An Awfully Big Adventure

Today as part of our training we watched a documentary called Girl Rising, which uses the stories of 8 girls and young women from countries like Peru, Haiti, Ethiopia, Nepal, and Afghanistan to illustrate the point that educating girls is the single most effective thing any country can do to combat poverty. The issue of gender equality wasn't my greatest passion back home, but my presence here as a woman teaching math and standing up for myself is a revolution on a micro scale. Our PCVL came to watch us teach a while ago and brought my attention to the fact that for a review activity with fifteen questions I had only three girls come to answer. I hadn't thought at all about the way I dealt with gender in the classroom here (too busy keeping my head above water for first marking period), but after his comment I made a deliberate attempt to call on girls more often, and to make sure that they felt like my classroom was a safe space. In the last month I have noticed a significant increase in the number of girls who raise their hands to answer questions in class and fight for a chance to come to the board. It feels like a tiny victory in an immeasurable war.

The issue of gender in education in Liberia (or the world) is part of a broader question I have been asking myself lately. When I stand in the front of my classroom, chalk on my hands and mud on my shoes and sweat running down my back, I sometimes see huge possibility and potential. Other times I see the 2/3 of my class who only occasionally cheat on their quizzes, usually come to class, and seem to value the results of education, if not the process. They work harder than any honors student in America, because they have to fight economic obstacles associated with being orphans/parents/self-supported adults, societal pressures stemming from a decade and a half of actual collapse, and the ingrained restrictions of gender roles. My last two classes of the afternoon have the added challenge of literally racing the sun in the sky to be able to see the chalkboard and their notebooks as dusk falls and their dim classrooms become even darker. Sometimes it feels like a losing battle (and an inappropriate goal) to teach them to graph a line or balance a chemical equation. How could that be relevant to the immediate screaming needs of their lives? What else could I possibly be doing, if not this? Is there a better use of my time here, or a better perspective I could find from which to approach our primary project?

One of my fellow volunteers (who has her students call her Miss Frizzle, btw), teaches math and science in a tiny school in a minuscule village. I love the way she looks at the world, and the humor and color she brings to her stories. We had an amazing conversation about our purpose here and what our role really is in development in Liberia. Her 12th grade physics class has less than a dozen students, and she has decided that in addition to helping them master the basics of force, waves, and matter, she is going to explicitly model teaching techniques and ask her students to put them into practice with each other when they take turns as class leaders since one of the only job opportunities for high school graduates is teaching. She described a Peace Corps volunteer in their school as Wendy reading to the Lost Boys, showing them new ideas bigger than themselves.

I think that is our purpose here. Our students are the (not-so-distant) future teachers of Liberia. We need to teach them now to value integrity, hard work, and gender equality. We can show them that progress is possible, you just have to want it. It's not this generation we'll have the biggest impact on, but the next one. We've spent the last week at our inservice training, discussing challenges and successes and sharing solutions with other LR-4's. I've been so consistently impressed by the creativity of my fellow pcvs and their resilience in the face of chaos (150 kids in one room, nonexistent resources, radically different cultural context for the process and purpose of teaching and learning), blown away by how they find incredible victories and dedicate huge swaths of their time and energy and heart to a job that is never done in a country that feels further away than the second star to the right and stranger than any rabbit hole ever could. Sometimes it feels like this Neverland is more real than the California dream I left almost six months ago. Will the lost boys (and girls) be better off for our fairy tales and dreams? No system is too big to be changed, and the quiet revolution of expecting them to participate in and take ownership of their own lives is one I have not yet surrendered. To teach in Liberia is an awfully big adventure.

Celebrate Good Times

On October 31st, as I was writing the date on the blackboard in my first class, I decided to share a little bit of American culture with my students. So I added a "Happy Halloween" below, and after the warm-up I shared some of the traditions surrounding halloween from back home (the dressing up in costumes and trick-or-treating and watching horror movie traditions, not the more religious roots of the day). They really loved when I went all along the front row of desks knocking on each one and saying "trick or treat," and for the next week I was greeted with "Trick or treat, Ms. L" when I saw my students in the hall. I also gave them a quiz that day (Happy Halloween!) and if they finished early I had them write me a letter on the back about what their favorite holiday was and why. I got a lot of random answers, but there were many students who liked New Years Day because they were grateful to God for letting them see another year. There's not much to argue about that sentiment here in Liberia, I feel.

Sharing celebrations with my students was a great way to kick off the holiday season here in the tropics halfway around the world from my family, where I don't have crisp, cool fall weather to set the mood. I decided I would find my own ways to make the holidays special this year. So far, I'm off to a great start.

One of the LR-3 Peace Corps Leaders went home for a couple weeks around the same time (and brought me back a new iPhone, thank you so much to everyone involved with that!) and was really excited about, and I quote, "all the pumpkin-flavored things" including bread and pie and spiced lattes. I decided to bring autumn to West Africa. I got some canned pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice in Monrovia and set up my coal pot dutch oven to churn out some tasty pumpkin bread. I borrowed metal muffin tins from our neighbor Fatu and used laughing cow 'cheese' to make a maple cream cheese frosting. In case you are wondering, the experiment was a success.

In exchange for the use of the muffin tins, I carried some of my victory baking to Fatu, Ben, Winifred, and the kids. Heather and I had a great time explaining the harvest season traditions of America to them, including leaves changing color, jack-o-lanterns, American Thanksgiving, corn mazes, and giant pumpkin growing contests. Ben is a farmer, and he was really interested in the differences between Liberian pumpkin (green and squash-shaped) and their round orange American cousins. They also really enjoyed the pumpkin muffins. 

I stopped by the Peace Corps office recently to pick up some mail, and I had a postcard (thank you Stan) and an amazing package (thank you Carrie) full of gorgeous paper/ephemera and a Smithsonian magazine. The paper became another pop-up 'card' that I hung on the bulletin board in my room.

The Smithsonian magazine actually had a really good article and photos of how giant pumpkins have gotten bigger in the last century because of the pumpkin-growing contests. Heather had a package as well, and her parents had sent seed packets, including pumpkin seeds with a jack-o-lantern on the front. We got so excited about this, and carried them over to show the neighbors all the things we'd told them about. Ben was fascinated with his glimpse into American agriculture practices, especially the photo of a tractor hauling a huge pumpkin out of a field. He reached out a finger to trace the giant tire and commented that it was "a fine fine machine." We handed the seed packets into his experienced hands to try out the American varietals of tomatoes, bell peppers, pumpkins, and squash in exchange for part of the produce. 

Thanksgiving is in two days, and the volunteers have been invited by the US ambassador to the Embassy Thanksgiving potluck in Monrovia. So I will get to eat real pumpkin pie, turkey, mashed potatoes, and stuffing with my fellow LR-4's. It's nice to have family around, even if it's a new and different kind of family than I've had before. I am thankful for so much in my life right now, and the great support system I've found for myself here is at the top of the list. 

Something to Be Gained

“Having been borne across the world, we are translated men. It is normally supposed that something always gets lost in translation; I cling, obstinately, to the notion that something can also be gained.” ― Salman Rushdie

In geometry, a translation is a physical shift that maintains the integrity of an object's form and features, but installs it in a new location, giving it new context and function. Standing in front of my 10th grade students, I am translated. The new context doesn't change who I am or what I do, but that person and those actions have a different impact. I have to listen, hear, and speak differently, both for the language limitations and because when I am in public I represent something much larger than myself, and I am always conscious of the weight my words and actions carry as a Peace Corps Volunteer, especially in Liberia. This isn't study abroad adventure. I find myself thinking differently, too. My fashion sense has re-adjusted to West African styles (some would argue that it never left), my sensibilities about correct public and private behavior have been altered, and there isn't any physical thing from home that I miss enough to impact my quality of life here. People are a different story, but that comes with the territory. I am still/again myself, but I have missed this version of me! When UN vehicles, Liberian English, and the collective community consciousness have become my new normal and I can't imagine myself in any other place, doing anything else, nothing feels lost in my geographic shift. I feel found in this translation. I fit differently here, not better or worse, but translated...

All My Days

This is my life here in Liberia:

I wake up at about seven am every day to our neighbor Fatu leaving to sell her doughnuts. I wish there was an easy way to save and embed sound here, because there is no way to accurately describe the prayer-call/hawking/gibberish phrases that are apparently "yeeeeaaaahh, doughnuts! yeahhh eat a sweet doughnut here."

Until this last week, we didn't even have to draw water very often, just put buckets out on the porch to catch all the rain that pours from the edges of the zinc-tin roofing and drips holes in the concrete of the steps.

We cook breakfast sometimes, either oatmeal with brown sugar and powdered milk (the Wonderful Amazing Heather has suggested that condensed milk might be a better option), or fried egg sandwiches, which require a small trip up the hill to Bossa Community Road. The road is lined with houses and small 'shops': tables out on peoples' patios with candles, soap, bread, eggs, biscuits, plantain chips, and other bits and pieces, as well as coal for the coal pot. On the way to the shop we always go to, I have to pass our neighbors, one of whom had a monkey as a pet for a few weeks, and also has a litter of kittens Heather has been eyeing with desire. I also have to run a gauntlet of small children who all chorus "My friend, my friend!" and require individual greetings and handshakes to be placated. It is common practice to greet everyone you meet or pass by, so it takes a while to wind my way up the path through groups of houses and yards to the road, and along the road to the shop. The Ma who runs the shop has an adorable 18-month-old daughter named Esther, who is not scared of us like most Liberian babies are (apparently white skin is terrifying, and they scream at us all the time). She comes out from behind the house to greet us waving her whole arm and beaming, and she is learning to shake hands.

After breakfast we read or do lesson planning on the porch. Heather and I have started a book club of sorts, and are currently reading The Stand, after Pride and Prejudice. I am not sure what will come next, maybe some science fiction? Some of the volunteers have put together a pretty great kindle library with enough books to keep even voracious readers occupied for a while.

For me, lesson planning is not that big of a challenge. I teach 10th grade 'Algebra' at Lango Lippaye High School, but most of my students are not that confident with whole number operations, so I've started them on a modified pre-algebra curriculum that may take us to expressions and equations by the end of the year. It's a lot like what Harvest Middle School 7th graders do, actually. I teach seven sections of 10th grade, which is between 385 and 420 students, depending on attendance. Algebra class meets twice a week for 45 minutes, so I really don't get as much class time with my students as I would like, and since there are so many of them (true confessions) I don't know most of their names. Exam week for the first marking period starts Monday, and it is shaping up to be just as inefficient and frustrating as everything else has been on campus. But despite the ups and downs of working within an educational system still being rebuilt after the war, I love my job. My students work so hard (most of them) and it is so gratifying to see them actually understand things, or thank me for explaining concepts in a way they can grasp. More experienced volunteers say that I should wait until I grade my first exams, because understanding in the classroom doesn't always translate to performance on the test, so I may be changing my tune. Even if I do, this still feels like a perfect fit for me.

We teach high school, which runs in the afternoon from 1-6pm, since elementary school uses the campus in the morning. So at around 12:15 Heather and I get dressed to teach, in our lappa fabric skirts, and head to campus. Sometimes, when we get there early, we hang out in the teachers lounge and listed to the junior high French teachers complain about their students.

School is pretty much constant semi-organized chaos, with elementary students leaving and high school students clamoring to be let in early so that they can claim their chairs before the rush of students starts. They are supposed to line up outside of the school gates for devotion and announcements at 12:30, but if it is raining devotion is canceled, and it usually doesn't start or finish on time, so students all rush the gate and push through the line of 12th graders whose job it is to check their uniforms for skirt length and waistband width (below the knees and 4 inches respectively) for girls, presence of belt and lack of sagging for guys, and correct shoe and sock color. I try to start teaching at 1:00, but most of my students are not in class at that time, and when they do come in, they come in and fight over desks, like a never-ending game of musical chairs with no winner or prize except a place to sit in class.

students coming in the front gate late for first period

10th grade meets in an unfinished building in the middle of campus, a county education project slated to be completed in 2012 (Liberian time), complete with no light, leaky roofs, and empty gaping window holes. It has been six weeks, so I don't really notice the dirt floor and precariously mounted chalk board anymore.

my section 10D copying their practice test review questions from the board

I am very lucky in that I feel like most days are teaching victories. I am definitely grateful for the teaching experience I had at home before I came here, and our training was also really good, if very fast.  And I really love hearing people call me Miss L as I walk through the market.

When we finish teaching we sometimes go into the market to buy supplies or peruse the wheelbarrows of secondhand shoes and clothes. I found (miracle of miracles) a Blackhawks jersey for sale on Wednesday, for 330 LD, which is less than $5. So exciting! Then we head home, and I usually cook something delicious for dinner (pumpkin soup, ground pea soup, spaghetti, stir-fry, or sometimes an experiment!) and we grade papers, eat, and watch the sun go down over our quiet neighborhood while lightning bugs zip and frogs croak. I really feel like I am finding my feet here and walking my path.

I Tumble Homeward

[sorry for the HUGE delay in posting anything! my iphone was stolen so I have had no internet for almost two months :( but I am posting several entries at once to make up for it!]

Here are some pictures of our house and community to go along with the previous post about our little corner of the world here. Two months in I am just as comfortable and at home here, and have actually had some pretty victorious cooking and baking experiences (thank you SOOOO much for the brownie mix, mom!) that deserve their own post. Enjoy a pictorial tour of Bassa Community, Kakata City, Margibi County, Liberia, West Africa, the world!

 our house, the near half of a nice, new duplex building

the well in front of our house, with draw-bucket 

front porch with coal pot in the corner

front yard, neighbors' house 

view from the front door: bathroom straight ahead, my room and spare bedroom to the right,

my bedroom with the patchwork blanket I sewed the first few weeks at site

kitchen with real counters, and crawfish on the curtains

Small Brown Girl, the helpful chicken, doing dishes with the Wonderful,  Amazing Heather, my roommate

Joy Africa FM radio tower on Bossa Community Road, down the way from our house

the view from the top of the hill going down to our house

our house, the swamp, Kakata Rural Teacher Training Institute up the hill to the left, and Booker Washington
Institute over the hill to the right

Found In Translation

There are some things about Liberia that are so very different from America as to seem almost alien (the three hour church service we attended Sunday, the general pace of life, the way Liberians think animals have no souls). But there are some things that, if I squint and tilt my head, look so very familiar. 

Our house is across the well clearing from a delightful family headed by the industrious Ben, who does something in agriculture requiring huge rubber boots, and his wife Winifred, who smiles at my roommate and I doing the wash in the morning. They have a collection of young children ranging in age from Naomi (10 months) to Mama (8 years) and an older girl (17 years old?) who may or may not be their born child, but is part of the household. One of the girls, a 3-year-old named Fewa, has a red stuffed animal that she carries around everywhere. This weekend she was wearing a red shirt, turquoise skirt, pink rain boots, and a child-sized lappa cloth in yellow, green, and orange. And she had used her lappa to tie her red stuffed doll to the small of her back exactly like her mom secures Naomi. She had a tiny bucket and was helping her brother and sister haul water from the well, too. I feel like there is a photo somewhere of me in an equivalent outfit pushing a stroller holding Baby James Butler and following Mom down the street in San Francisco.

Every Peace Corps volunteer in Liberia would probably tell you that the community they live in is the best volunteer site in the history of the organization in this country. I am no exception to this rule, despite brief initial misgivings when I learned that I would be traveling nowhere at the end of training. In the week since we moved in I have come to appreciate the things Kakata has to offer: a highly-functional school that boasts a functioning PTA, actual toilets that are cleaned regularly, and a 50-unit computer lab with hot and cold running internet; access to luxury food items like frozen chicken, canned veggies, BBQ sauce, snickers bars, and ice cold beverages; a daily market offering in-season fruits, bed sheets, water buckets, tomato paste, and monkey meat; two paved roads(!); and many more things I was not expecting to be included in my Peace Corps experience. 

By far the best surprise to date has been our house, though. It is one half of a brand new lime green and brown duplex off of one of the main roads and down a valley/dell. We share the bowl of this depression with Ma Winifred's family, their two puppies (Peace and Poornotfriend), and their chicken flock. Small Brown Girl, the most helpful chicken in Liberia, is a regular guest on our (beautiful enclosed tiled) porch while we wash laundry or cook dinner. Last week she brought Ma Winifred and her teenage daughter and we all listened to music, braided hair, and talked about kids and dogs and our new home. If good fences make good neighbors, the deep wells and friendly poultry do as well.

Inside our new palace we have a real, recognizable kitchen with counters and a sink, and our bathroom is a work of glory. We don't have running water, but all the drains work. On the first day we made curtains for the windows in the living room, kitchen, bathroom, and all three bedrooms, and furniture will be coming from Amos the carpenter 'this week.' My room is a nice bright green, the other two bedrooms are mauve, and the main living area is a very strong and assertive pepto-bismol pink. To alleviate a little of the pink-ness of our walls, we ventured to Jeety's store (home depot equivalent, selling all your hardware, flooring, and plumbing needs minus the orange aprons) to buy some white paint. On the way along the coal tar, we passed wheelbarrows full of copy books, pens, and rulers (office depot back-to-school sale), and some ladies selling fried egg sandwiches (egg mcmuffins?). I made a stop at the Lonestar store to get Internet set up on my phone, and waited in queue just like in the Verizon store in Napa when I took Nate to get a new phone.

My roommate, who was born and lived for 11 years in Botswana (to missionary parents) before seeing the US for the first time, shares my feelings of comfort and familiarity with our new life. I am assured that awkwardness, discomfort, and frustration are coming, but right now I can wholly embrace the little corner of the world in which I find myself. There are glorious and fascinating new things to discover, and, surprisingly, some wonderfully familiar things as well.

I Am the One In Ten

News bulletin of the day from Liberia one week ago today, from the morning radio as I ate my plantains and hardboiled eggs:

• National Oil Company of Liberia, ltd. was called before the congressional ways and means committee to explain their "extravagant and wasteful spending." The company was unable to produce documents justifying said spending and the hearings were postponed until the documents could be produced.
• All non-administrative/security personnel at all government health facilities have gone on strike (and are still on strike one week later) protesting the lack of both a promised wage increase and their current wages.
• A 3-month-old baby was found with its head chopped off behind a hotel in Nimba county, and no one came forward to claim the body or offer information to aid the investigation.
• A coalition of bishops and other religious leaders in Liberia is imploring the government not to yield to international pressure to legalize gay marriage on the grounds that doing so would result in a downward spiral of moral decay in Liberia like in Soddom and Gomorrah 

Days here are difficult enough without corruption, ineffective or nonexistent social systems, violence, and discrimination. My intestinal tract has staged a full-on rebellion this week against an unknown food or beverage, which is a common occurrence for everyone. The most plentiful and financially available means of public transportation (pen-pen motorcycles) results in enough road accidents to field an entire soccer team composed of drivers who are amputee accident survivors. [true fact, and I think they are even a winning soccer team!] Most people don't have much concept of budgeting or saving money for a rainy day.

And yet I am reminded that true, lasting, powerful change, while it doesn't come overnight, or even in ten years, is possible. A beautiful piece in the New Yorker yesterday gives, as Vince our country director says, some context to the work we do here, and the ways we can help. The strongest change and importance lie in the "slow ideas," the personal relationships formed when we take time, and truly get to understand the people we want to help. I asked my students to write a letter to me on the back of the quiz they took last week. I got several "Dear Miss L, I greet you in the name of Jesus our Lord, and I pray you take me back with you to America" or "Dear Miss L, I wish you have a happy 26" but I also got a very heartfelt letter from a young woman who is probably 13, who told me she would never forget how I helped her, and that she would always want to do well in math because of me. I am not sure how long that will last, but the fact that it was true even for a moment means I am in the right place, doing the right thing.

The only way to open opportunities for people here is through one-on-one relationships. This week, in addition to teaching seventh grade geometry at Model School, I am meeting with the principal of Lango Lippaye school, where I will be teaching for the next two years. All of us trainees have the chance to sit down with our administrative counterparts and go over some of the challenges facing these schools: lack of clean drinking water and seats for students, little or no enforcement of academic calendar and standards, nonexistent resources for teaching. My school is considerably higher-functioning than the average, due mostly to the tireless efforts of Principal Robert Za-Za. I am very excited to build a relationship with him, and with my students and fellow teachers. There is so much to do...