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!