Liberia Probable FAQs - Part I - "What is Liberia like?"

It is May.  Which means I haven’t posted anything new for a long time. 

The basic reason is because I knew a few months ago that I didn’t know enough about what I was seeing to make any intelligent observations.  And I was going to need some time to figure out what was going on. 

And then today, I received a text from the person who will be following me and I though “Wow!  I thought I was at the halfway point.  Turns out I’m farther alone than that.”  Time to post observations…  starting with a few probable FAQs. 

Probable FAQs: 

What is Liberia like?  What is life in Liberia like? 
For those who have been asked this about experiences living overseas, I will apologize for including this question in my list of FAQs.  ;)  For those who hadn’t been asked such a question before, this is a somewhat ridiculous question.  Before asking someone to sum up life in a country into 2-3 sentences, ask yourself if you could sum up life wherever you live, to someone who knows little to nothing about it, in 2 sentences.  Tell me about life in Washington, DC!  Tell me about life in New York!  Tell me about life in Moscow!  Tell me about life in Tokyo!  Or worse yet:  Tell me about life in the United States!  Tell me about life in Russia!  Tell me about life in Japan!  Do you mean what does the place look like?  Or what are the people like?  Or what do you do?  Or are the stories I see on the news true?  Or what?  

Okay, point taken.  Seriously.  But what is life in Liberia like? 
Okay.  In my experience, in the one community I have live in, for the few months that I’ve been here…  Barclayville is a pretty community, that feels like a community – as opposed to a place where a bunch of people who have built their lives around a commercial strip of road (which is what I think places like Pleebo and Zwedru feel like).  People are nice and friendly.  I haven’t experienced theft or violence.  (Theft is a big issue in other areas of the country.) 

But Liberia is a developing country, trying to rebuild after years of civil war.  It is arguably on the list of 10 poorest countries in the world.  There is very limited infrastructure as everything was destroyed.  In other words, the roads, educational system, governance, buildings, agricultural and business community is all being rebuilt.  (Dirt road, in the rainy season, turn to mud.)  Few people in Barclayville have electricity. (People charge cell phones at little kiosks that have lots of places to plug in such gadgets.)   There is extremely limited television (only at video clubs).  Almost no one in Barclayville uses the internet.  Most people haven’t used a computer.  Today, the National Teachers Association expressed the goal of purchasing “modern type writers” in the coming years (they mean type writers, not a quaint word for computers.)  People, including me, walk to water pumps to collect buckets of water.  People pile onto motorbikes to get around (3-4 people per bike).  Women cook over coal pot stoves that sit on the ground.  And kids entertain themselves by running around outside, and racing wheels by running after them with a stick.  

What is the weather?  

Honestly, with no thermometer, I don’t know.  Assume it is always in the 80s, always humid, and the sun is strong.  Could be worse.  But not my favourite either.  I do like that frequent thunder/lightening.  Rainy seasons recently started which means, apparently, it will rain every day.  Maybe not all day, but a portion of each day. 

How is the school? 
In a word, the school is great.  The administration seems committed to education, doesn’t seem to be corrupt (like other stories I have heard about other schools), and students are well behaved and interested in learning something. 

At the same time, it is extremely resource poor, we just (last week) got a library/reading room established, the students do not have books (and certainly not the same books), the photocopiers hadn’t been in working order, and everything that students are to learn needs to be written on the chalk board for them to copy down.  Students are generally below (or far below) grade level.  I asked students to write down what they wanted to be in 5 years.  In the 10 minutes I have them, one 10^th grader wrote “I dotor.”  (that’s “doctor” without the “c”).  There is lots of “spying” (cheating, copying, “helping friends”) in Liberian schools and Barclayville isn’t that different.  (And some students are really terrible at covering up their “spying”.  Like having a friend take another friends paper and start doing the quiz for them, in different handwriting and different pen from what the original students was writing.  They think it is funny that I can figure out when they’ve done this – they laugh and shake my hand when I point it out.) 

Whenever I get discouraged, I remind myself that this isn’t a problem I’m going to solve; the educational system is going to need a decade or two to really get to where it needs to be.  

What do you do day-to-day? 

6am – curse the rooster who wakes me up
6:30 – get up and make coffee, bucket bath #1
7:45 – depart for school
8:00 – first lesson
12:00 – venture home
13:00 – go find lunch
13:00 to dusk:  find something to do, read, on Thursday I am hope to meet my laundry woman, etc.
19:00 – close door for evening to prevent critters from coming it, maybe tune to BBC, bucket bath #2
21:00 or 22:00 or 23:00 – go to bed (my computer AND external hard drive died, so no movies for me)