at things they are less scary, and it's an AWESOME game.

6. I sewed a lappa quilt. By hand. 

7. I am part of our post newsletter, "No Bad News," and I'm rediscovering how fun and exhausting journalism is.

8. I walked back into the classroom after yelling and crying in front of my students. And had a miraculous teaching day.

9. This year's PST is gonna rock, and I had the incredible opportunity to be part of making that happen.

10. I'm going to miss some people who are leaving, but I just got 50 new friends delivered to my door. I hope I can be to LR-5 what LR-3 has been to me. Big shoes to fill...

I can only hope that the coming year is half so rich and strange. Let the good times roll!

Only Hate the Road When You're Missing Home

Lofa-ventures, Part the Second

Most towns in Liberia, even if they are little and very remote, tend to have a Monrovia parking, where passengers can get a seat in a car going all the way to town. Most of these parkings are run by the Liberian Rural Transit Union, which monitors taxis and drivers, sets and collects fares, and even issues receipts when passengers pay in advance. This last is particularly helpful if your car breaks down and you have to get another car- the Transit Union can send a replacement car, and your receipt means you don’t need to re-pay the fare. On the day I was leaving Foya, I showed up to the Monrovia parking at 7:30am, paid my fare, and was overjoyed to hear that I was the third seat filled in the car- only three more to go before we could be on our way. I was looking forward to the ride, and to being back home after almost a week away. And surely my outstanding travel luck would hold for eight more hours, and see me home safe. Of course, the travel gods despise hubris above all things. 

one of the alternatives to bush taxis

There is an informal rule of travel here that I call the “rule of three’: if three things go wrong or get in the way of a trip, call it off and try again tomorrow because the universe is trying to politely suggest that things are about to go horribly awry. I forgot (purposely discounted) this rule, because I really wanted to get home. My birthday was two days away, I had guests coming to visit, I missed my cat, and I had promised my school administration that I would be on campus to help with the last two days of semester exams since I am the chairperson of the Testing Administration Committee. I had very compelling reasons to be patient (willfully blind) in the face of the expected delays (universe’s warnings) to travel in a remote part of the country. 

[Maybe now is a good time to state for the record that I did in fact arrive home, safe and sound and only slightly the worse for wear. I hate to spoil the ending, but for the sake of my loved ones I jumped ahead small-small.]

securing the load, including a live goat in a sack

Warning sign number one was the fact that it took five and a half hours to fill the car, and three passengers on three separate occasions paid their fee and then changed their mind about traveling that day. A young woman came to reserve a spot, left to get her money and load, and never came back. Another woman was heading to Monrovia to go to school found out that it was still semester vacation and decided to wait a week. The driver got into a strong debate with a gentleman taking his son to some doctor, the gentleman got vexed at the tone and diction of the driver’s comments, and he stormed off, taking his fare and his ailing offspring with him. I ignored this sign and paid for a second seat so that we could finally depart. This meant I had the entire front passenger seat to myself, a fantastic situation since the other passengers were all large, causing a larger than average amount of squishing and squeezing and associated discomfort in the back seat. 

Warning sign number two came thirty minutes into our journey, at the immigration checkpoint for in Kolahun. Within the fifteen counties of Liberia are numerous districts, and at the border of each district is a checkpoint- usually a cement hut on one side of the road and a knotted and frayed rope extending across to the other side, lowered by one of the LIberian National Police staffing the site once a vehicle has passed ‘inspection’. At most checkpoints people are curious about my nationality, destination, and sometimes marital status, but I never have to do anything more than show my id card and chat with the guard. On the way to Foya, I’d had to get out of the car and walk through the checkpoint, and the inspector had asked for my passport (safely hidden in my house in Kakata) and generally given me a hard time. So I was already apprehensive approaching the checkpoint coming back from Foya. The car was stopped, the driver got out to do the usual song and dance, and the inspector requested that everyone get out and walk through. But the car didn’t follow us- it had ‘spoiled’ and refused to start until the driver spent some time wheedling and pleading and working some magic with wires. Thirty minutes later we were back on the road again. The driver promised to stop in Voinjama to have an electrician look at the problem so that it didn’t crop up later at a less-opportune time, but when we got to Voinjama he declared the problem ‘fixed’ and we kept going.

Warning sign number three was the driver having to fight the clutch for every up- and down-shift over the hills above Zorzor, while we sailed along behind two giant UN convoy trucks blowing up an impenetrable fog of red dust. In the rainy season most roads in the country become rivers of mud, since there are few coal-tar roads. In the dry season (November to March), they are re-surfaced to remove ruts and holes, and are actually quite pleasant to travel on, aside from the dust. It’s usually not too much of a problem, since there arent too many cars traveling one right behind the other. But when you are in a taxi stuck behind huge and slow-moving cargo transport vehicles it’s a different story. We found ourselves in the catch-22 of having to stay far enough behind the truck to have any visibility at all, but needing to get close enough to pass, all without hitting any unseen oncoming traffic, baby goats, or small children. The whole time our driver was playing chicken with the trucks, he was grunting and fighting the gear shift and pumping the clutch far too much for my personal comfort. 

We stopped in Zorzor again to eat and refuel, and I got to watch the sun set through the trees of Salayea District. About an hour south of Zorzor is the border between Lofa and Bong Counties and yet another checkpoint. We stopped and the driver and guards did their thing while the back seat passengers urged them to “go quickly, go quickly, we beg! One big truck coming, we must get in front the truck, driver let’s go!” The rope was lowered and we pulled out onto the road in front of yet another UN truck, and the car spoiled again. In the middle of the road. In front of the truck. As the sun was sinking behind the mountains. With no cell reception. Still at least four hours from Kakata, and two hours from the volunteers in Gbarnga, who would let me spend the night on their couch in a heartbeat if I could call them. 

After poking around under the hood and fiddling around with a frayed looking bit of rubber he pulled out of a plastic bag, the driver determined that the issue was the fan belt, and that the replacement he had was the wrong size. One of the security guards wandered over to make helpful comments (“Your car it spoil-o” and “Wicked car have so-so problems”) and mentioned that there was a mechanic in that very village, which made us all excited until he clarified his use of the preposition to mean that he resided in the village but was currently ‘in the bush.’ Dead end. 

At this point I took stock: 1) this happens all the time to Liberians, and one of the ladies from the back seat had spread her lappa out on the dirt road behind the car and started napping, so it was not a big deal; 2) I had half a bottle of water and half a package of ginger biscuits left over from our stop in Zorzor, so I wouldn’t starve/die of thirst before I got home; 3) we would probably be on the side of the road for a while (see above re: unavaiable mechanics and napping passengers) so I should put my headphones in and try to find my ‘so-so car problems’ zen. 

Two hours later I was awoken from my fugue state by the arrival of the driver, accompanied by a mechanic and a cadre of mini-mechanic minions. They poked and banged and messed around with the engine for a while by flashlight, improvising car tools from rocks and sticks and plastic bags, and a little after 10pm they got the car running again. The ol-ma woke up from behind the car, the male passenger, James, left off yelling at the driver to take his seat, and we all got ready to go. The driver reached down below the steering wheel to fiddle with the fuse box again because the repairs had voided whatever magic he had worked at the Kolahun checkpoint to fix the electrical system, and whatever he did made the engine shudder to a halt. 

James started yelling again, the mini-mechanic minions turned the flashlight back on, and the driver popped the hood. The mechanic suggested disabling the electrical all together and running a wire directly from the battery to whatever needed power under the hood, but the driver insisted that he needed his lights on to run at night. They found a compromise, got the car started, and we pulled onto the road. We made it across the county line about 200 yards down the road. and the car spoiled yet again. 

I was pretty much done with the whole trip at that point. It was late, I was tired and hungry and had no idea where I was, I had no cell reception, and I came to terms with the fact that I wasn’t getting home. So I asked myself what Prince, our safety and security officer, would do. I figured he would have the male passenger walk him back up the road to the security checkpoint which was well-lit and well-staffed, then he would borrow a phone from someone who had service, and he would call Prince to make sure someone knew where I was and get some advice. So that’s what I did. I told James that he was going to carry me back up the road (“I will carry you now?” “You will carry me now.”) and he handed me over to the head security cop with the air of entrusting a sacred burden (“This is one Peace Corps, she trying reach Kakata. You can find her seat in car?”).

I was ready to sit there all night if necessary, and at least I had nothing to fear from snakes in a well-lit cement hut, but apparently I had been punished enough, because the Travel Gods saw fit to grant me maybe the greatest blessing of my life. The guard called over a young woman from the village who had been charging her phone with their generator and informed her that she would carry the white woman to her house to sleep. So I was led through the dusty night by the beam of a tiny flashlight to a mud and thatch building. 

She showed me into a sweet-smelling, dimly-lit haven decorated with photographs of her family and brightly-colored paper flowers. A net-draped bed in the corner was covered with fresh sheets. After the day I’d had, it was heaven on earth. I put my bag down, and my host asked (rather pointedly) if I’d like to wash the dust of travel from my feet and collected soap and a bucket of water. I was a little shaky trying to stand on one foot, so she knelt down outside her front door and washed my feet for me. She let me choose the inside or the outside of the bed to sleep on. She let me use the only pillow. She heated water for my bath the next morning. No one in my life has shown me greater kindness, and I realized as we walked back through the village in the dawn that I didn’t even know her name. It was Annie. I will never forget what she did for me when I had nothing, and I will always be more grateful than words can describe. 

Back at the checkpoint, I bought some bread and sat watching the sun rise over the Lofa River. The previous 24 hours caught up to me in a rush of tears of exhaustion, confusion, frustration, and gratitude. When he saw my face, the guard asked if I missed home.

After the previous day’s trials, I really appreciated the ease with which I found a car to Gbarnga, got a seat in a taxi to Kakata, and finally made it home more than 30 hours after the start of my journey. I arrived home to an empty house on the day before my birthday, but my wonderful, amazing roommate left me a note on my door wishing me the happiest of birthdays. Sleeping in my own bed, after a truly epic adventure, was close to a religious experience. There truly is no place like home.