Traveling

One of the most frustrating experiences in Liberia is traveling from one place to another.  When I first arrived at my site last August the start of school was delayed.  I decided to travel to Tappita, a nearby city to the south of me to pick up some essentials - buckets, basins, dish rags.  I was also able to visit some of my fellow volunteers, Lauren and Meghann.  The shopping was done and the visit was enjoyable.  It did rain a bit but that was expected.  Now I will recount my return journey, as it was the most interesting part of that particular trip.

Dyrus' truck - my main form of transportation

First off, a little info on the vehicles involved:
In Toweh Town we have one pick-up truck which carries gas, plantains, people and everything in between.  Travel in much of rural Liberia is done by bush taxi.  These are used cars from Europe or North America, usually small sedans.  To transport as many people as possible, these cars are overfilled - two passengers in the front and four in the back.  It can be quite a squeeze sometimes but after a few adjustments ("shake and settle") everyone finds a relatively comfortable position.

So I went to the taxi stand in Tappita to get a bush taxi back toward my site.  It only took about 20 minutes to get five passengers.  At that point the driver decided he wanted to go and a sixth person could be picked up on the way.  Alright!  Good start.  We started off on the dusty road and quickly came upon two women who flagged us down.  The driver explained he only had room for one of them but they begged and appealed to him to figure out how they both could fit. He decided he couldn't turn them down so they both had to be fit somehow.  One of them went in the front passenger seat, where there previously was only one person (what a waste of space!). The other woman sat down in the driver's seat which confused me for a second.  Was she going to drive? Where would the driver go? I must have missed something.  The driver then squeezed in next to her and instructed her to pull her feet in, so they wouldn't interfere with his operation of the accelerator, brake, and clutch.  So there were now four people in the front seats of this rather small car.  It didn't go as poorly as I thought it would and the only apparent difficulty was the driver having to reach over this woman's lap every time he had to shift gears.

We only traveled a few miles like this and then the woman in the front seat reached her destination. We were back to a manageable seven people in the car.  I noticed the rain from the previous night had made the road much muddier than I remembered it being just a day before.  We continued on without any large obstacles for a bit - just a few muddy spots that the driver carefully navigated.  Then we reached a point with about 20 vehicles queued up to pass through a giant patch of mud.  Our driver took one look at the situation and decided he would head back to Tappita.  He gave us a partial refund and waited to see if he could find some people who wanted to go his way.  So all the passengers got out and we tromped through the mud to reach the other side of the impassable portion of the road.  We were hoping to find a taxi on the other side who also decided to turn around.  In theory the passengers in this hypothetical taxi could find our car and we could trade places.

Twenty minutes later we reached the other side of the mud patch and there were no taxis - so much for our brilliant plan. There was a truck there though and they offered to carry a couple of us to Graie, a town where I could find transportation back to my site.  This was not an ideal form of transportation as trucks are slow and tend to get stuck in the mud. It was starting to get dark though and I wanted to get back as quickly as possible.  So we hopped on and hoped for the best. After moving about 500 feet down the road, something on the truck broke. After a quick diagnosis our new driver walked back to the line-up of cars hoping to find another truck carrying the spare part we needed.

I sat, waited, and made friends with my fellow passengers.  They talked about how awful the road was and I mostly listened, watching the sunlight fade and seeing the first stars come out.  After half an hour our trusty driver came back with the part and went to work. Another half hour passed and we were back on the road.  We reached Graie at about 8 pm and I got down and thanked my new friends for the lift.

I called the Dyrus, the driver in Toweh Town, to find out where he and his pick-up truck were and if I could get a ride from him. Luckily he was up the road in the other direction (north) and said he would be in Graie in about an hour. I got some tea (ovaltine) and bread, and waited about 90 minutes until the Toweh Town pick-up came along and carried me home.

Most trips are not this much of an adventure.  With more luck I would have made it from Tappita back to Toweh Town in about 90 minutes.  It ended up taking about six hours.  This can happen during the height of the rainy season (August to mid-October).  So this wasn't an average trip, but it wasn't exceptional either.  During the rainy season some type of long delay due to an impassable road will happen maybe 25% of the time. So this is a pretty typical Liberian travel story. I hope you enjoyed it!

Model School, Monrovia, and Site Announcement

Week Three: more sessions. Pre-service training (PST) is getting a little boring. We spend a every weekday at Doe Palace in sessions on health, safety and security, Liberian culture and history, and technical training (how to teach). After that we have Liberian English, where we learn to stop using the verb “to be” and start pronouncing words differently (often dropping the last letter or two). I’m looking forward to Monrovia weekend at the end of this. On Friday we do our final Liberian English proficiency test, which turns out to be fairly simple. Everyone passes with flying colors so we get to move on to learning our local dialects. I find out I’m learning (drum roll please)... Gio! This is a surprise because my host family speaks Kpelle so I thought that was what I would be taught. Oh well, Gio is only spoken up in Nimba county where there are mountains (awesome!) and it’s a little bit cooler (yes!!!). So I’m psyched, though I know my host family will be disappointed because they’ve been praying I’ll stay in Margibi and teach here.

Monrovia weekend: It’s our first time out of Kakata in a couple weeks and it’s great to be seeing more of the country. We’ve been told by staff and PCVs here that we will both hate and love Monrovia for its mix of availability of things we’re missing in Liberia (cheese, ice cream, burgers, etc.) and its high crime rate and the headache it is to get there from most places in the country. This is our first experience in this enticing city. Since there are 35 of us (yeah we’ve lost one), too many to stay in any of the smaller hostels, PC put us up in a pretty nice hotel. We had hot, running water and I was able to take my first shower since moving out of Doe Palace a couple weeks earlier. We drove around in a bus and were shown the city from the road for a little while. We soon learned Monrovia can be very difficult to navigate by bus (or any motor vehicle). In this city of 1.5 million people there are no traffic lights. It’s a mess. We then ditched the bus and went by foot through the main part of the city. We stopped at a supermarket with all sorts of things that cannot be found up-country. Even though it’s only been a few weeks I was pretty excited to see candy bars, corn flakes, and more than two kinds of beer.

View from the hotel window

Week Four: week one of model school. This is what we came here to do. Many of the trainees, including myself, have never taught before. I had to put a lot of effort in to make what I thought was a decent lesson plan. It was easier after the first day but still takes quite a bit of energy. I have gained a lot of respect for all the educators who taught me when I was growing up - it’s hard work! One of the biggest adjustments was not learning how to teach but learning how to deal with a room full of teenagers. I taught eighth grade and by the end of the second day our classroom was known throughout model school as the most unruly. I need to adjust to being an authority figure. It feels weird when I tell a student something they ought to do and they just do it - no questions asked. I feel like American students might be a little more difficult.

July 4th: It’s Independence Day in America! Wooo! This means in Liberia we’re... still teaching in model school. Booo! But there have been rumors flying for about a week that we’re going to find out our sites any day now. They decided to tell us early because once we found out our local dialect a lot of trainees were able to figure out where they’re going (not me, too many potential sites up in Nimba). So we put on blindfolds and they spun us around and moved us to our sites on a giant map of Liberia. I found out I’m going to... Toweh Town! What? I had never heard of this place before and it wasn’t on the map of possible sites for us. Then Jason, the Associate Peace Corps Director for Liberia came around and took pictures of all of us with our site names. That’s when he told me I’m going to a brand new site with no roommate, the only one of the LR-3’s in this situation. There are a few other people with no roommates but I’m the only one at a new site. Vote of confidence maybe? I was initially surprised because I was told I’d have a roommate. After getting over that surprise, I decided this is going to be a really good thing. I’ll have the chance to pioneer a new site. I get to define what Peace Corps is to my community. It will be a challenge for sure not having any groundwork laid yet but I’m up for it. This is exactly what I signed up for and it’s going to be awesome.

Gibi Mountain from one of the villages

Village Adventure weekend: We hop back on the best bus in Liberia and head down a dirt road toward Gibi district of Margibi County. It’s only about an hour away but the difference between Kakata and the villages is noticeable. We see many people washing in rivers and streams - something you wouldn’t find in Kak City. We pass by Gibi mountain, which is beautiful.  We don’t have time to climb the mountain though so it’s on to the village. We are welcomed in a ceremony with a bunch of people from the town. Palm wine is served, people talk, and it’s all very official. Then we eat, dance, talk, and mingle with the villagers. We all mill about for awhile and a soccer game is organized between the local team and the Peace Corps Trainees. They want to spot us two goals to make it fair. We refuse. We ended up tying them 2-2. After the game the group splits into three and we head to the surrounding villages. I end up rooming with Seth, and we have, in my opinion, one of the worst experiences among the volunteers. Our host told us there would be a prayer group there at about 9 pm. No problem, right? They were there, singing and praying, until 5 am. There were little lulls where I went to sleep for a bit but I was always reawakened by Liberians singing hymns. Fun relevant Liberian cultural belief: people who are tired will fall asleep. There is no issue with waking people because they will just fall asleep again if they’re tired. Hmmm... yeah. I’m a fairly light sleeper - this is going to be an issue. I slept all Sunday afternoon when I got back to my host family’s house in Kakata.

Week Five: week two of model school. This week kind of flew by. I felt a lot more comfortable in front of the class. The students were better behaved and all around there was improvement in how I think the class went. This is also the second week of learning Gio and I can now recognize and respond to a few greetings in this new language. Here’s a sample of the language. If you’d like to say “good afternoon” in Gio, just say, “xlaabya”. It kind of sounds like nah-ah-boo-ah, but there’s a bit of an “l” sound as well as maybe a “g” in there with the first “n”. It’s pretty fun though.

Rest weekend: This weekend we had a closing ceremony for model school where all the students got certificates for participating and the top students were recognized. I was surprised how happy some students were to be there and say hello to me even though in class they didn’t seem engaged at all. I guess part of it is the entertainment of being taught by an American. We look and speak funny by Liberian standards and the students get a kick out of just being in the classroom watching us try to teach. I got picture with a couple of my students but forgot one of them was in my class. I didn’t try to kick him out of the photo because that would’ve been mean so I don’t know if he picked up on me not really recognizing him until later. Whoops. Later on I went to the market, picked up a new shirt for 150 LD, or $2. I had to talk the vender down a bit because he wanted $3 and that’s just ridiculous. And at night I had my first experience mirror dancing. I thought it would be strange, but it turns out it’s really great. I’ve finally found the perfect dance partner who won’t make me feel self-conscious when they’re a much better dancer than me. And you can check out how your moves look - no more just listening to other people’s feedback. If you have the opportunity, I highly recommend it. Tomorrow I think I’m meeting with the principal of the school I’ll be teaching in. Then Tuesday I head off to Toweh Town and get to check out where I’ll be living for the next two years!

Orientation to Liberia

I’m in Africa! I have to keep reminding myself how crazy that is. The first few weeks have flown by and I haven’t written about it yet so here it is:

Week One: arrive in Liberia. We’re staying in Kakata (Kok-uh-tuh), a city of about 40,000 people about an hour outside the capital of Monrovia. Kakata has one paved road going through its center known as the “coal tar”. Walking on the main street can be tricky as there are no sidewalks and no separation between pedestrian and motorized traffic. The city spreads out from there in no discernible pattern. There is no running water in the houses, no sewage system, and the only electricity comes from gasoline generators. In fact, there is no electric grid anywhere in the country. There was in the 1980’s but the wars in the ‘90’s and ‘00’s ruined much of the infrastructure and Liberia is still rebuilding. 

Jet Lag Photo: our first as a group

Walking around I notice people waving at me, trying to get my attention, little kids shouting, “hello white man”, hoping to get a reaction. When I wave back to them their faces light up with smiles as they stick their thumbs up. Older folks are a little different: they want me to sit and talk with them. I explain what Peace Corps is, why I’m in Liberia. They ask me my name and thank me for coming to Liberia.

After a few days in Kakata they send all 36 trainees out for site exposure. They want us to see how volunteers live and get an idea of what life is like outside of Doe Palace in Kakata. When they tell us where we’re going I find out Andy (another trainee) and I are visiting Matt Kraus, a Biology teacher in LR-2 (the group of volunteers immediately before us who got here last summer) who is living in Zoweinta. It is two and a half hours up to Gbarnga (bahng-uh) on the coal tar and then another two on a dirt road into the bush to get there. I’m psyched! Big cities are nice but I really want to live in a small community and get the real PC experience. Zoweinta is awesome: most people know Matt’s name, people want us to stop and chat, and we drink palm wine on people’s porches. It then starts to rain fairly hard. First we try the Liberian technique and just wait on someone’s porch for awhile, hoping the rain will stop. It doesn’t stop so the three of us grab some plastic, wrap up our phones so they don’t get spoiled (Liberian English), and make a dash back to Matt’s house. All Matt’s neighbors laugh at us as we try (and fail miserably) to dodge the raindrops. Liberians don’t go out in the rain very much. When it’s raining businesses open later, kids are late or absent for school, and productivity in general drops. Why go out in the rain? Why not just keep sleeping? I think this is one cultural norm I won’t have too much trouble embracing.

The next day was pretty slow. We went to Matt’s class in the morning and watched him give a final. The rest of the day we walked around town, he showed us his fish farm which is a work in progress. There is rice being grown and a hole being dug but no fish yet. One of Matt’s neighbors brings a Liberian dish by for us to eat for dinner. It was pretty tasty but I got sick in the night. It might have been the food. It might have been the palm wine. This is the first time I am sick from strange fare here but I know it won’t be the last. Damn my weak stomach. Being slightly ill makes the journey back to Kakata less than enjoyable, but I manage.

Week Two: start of homestay. At the end of sessions on Friday we have an adoption ceremony where we meet someone from our host family. We ran toward our new families and embraced them. It was great. After our hug I asked my host ma what language she speaks and she tells me Kpelle. This is the most common local dialect in Liberia and is spoken a lot of different places so this doesn’t give me a good idea where I might be going. Oh well.

My host mother is Henrietta and my pa is David. I have six siblings: James - 19, Sando - 15, Jenet -12, Manue - 10, Princess - 6, and Dakukai - just turned 6. I spent the first night playing Uno with some of my family. They enjoyed the game and it gave me a chance to use simple Liberian English to explain the rules to them. I’ll pick up the language in time, small small. The next day was laundry day for me since I only brought eight shirts to this country and most of them are dirty. Everyone in the family got a good laugh out of me trying to wash my clothing. I rubbed, squeezed, wrung out, rinsed, and tried my hardest to do a good job. My sister Jenet took my things from me and handed me socks. I was a little better at pumping water so they let me fill my bucket and bring to the house for my bath. They offered to heat the water up for me, but I prefer to feel cold for a few minutes once a day right now. It is, after all, the only time I’m not sweating profusely.



So that was the first couple weeks. I didn't take too many photos yet but I'll take some more in the future.

Packing List

Here's the list of things I put down the night before I left so it's pretty close to the final list of things. Looking back, I worried a little too much about what I packed. I was able to get a lot of the things I brought here.

Clothing
5 pairs of socks
15 underwear
2 pairs nice pants
2 pairs casual pants
2 belts
2 polo-type shirts
3 t-shirts
3 button-down shirts
2 ties
3 pairs athletic shorts
hat
swimsuit
black nice shoes
brown walking/casual shoes
running shoes
tevas

Kitchen Stuff/Food
measuring cups
lemonade packets
mac n cheese cheese packets
clif bars
gladware
paring knife

Toiletries
bar soap
travel soap holder
nail clippers
2 sticks deodorant
4 toothbrushes
2 tubes toothpaste
floss
mouthwash
razor with extra blades
2 hand towels
fairly thin (quick drying) beach towel
shampoo


Electronics
3 eight gb flash drives
external hard drive
laptop
ipod
portable speakers
camera
2 micro sd memory card for camera
shortwave radio
solar-powered water decontaminator
crank/solar flashlight
headlamp
10 AA batteries
10 AAA batteries

Other School Stuff
white out
stapler
ruler
scissors
pens - black, blue, red
scotch tape
double-sided tape

Other
sleeping bag
sleeping pad
sheets
combination lock
25 qt ziplock bags
20 gal ziplock bags
2 pairs sunglasses
swiss army knife
sewing kit
dictionary
2 books
money belt
stamps
playing cards
travel scrabble
umbrella
duct tape

Peace Corps Timeline

When I was thinking about applying to the Peace Corps I was curious how long the process would take and what it would entail. So, here's my account from the submission of my application to my departure:

8/29/10: I submit my application. After several months of procrastination and uncertainty I decided to commit.

9/21/10: My recruiter contacts me about references, background info, fingerprints, skills, and possible assignments. I send in the electronic forms but quickly realize PC has the wrong address for me. Everything gets straightened out and I send in the paper forms/cards in mid-October. It turns out the fingerprint cards are not filled out properly so I miss my opportunity for an interview in Kalamazoo in late October. Oops.

11/12/10: There is another back-and-forth with fingerprint cards. I do not know what could be wrong but agree to send in another set in early December.

12/2/10: Although my fingerprints still are not on-file I am able to conduct a phone interview with my recruiter. It goes fairly well. Phone interviews are always a little awkward.

12/20/10-early January of 2011: I reaffirm my commitment to serve in the Peace Corps. I finally get the fingerprint cards done correctly.

1/24/11: I am nominated for Secondary Education - Science in Sub-Saharan Africa! The next step is medical and dental examinations.

3/25/11: I have had dental and medical examinations and sent in documentation for both.

4/8/11: I receive dental clearance!

7/8/11: There is a problem with my medical file. Some of the tests were unnecessary. Others were missing. I am going to have to get these in quickly if I want to make it for my potential departure date in Fall 2011. A couple weeks later I get all my medical info sent in and my application status shows my medical review is underway.

8/1/11: Since my medical file is still being evaluated I have missed the window for the Fall 2011 departure. The soonest date I would leave is January to March of 2012.

9/27/11: I receive medical clearance!

10/20/11: After sending in an updated resume I talk to the placement office about my competitiveness and potential departure date. It looks like April to June of 2012 before any program I fit into will leave.

12/9/11: I receive my invitation to serve in Liberia from June of 2012 to August of 2014! I read the info and accept the invitation about a week later. Although it's taken a little longer than expected, I'm excited to know where and when I'll be serving. I send in visa and passport application, along with aspiration statement, a week or so after accepting my invitation.

1/18/12: Since it's coming up on a year since my documented dental exam, I am told it's going to run out before I leave. I talk to the dental office and get the documents I need to show I've been examined again.

3/22/12: Everything went along fine until I was placed on medical hold for not submitting my yellow fever documentation. Whoops. I send it in and go back to waiting for departure in June.

5/8/12: Receive staging info: I'm really going to Liberia in early June!