Dear all,

 

My house mate and I came to Monrovia this weekend for a little R&R and it has been nice.  We are in the PC office right now, Sunday afternoon, and will be leaving for home about 3 pm.  We have to charter a taxi for the day, $50 US, and then he drives us around to a couple different places to do errands and then we'll leave for home about 3.  Its an hour and a half drive over some very very ugly roads, everyone weaves wildly around and among potholes so you never know what you'll see coming at you thru the windshield.

 

The dry season will soon be here and we have been assured that the roads are a lot better then...we'll see.  I can't fathom that they will fill in the potholes so I think the only difference will be the amount of water in the holes.

 

But, the good news is that school has started finally and we are feeling worthwhile again.  We were here two weeks just getting our house put together and finding out how to buy food, someone to wash our clothes for us and someone to bring us drinking water ( which we still have to put thru the purifier but at least is is clear which is more than we can say about the water that comes thru the pipes which we use for bathing and household stuff. )

 

The students are so enthusiastic about learning...its like they are hungry.  When we say anything to suggest that we will be stating some facts....they just stare at us waiting with rapt attention.  

 

My school is a teacher training institute funded almost entirely, or entirely, by USAID.  We are assigned to classes with one or two other Liberian teachers and we have about 35 students in our classes, ranging in age from 18 to 40+.  They are people who have no other work, have their high school diplomas and want to work at something.  As part of the registration process, we worked on the station that reviewed their essays so we have sort of an idea of their motives for being there, other than the universal one of wanting to work...at anything.  

 

Many of the essays mentioned that the government has been advertising for students to apply to the teacher training institutes ( there are three of them spread around the country) so many of the essays mentioned that they were responding to the country's request for help in the education of Liberia's children.  Its sort of like a junior college, but its just a nine month program and they get a "C" certificate which is all the certification they need to teach at the elementary level.  There is something more required for secondary teachers.  Several of the essays started with a statement of thanks to the government for the opportunity, and to God, and to the US of America for providing the funding.  Isn't that nice ?  One youngster wrote that he wanted to be a teacher ( that was the topic they were given) to do his duty to his country, to help it recover after the civil war and he went on to say that others were going for the high paying "white scholar" jobs, but he wanted to help out his country even tho the pay was low. .  It was so sweet

 

Our program just lasts 9 months.  The first three months, up until Christmas break, are devoted to classroom instruction in basic skills and some child development, child psychology, pedagogy.  Then, right before Christmas, they all have to take a test and if they pass, they may return for the second semester, Jan - Jun, when they will be assigned to classrooms to do practice teaching.  They are video taped while teaching and then the tape is critiqued by the teachers.  I guess we will participate in that somehow but I am not sure how that will all play out.

 

Right now, we are teaching 3 hours in the morning, we have 1.5 hrs. for lunch, 3 hrs in the afternoon and then we hold tutoring classes in the evening for 2 hours so we are plenty busy now.  We are assigned to a team for two weeks and then the teachers rotate so all the trainees are exposed to all of the trainers during the first three months. I like the two men I am working with right now but I'll lose them after a couple more weeks and I am not sure I'll feel the same about the others. 

 

There are two other volunteer teachers here from Nigeria.  They are young girls and are very nice.  English is the primary language Nigeria too so communicating is not a problem.  That is a very nice aspect of this assignment.

 

As far as our living arrangements go...we each have a private bedroom but we share all other rooms.  It has been working out just fine.  Kathy is 72, she taught kindergarden in NY for 37 years and is a little afraid of the bigger kids but she seems to be adjusting just fine. We have running water ( described above) but we had to pay, rather we chose to pay, $250 to get a meter put in and to get hooked up to the water tank near our house.  I guess we'll get a water bill before too long...who knows.  We have electricity from 5 am to 7 am and then again from 7 pm to 11 pm.  We have internet but it is 2G which is very very slow.  One of the cell companies is promising to start 4G in the "dry season" but......we'll see.  So, for now, I can email but downloading pictures will be relegated to occasional weekends in Monrovia.

 

As I said, I am in Monrovia now but I forgot to bring my flash drive which has all my pictures on it so I'll have to blog next time I come.  Also, some of the keys on my  old laptop have malfunctioned so I was using the on screen keyboard ( which was a very nice temporary fix) but I bought one yesterday and will take it home today and see if I can get it work.  Hope so.

 

As for food, we have been buying/eating cucumbers, bread and peanut butter a lot these past two weeks but little by little we are finding some healthy alternatives.  We found where we coudl buy "country rice" which is whole grain so we buy that now on the street in the market and take it to the lady who cooks for us once in a while and she cooks our rice for us instead of the white rice.  So thats good.  We found her, Cecelia,  through some other PC volunteers who told us she cooks when PC has training classes at a nearby compound where there are dormitory facilities and classrooms.  Its called Doe Palace and apparently was one of the luxurious home of Sam Doe when he was president of the country.  They still call it Doe Palace ( we have not seen it yet but it is supposedly real near our town)  

 

ANyhow, we can call her and she will cook some vegetarian concoction and rice and send it out to our house with her son on the back of a motorcycle or penpen as they call them.  Her son, Elijah rides on the back with the two dishes and then we pay him and the penpen driver.  We do that about 2 times a week andthe amount she gives us is enough for us to each get two meals out of it.  Now  that we have the country rice instead of the regular white rice, it is even more nutritious.  Kathy says she has never had food delivered to her home in NY, that she had to come to Liberia for that kind of service.

 

We have had a carpenter working a lot for us inthe house.  He made us screen doors for the front and back door, installed locks on our bedroom doors and reinforced the lock on the back door.  This weekend while we are gone, he is painting the two tables he made for us.  Now we want to invite some other staff members and PC volunteers for dinner.  There is a gas station in town that sells wine ( from Chile) and we can get Cecelia to make us a couple dishes and we can buy bread and we'll all have a feast.

 

We bought 4 plates, forks, glasses and spoons so we are set !!!  We bought a two burner electric stove a couple weeks ago but just got a pot this weekend so now we could actually make some things ourselves.  We found some museli that we will use for breakfast and we have powdered milk to make milk with our filtered water....see, its easy !!!!`

 

I am finishing this email at home.  We chartered a taxi to bring us home.....its a lot safer when we have to carry a lot of bags.  So there we were in  Abdul from Guinea's taxi on the semi paved road pot holed road between Monrovia and Kakata with a Kenny Rodgers CD  blaring on his radio.  How wild is that ?

 

I bought an external keyboard in a store in Monrovia and when I got home I plugged it in, the driver got installed and the little green light came on and when I looked down to type I discovered the keys have the Arabic symbols on them, along with  the English.  Funny. 

 

I also wanted to mention a sight we saw in the market in Kakata.  We found the police station ( they don't carry guns here which is part of the post conflict plan) and we saw one guy with a light green beret and I figured he was some sort of UN Peacekeeper....the UN trucks and helicopters are all over the place.  Anyhow, we approached him to ask directions ( its so wonderful that everyone speaks English) and I noticed that the green beret had a little Girl Scout symbol.  Isn't that sweet ?  And it looked very jaunty on him.

 

We also learned of a school for the deaf in a Methodist church here in Kakata but we have not been to visit it yet.  One of the teachers at the school is astudent in my class here at the teacher training institute.

 

That's all for now....its plenty hot and the classrooms are just ovens in the afternoons but as I overheard Kathy telling her sister on the phone the other day....." its hot, I sweat a lot but it just drips off of me onto the floor and then I'm OK."  It was a nice summary of our response to the weather.  

 

Again, thanks for paying your taxes,

I miss you all,

Love, Pat