I returned from the season January 3rd, and although day to day the time seemed to have passed slowly, when I look at the month I’m shocked we are already in February. I find myself asking, where did January go? It would be impossible to relive all the events that happened since I’ve been home, but there are a few “stand out” events I can tell you about.
In a previous post I talked about my old ma friend and Mr. X, well it seems that since I’ve been home they have sort of reconciled their differences and she has is staying at the house again. Although this makes me happy, it makes me wonder what sort of agreement they came to. Her children are still staying at the farm, my understanding is she sleeps at the house, then goes to the farm during the day. Now of course I hope they came to an agreement BOTH are all happy with, but the entire argument was over the kids, how he didn’t want them at the house, and how she was standing up for the kids by not staying at the house. Now not only are the kids not at the house (which Is way more convenient for them regarding distance to school), but ma is making the trek back and forth from the farm every day, staying the night at the house, cleaning, cooking, doing wash, then during the day walking to the farm to do the same for the kids. To me it doesn’t feel like Mr.X didn’t make any sacrifices, although it doesn’t involve me at all, every time I pass and see her working at the house and him lounging under the tree, I can feel slight resentment.
I also heard some funny chi chi (rumors/drama) about Mr.X and my old ma friend. I was walking with Surprises Auntie, (who fun fact, actual name is Irene, just when they say it sounds like Erin) she told me that Mr.X went to church (because it was a Sunday), but is not able to receive communion. I thought this was a weird fact to share, so I asked why. She told me that he has a wife in Monrovia (clearly not together), yet still lays with my ma friend. I then made a comment that they have been together for 7 years now, she said it didn’t matter, that my Ma friend just like “man business”, that neither of them can receive communion because of the relationship. She then continued to say that my ma friend’s children are all from different men, and that’s another reason she can’t receive communion… (drop the microphone) OH SHITTTT… community dramaaaaa.
The solar Ike installed at the house stopped working for about a week. This was really just more obnoxious then anything else, not because I can’t live without power, but because I realized I’m incompetent when it comes to electrical work. After texting/ bugging every Lr6 that helps install solar, Darrell came to my rescue! After like 50 pictures and 3 phone calls Darrell walked me through how to fix the wire. The battery terminal that was meant for the battery was too small when Ike set it up, so at the time he “fixed it”, so it would work still. It was that same wire, we “fixed” that was giving me a hard time. The wire had corroded and some of them had cut. After cutting away the bad wire I rewrapped it the way Ike had, but was still having some problems. I realized the best thing to make this work would be to get the correct battery terminal for the positive charge. The next day after this revelation I made the trip to Gbanga to get a new battery terminal, after talking to at least 15 garage shops and walking around all day, I finally found the piece I needed… once again chagrining my things inside/having small lights…we lived happily ever after.
This period (3rd period) in school I had 2, well, sort of 3 students drop out. If they didn’t drop out, then they have stopped coming for the entire 3rd period. I’ve seen one of the kids in the town and he keeps saying he will come Monday, then I see him again and he tells me the same thing. This has been happening for about a month now. The first 2 weeks he told me he was riding bike, meaning he borrowed a motorbike from a friend and was taxing people to earn money. The last 2 times I saw him he just said he would come Monday. The other two students, I haven’t seen at all. I tried asking the kids in class if they had seen them at all, I’ve heard that the female student isn’t serious, that the male student’s woman is big belly and that’s why he isn’t coming. I’ve also finally moved onto the curriculum in math for my 10th graders. We are finally done with review and have moved onto Geometry. I would love to say we finished review because it was no longer needed, but the real reason is that the review we were doing wasn’t going to help them in geometry. I decided reviewing basic skills could wait until we moved onto a topic where they will be needed.
This decision is still up in the air... as you can see from this conversation while using a protractor with one of my students:
Rachel: Line falls between 160 and 170... what’s in-between that line
Student: Well it doesn’t fall on a line so Ill just call it 150
Rachel: But it does fall on a line, and it’s nowhere near the 150 line. What’s in-between 160 and 170.
Student: 110
Rachel: No. I then count out loud from 160 to 170, emphasizing 165. So, what’s in-between those numbers? What’s in the middle? What’s half way between those numbers?
Student: I’ll just say 140
Rachel: No. 165 student. 165.
I made my first trip to Ghanta for banking this month. This meant I took a car to Rachels site and from there we took a car to Gbanga and got dropped off in Ghanta parking. From Ghanta parking, in Gbanga we took another car to Ghanta. We met Madeline in Ghanta parking and the three of us were off. From Gbanga travel time is about an hour. The ride was pretty comfortable, the taxi driver only had the three of us in the back, and for most of the drive it was just us, he didn’t really pick up any other passengers. We arrived in Ghanta and went to the ATM to get small money and then hit up all the gas stations. Ghanta doesn’t have a supermarket, but the gas stations are all stocked up like mini supermarkets. After buying as much American food items we could, we went shopping for a standing fan. Standing fans cost us $45 a person, because we bought 3, he lowered the cost by $5. Although expensive, its super necessary (especially now its dry season), no one likes waking up in a pool of their own sweat. Its great too because the fan uses almost no power. How you ask, well, we cut off the plug to the fan and attached the wire to the wires Ike hung in the bedroom, that is attached to the battery, which is a DC battery, making the fan run off DC instead of using the inverter (which draws TONS of power) allowing us to use AC things, such as charging your computer. Now to me what I just said makes total sense, but there is a chance I used all the wrong words, so to simplify- I attached red with red and black with black, put electrical tape over it and now my fan uses power from my battery instead of pulling power from an outlet.
After fans we walked over to the Ghanta bakery to get lunch. This bakery is AMAZING! They have cake, banana bread, cookies, cornbread, a huge selection of breakfast, lunch and dinner foods, all for super cheap prices. The guy who owns the bakery is such a genuine guy, we walked in and he instantly started calling us his children, talking very highly of Mike and Megan (who’s site is Ghanta), making pleasant conversation, being very welcoming. He told us that he studied in Germany and owns a couple bakery’s in Liberia now. For lunch we all got a cheese burger and fries. This cheese burger was delicious, it was an American standard cheeseburger for 350LD. After lunch we ordered some” to go” items, I got cornbread and banana bread- DELISH. After lunch it was time to go to the pool, yes, the pool! There is a guesthouse called Vicky’s with a swimming pool! We made plans earlier in the day to meet up with Mike and Megan, to go swimming. Cost to swim is $5, they also serve drinks, as you can imagine the place is not packed (being $5 to swim is steep) so it was like our own personal pool.
The day went by so fast and before we knew it, it was time to leave. We packed up and walked back to the parking area. This parking spot was unlike any I had seen before. Typically, you walk up to a taxi spot and just grab any car, ask the price to the driver, wait for it to be full and you go, upon arrival you pay the driver. In Ghanta they have a guy you give your name to, he writes it down, then you pay him, he writes you a ticket, assigns you to a car, once the car is full you have the slip saying you paid, get in and go. This was the most organized taxi spot I had ever seen, it’s nice because you don’t have to haggle with anyone over prices and the stress of finding someone to take you isn’t there. It however does suck a little because you don’t get a choice in the car your assigned to, for example, we had 3 standing fans, a hatchback car would have been ideal, however, the hatchback car wasn’t next in line to leave, meaning it wasn’t an option for us. It also sucked because a lot of the time you can convince the driver once you have 3 people to leave and pick more up the road (aka- on the way), but with someone overseeing the entire process he doesn’t want/may not let the car leave until it has 4/5 people inside, which means more waiting. In our case, because white people have plenty money (Liberian way of thinking) they asked us to pay for the rest of the car (3 extra spots) so we could leave quick. Normally we would have never even considered it, but we were racing against time. All of us wanted to get home before sundown, especially because Madeline had a motorbike ride to her site after we got to Gbanga, and any sort of road movement at night is unsafe, especially on motorbike. We negotiated with the guy telling him we would pay for one extra seat if we left immediately, that he could pick up other people on the way. He agreed, and we were off, ending our fun filled Ghanta day!
Rachel and I have been on the search for a sofa, or any sofa like item since arriving at site. We have asked several people and have been “in contact” with different different people who have said they could make us a sofa like item with wicker. After months of searching we finally found a place who could make us sofas. This also happens to be the place Rachel had been going to for months for all her wood work. Apparently, because we kept thinking the sofa should be made of wicker, she never thought to ask the carpenter shop (that has sofas out front and she had visited several times) if they could make us a sofa Ha-ha. Anyway, we showed them pictures of what we wanted and in Liberian time (aka- they call a date and you add anywhere from 2 weeks to a month on that date) we had new handmade sofas! This costed me about $150USD, which when you think about what I got... a brand-new sofa, made from scratch, using a picture I showed him from the internet, was a steal!
We had a hell of a time getting it through the door, it took the taxi driver, 30 little boys, and like 10 nosey neighbors peaking inside to get it in, but we did, and now it rests comfortably inside my living room. The couch did however have some unforeseen consequences. The biggest and most obnoxious one was peaking inside. The kids like to jump up on the window, grab the screen, and peer inside. Typically, when this happens, it happens at the screen my iron door has, and I’m right by the door sitting at the table, I yell then they go away, I continue to close the red door, so they can’t see anymore. In the living room I don’t have a red door to close, when its late at night all I hear is noise right outside my window and I can’t tell at 10pm at night if its nosey kids or rouges. So, my solution: curtains. BEST IDEA EVER. I added curtains to every window in the house. Surprise told me what I was doing was wicked, to which I told him peaking inside someone’s house was wicked. I can for the first time peacefully be inside with my windows open and not have nosy little boys peaking inside asking what are you doing, why are you doing that, can I have some, etc... They still come by and say those things, but at least now I can’t see their little eyes peering through my window, if I do see them try, I just hit the screen and scare the shit out of them (which might seem hurtful... but. oh well). The last consequence I have seen from my new sofa life is people talking some chi chi about me in Kpelle. Apparently, people like to talk about how fine my house is in Kpelle, in front of me, but since I can’t understand them I only get the rough translation from the boys when we leave. For now, I’m just ignoring the issue. I’m not entirely sure this is an issue or just the community culture to talk about anyone’s business whenever anything new or different happens. I’m sure once the newest “scandal” happens I’ll be old news.
While on the topic of chi chi about myself, I received a letter from my landlord “officially” giving me 15 days to gather my things and get out of the house, due to lack of payment. Now let me preface this story with- everything is now solved, it was all just a misunderstanding, all parties involved did a great job solving this issue. Now back to the chi chi- I was home one day about to go on a jog, my landlord comes to the house on motorbike with another boy, the boy gets off the bike, hands me a letter, I ask what it was, no answer, they ride away. I open the letter and it reads: This is to inform miss Richael (EVERYONE SPELLS MY NAME LIKE THIS) Neala (African name) that your asked to please leave the premises of *** residence after (15) days, as a result of not paying the rent of the building you are occupying. Therefore, the school of Gbartala is not responding as it relates to your staying in Gbartala. I got this letter and thought... oh shit..really??!. I called my coordinator, sent her a picture, and everyone was trying to solve the issue. So what happened is, the government pays for our houses, well since the election business the new president wasn’t in office yet meaning funds had not been released to the landlords. There was a delay for the election, meaning delay in payment. Being he had not heard from the school he started to get nervous, hence the letter. All the officials and elders in my town got involved and everyone apologized 1000 times for this issue. It was just a matter of advising my landlord that the rent was coming. Although this caused quite the drama for about 3 days, it did show me how much everyone in my town appreciates me being there and how much everyone in town and surrounding me has my back if a problem arises.
In a previous post I talked about my old ma friend and Mr. X, well it seems that since I’ve been home they have sort of reconciled their differences and she has is staying at the house again. Although this makes me happy, it makes me wonder what sort of agreement they came to. Her children are still staying at the farm, my understanding is she sleeps at the house, then goes to the farm during the day. Now of course I hope they came to an agreement BOTH are all happy with, but the entire argument was over the kids, how he didn’t want them at the house, and how she was standing up for the kids by not staying at the house. Now not only are the kids not at the house (which Is way more convenient for them regarding distance to school), but ma is making the trek back and forth from the farm every day, staying the night at the house, cleaning, cooking, doing wash, then during the day walking to the farm to do the same for the kids. To me it doesn’t feel like Mr.X didn’t make any sacrifices, although it doesn’t involve me at all, every time I pass and see her working at the house and him lounging under the tree, I can feel slight resentment.
I also heard some funny chi chi (rumors/drama) about Mr.X and my old ma friend. I was walking with Surprises Auntie, (who fun fact, actual name is Irene, just when they say it sounds like Erin) she told me that Mr.X went to church (because it was a Sunday), but is not able to receive communion. I thought this was a weird fact to share, so I asked why. She told me that he has a wife in Monrovia (clearly not together), yet still lays with my ma friend. I then made a comment that they have been together for 7 years now, she said it didn’t matter, that my Ma friend just like “man business”, that neither of them can receive communion because of the relationship. She then continued to say that my ma friend’s children are all from different men, and that’s another reason she can’t receive communion… (drop the microphone) OH SHITTTT… community dramaaaaa.
The solar Ike installed at the house stopped working for about a week. This was really just more obnoxious then anything else, not because I can’t live without power, but because I realized I’m incompetent when it comes to electrical work. After texting/ bugging every Lr6 that helps install solar, Darrell came to my rescue! After like 50 pictures and 3 phone calls Darrell walked me through how to fix the wire. The battery terminal that was meant for the battery was too small when Ike set it up, so at the time he “fixed it”, so it would work still. It was that same wire, we “fixed” that was giving me a hard time. The wire had corroded and some of them had cut. After cutting away the bad wire I rewrapped it the way Ike had, but was still having some problems. I realized the best thing to make this work would be to get the correct battery terminal for the positive charge. The next day after this revelation I made the trip to Gbanga to get a new battery terminal, after talking to at least 15 garage shops and walking around all day, I finally found the piece I needed… once again chagrining my things inside/having small lights…we lived happily ever after.
This period (3rd period) in school I had 2, well, sort of 3 students drop out. If they didn’t drop out, then they have stopped coming for the entire 3rd period. I’ve seen one of the kids in the town and he keeps saying he will come Monday, then I see him again and he tells me the same thing. This has been happening for about a month now. The first 2 weeks he told me he was riding bike, meaning he borrowed a motorbike from a friend and was taxing people to earn money. The last 2 times I saw him he just said he would come Monday. The other two students, I haven’t seen at all. I tried asking the kids in class if they had seen them at all, I’ve heard that the female student isn’t serious, that the male student’s woman is big belly and that’s why he isn’t coming. I’ve also finally moved onto the curriculum in math for my 10th graders. We are finally done with review and have moved onto Geometry. I would love to say we finished review because it was no longer needed, but the real reason is that the review we were doing wasn’t going to help them in geometry. I decided reviewing basic skills could wait until we moved onto a topic where they will be needed.
This decision is still up in the air... as you can see from this conversation while using a protractor with one of my students:
Rachel: Line falls between 160 and 170... what’s in-between that line
Student: Well it doesn’t fall on a line so Ill just call it 150
Rachel: But it does fall on a line, and it’s nowhere near the 150 line. What’s in-between 160 and 170.
Student: 110
Rachel: No. I then count out loud from 160 to 170, emphasizing 165. So, what’s in-between those numbers? What’s in the middle? What’s half way between those numbers?
Student: I’ll just say 140
Rachel: No. 165 student. 165.
I made my first trip to Ghanta for banking this month. This meant I took a car to Rachels site and from there we took a car to Gbanga and got dropped off in Ghanta parking. From Ghanta parking, in Gbanga we took another car to Ghanta. We met Madeline in Ghanta parking and the three of us were off. From Gbanga travel time is about an hour. The ride was pretty comfortable, the taxi driver only had the three of us in the back, and for most of the drive it was just us, he didn’t really pick up any other passengers. We arrived in Ghanta and went to the ATM to get small money and then hit up all the gas stations. Ghanta doesn’t have a supermarket, but the gas stations are all stocked up like mini supermarkets. After buying as much American food items we could, we went shopping for a standing fan. Standing fans cost us $45 a person, because we bought 3, he lowered the cost by $5. Although expensive, its super necessary (especially now its dry season), no one likes waking up in a pool of their own sweat. Its great too because the fan uses almost no power. How you ask, well, we cut off the plug to the fan and attached the wire to the wires Ike hung in the bedroom, that is attached to the battery, which is a DC battery, making the fan run off DC instead of using the inverter (which draws TONS of power) allowing us to use AC things, such as charging your computer. Now to me what I just said makes total sense, but there is a chance I used all the wrong words, so to simplify- I attached red with red and black with black, put electrical tape over it and now my fan uses power from my battery instead of pulling power from an outlet.
After fans we walked over to the Ghanta bakery to get lunch. This bakery is AMAZING! They have cake, banana bread, cookies, cornbread, a huge selection of breakfast, lunch and dinner foods, all for super cheap prices. The guy who owns the bakery is such a genuine guy, we walked in and he instantly started calling us his children, talking very highly of Mike and Megan (who’s site is Ghanta), making pleasant conversation, being very welcoming. He told us that he studied in Germany and owns a couple bakery’s in Liberia now. For lunch we all got a cheese burger and fries. This cheese burger was delicious, it was an American standard cheeseburger for 350LD. After lunch we ordered some” to go” items, I got cornbread and banana bread- DELISH. After lunch it was time to go to the pool, yes, the pool! There is a guesthouse called Vicky’s with a swimming pool! We made plans earlier in the day to meet up with Mike and Megan, to go swimming. Cost to swim is $5, they also serve drinks, as you can imagine the place is not packed (being $5 to swim is steep) so it was like our own personal pool.
The day went by so fast and before we knew it, it was time to leave. We packed up and walked back to the parking area. This parking spot was unlike any I had seen before. Typically, you walk up to a taxi spot and just grab any car, ask the price to the driver, wait for it to be full and you go, upon arrival you pay the driver. In Ghanta they have a guy you give your name to, he writes it down, then you pay him, he writes you a ticket, assigns you to a car, once the car is full you have the slip saying you paid, get in and go. This was the most organized taxi spot I had ever seen, it’s nice because you don’t have to haggle with anyone over prices and the stress of finding someone to take you isn’t there. It however does suck a little because you don’t get a choice in the car your assigned to, for example, we had 3 standing fans, a hatchback car would have been ideal, however, the hatchback car wasn’t next in line to leave, meaning it wasn’t an option for us. It also sucked because a lot of the time you can convince the driver once you have 3 people to leave and pick more up the road (aka- on the way), but with someone overseeing the entire process he doesn’t want/may not let the car leave until it has 4/5 people inside, which means more waiting. In our case, because white people have plenty money (Liberian way of thinking) they asked us to pay for the rest of the car (3 extra spots) so we could leave quick. Normally we would have never even considered it, but we were racing against time. All of us wanted to get home before sundown, especially because Madeline had a motorbike ride to her site after we got to Gbanga, and any sort of road movement at night is unsafe, especially on motorbike. We negotiated with the guy telling him we would pay for one extra seat if we left immediately, that he could pick up other people on the way. He agreed, and we were off, ending our fun filled Ghanta day!
Rachel and I have been on the search for a sofa, or any sofa like item since arriving at site. We have asked several people and have been “in contact” with different different people who have said they could make us a sofa like item with wicker. After months of searching we finally found a place who could make us sofas. This also happens to be the place Rachel had been going to for months for all her wood work. Apparently, because we kept thinking the sofa should be made of wicker, she never thought to ask the carpenter shop (that has sofas out front and she had visited several times) if they could make us a sofa Ha-ha. Anyway, we showed them pictures of what we wanted and in Liberian time (aka- they call a date and you add anywhere from 2 weeks to a month on that date) we had new handmade sofas! This costed me about $150USD, which when you think about what I got... a brand-new sofa, made from scratch, using a picture I showed him from the internet, was a steal!
We had a hell of a time getting it through the door, it took the taxi driver, 30 little boys, and like 10 nosey neighbors peaking inside to get it in, but we did, and now it rests comfortably inside my living room. The couch did however have some unforeseen consequences. The biggest and most obnoxious one was peaking inside. The kids like to jump up on the window, grab the screen, and peer inside. Typically, when this happens, it happens at the screen my iron door has, and I’m right by the door sitting at the table, I yell then they go away, I continue to close the red door, so they can’t see anymore. In the living room I don’t have a red door to close, when its late at night all I hear is noise right outside my window and I can’t tell at 10pm at night if its nosey kids or rouges. So, my solution: curtains. BEST IDEA EVER. I added curtains to every window in the house. Surprise told me what I was doing was wicked, to which I told him peaking inside someone’s house was wicked. I can for the first time peacefully be inside with my windows open and not have nosy little boys peaking inside asking what are you doing, why are you doing that, can I have some, etc... They still come by and say those things, but at least now I can’t see their little eyes peering through my window, if I do see them try, I just hit the screen and scare the shit out of them (which might seem hurtful... but. oh well). The last consequence I have seen from my new sofa life is people talking some chi chi about me in Kpelle. Apparently, people like to talk about how fine my house is in Kpelle, in front of me, but since I can’t understand them I only get the rough translation from the boys when we leave. For now, I’m just ignoring the issue. I’m not entirely sure this is an issue or just the community culture to talk about anyone’s business whenever anything new or different happens. I’m sure once the newest “scandal” happens I’ll be old news.
While on the topic of chi chi about myself, I received a letter from my landlord “officially” giving me 15 days to gather my things and get out of the house, due to lack of payment. Now let me preface this story with- everything is now solved, it was all just a misunderstanding, all parties involved did a great job solving this issue. Now back to the chi chi- I was home one day about to go on a jog, my landlord comes to the house on motorbike with another boy, the boy gets off the bike, hands me a letter, I ask what it was, no answer, they ride away. I open the letter and it reads: This is to inform miss Richael (EVERYONE SPELLS MY NAME LIKE THIS) Neala (African name) that your asked to please leave the premises of *** residence after (15) days, as a result of not paying the rent of the building you are occupying. Therefore, the school of Gbartala is not responding as it relates to your staying in Gbartala. I got this letter and thought... oh shit..really??!. I called my coordinator, sent her a picture, and everyone was trying to solve the issue. So what happened is, the government pays for our houses, well since the election business the new president wasn’t in office yet meaning funds had not been released to the landlords. There was a delay for the election, meaning delay in payment. Being he had not heard from the school he started to get nervous, hence the letter. All the officials and elders in my town got involved and everyone apologized 1000 times for this issue. It was just a matter of advising my landlord that the rent was coming. Although this caused quite the drama for about 3 days, it did show me how much everyone in my town appreciates me being there and how much everyone in town and surrounding me has my back if a problem arises.