Things have been a little rough lately. There are a few things going on at school that make getting ready for students less than easy. For those of you who don't know, the school was shut down for about twenty years due to civil war in the country. During that time, the school was stripped of anything and everything that could be of value. The school was pretty much destroyed. The building once housed about 600 students. We now have about 45. We're hoping to have about 60-65 when school is officially in session. Only a portion of the school is reopened. This means that the rest of the school is still in shambles. The walls are crumbling, have graffiti on them from the war, and some of them don't even have ceilings or roofs. The rooms that have been redone are bright and colorful. They are also fairly large. Unfortunately, I don't currently have a room. Well, I have a room, but it's being occupied by the Peace Corps. The Peace Corps is currently using our school as their base as they begin to start their program in Liberia. However, they are supposed to be in separate offices at the school. These rooms were supposed to be completed before school started. This, of course, did not happen. The construction workers did not work while no director was here, though they have been working very hard since they began again. Then PC decided they wanted changes made to their rooms, which meant all these changes had to be approved by the board of directors for the school. Because of this and a few other things, everything got behind schedule. They will not move out of my room until they have their own. This means I have no classroom in which to teach first grade. The director and school staff have been doing everything they can to expedite things, but to no avail. It's quite unfortunate. I want to feel settled and like I have space I can call my own before school starts, but that's not going to happen. They are expecting the offices to be done in a week or two, so I will be holding class elsewhere until then. It looks like music and art are going to share a classroom and I will use the music room. The music room is not quite finished, though. Basically it's a big complicated mess.
So, I don't want to talk about school anymore. Life in Liberia is different. Groceries are incredibly expensive here. Everything has to be imported, so the price of goods is incredibly high. You can spend a lot of money very quickly when trying to buy food. Most produce is bought at outdoor stands run by Liberian women or children. It's all locally grown and consists of what is in season. You can buy imported produce, but it's (surprise, surprise) very expensive.
It's been raining a lot here recently. Luckily, mostly at night or early in the morning. When it rains, it pours. Just downpours out of no where. I'm on the second floor of the apartment complex, which is the top floor, and the roof is made out of a plastic type of material, so when it rains, it sounds like the biggest storm ever is coming through the complex. It also sounds super windy and like the waves are going crazy and wild.
Okay, I'm going to make some dinner now. Hopefully, I'll be able to update you all soon with some good news.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Friday, August 22, 2008
a little more info...
I've officially been here for two full days now. It's been quite the experience already. Monrovia is different than I thought it would be and the same all at once. I guess one thing to help describe the city is that there are no 'good' parts of town. When you drive around, you expect to get to a place where there are less vacant and destroyed buildings, less people living by the side of the streets, less trash everywhere, and maybe, just maybe, a little less poverty. This place does not exist here. When I arrived on Wednesday, the director and his wife picked me up from the airport. We went to dinner at the Royal Hotel because they have a guarded parking lot so we could park the car and be fairly certain that my bags would not be stolen. After dinner we drove to the compound where we live. As Gary, the director, put on his blinker I was trying to figure out where he was going to turn as I saw no driveway and no building (it was dark, so it was more difficult to see anything). He turned up a dirt 'driveway' beside a pile of rubble also known as a shop that makes furniture. I wasn't quite sure what we were doing. We pull up to a big gate and the guards opened it and we pulled into the complex. Most of the parking lot of our compound is filled with UN trucks. Big white four wheel drive vehicles with big black UN letters stenciled on the side. It's quite a site. Most of the people who live here either work for the UN (duh) or are Americans doing various things. There's a few country representatives to I think. I haven't met too many people on the compound, but so far I like it.
My apartment is small and utilitarian, but it's not bad at all. We have electricity 24 hours per day, which is a perk that not all compounds have. All electricity is pretty much supplied by generators at this point. Our electricity goes out about twice a day, but only for a few minutes each time. We think this is when they are switching over the generators. They only thing they do turn off at the compound is the A/C. I didn't even know if we would have a/c, so I can't complain. They turn it off twice a day from 9-11am and from 2-4pm. Not a bad deal at all, especially as once school starts I won't be here during those times anyway. I also have a tv with about ten channels ranging from the action channel which shows action movies all the time to aljazeera news channel. There's also a channel which shows american shows like 'Friends' that are subtitled in arabic. We do have the discovery channel, bbc news, cnn news, and espn. There's also another channel that shows mostly horror movies. I haven't watched that one yet.
The compound backs up to the ocean. I can hear the waves as I sit in my apartment and type this post. Unfortunately, we don't swim in the water right here as it is very polluted. There's a pipe a few meters up from where we are that dumps raw sewage into the ocean. There are oceans not too far away to go to, though, for swimming, surfing, hanging out, etc.
We aren't allowed to drink the water here, but we use it for everything else. We wash our dishes with it, shower with it, and brush our teeth with it. Some people have boiled it and then used it for coffee and tea and they're fine, so it doesn't seem to be such a big deal. The shower is hot and just lovely.
It's a city, so there's not a lot of wildlife around these parts. I did, however, have my first encounter with a roach this morning in the bathroom. He was quite large by Virginia standards, perhaps three inches long. I let him have his bathroom time and tiptoed around to brush my teeth. Liberians on the street will catch animals and try to sell them to people. I was offered a boa constrictor the other day when leaving lunch at another hotel. My co-worker said someone had a sea turtle outside the gate the other day when she came home (yes, 100% illegal. Trust me, it's not the only illegal thing going on around here.) She was also given a crocodile by some men once. Unfortunately, Henry was eaten by the guards at her friends compound where he was living in someone's bathtub (the ducks didn't make it either). There are miniature deer as well (Duikers), but I haven't seen one yet.
The ex-pat community here is huge! I went to trivia last night with my co-worker (a little different than what we have at Mellow) and met people working for NGOs, UNMIL, the US Embassy, a start-up microfinance company, and a guy whose biking around the world. They were from the states, England, Norway, Denmark, Germany by way of Uganda, Mexico, just about everywhere. It's really quite an interesting mix of people here. The Lebanese population here is also large. A lot of Lebanese have been here for years, so they're more settled and own businesses, etc.
I have internet at the apartment so I'm able to regularly check emails, etc. It's quite slow, though, as it is at the school. Honestly, I'm happy just to have it. I'm not feeling very well today, so I'm sitting at home on a Friday night posting to my blog. I think the anti-malarials I'm on are making me a little out of it. Nonetheless, I'm happy to have the time to sit down and write this out. I feel like it's been a whirlwind of anything and everything lately! On that note, I will say goodbye here. If you've made it this far--kudos to you. I will post again soon. Next week we're starting to get ready for school, so I'm sure fun and interesting things will be happening then.
My apartment is small and utilitarian, but it's not bad at all. We have electricity 24 hours per day, which is a perk that not all compounds have. All electricity is pretty much supplied by generators at this point. Our electricity goes out about twice a day, but only for a few minutes each time. We think this is when they are switching over the generators. They only thing they do turn off at the compound is the A/C. I didn't even know if we would have a/c, so I can't complain. They turn it off twice a day from 9-11am and from 2-4pm. Not a bad deal at all, especially as once school starts I won't be here during those times anyway. I also have a tv with about ten channels ranging from the action channel which shows action movies all the time to aljazeera news channel. There's also a channel which shows american shows like 'Friends' that are subtitled in arabic. We do have the discovery channel, bbc news, cnn news, and espn. There's also another channel that shows mostly horror movies. I haven't watched that one yet.
The compound backs up to the ocean. I can hear the waves as I sit in my apartment and type this post. Unfortunately, we don't swim in the water right here as it is very polluted. There's a pipe a few meters up from where we are that dumps raw sewage into the ocean. There are oceans not too far away to go to, though, for swimming, surfing, hanging out, etc.
We aren't allowed to drink the water here, but we use it for everything else. We wash our dishes with it, shower with it, and brush our teeth with it. Some people have boiled it and then used it for coffee and tea and they're fine, so it doesn't seem to be such a big deal. The shower is hot and just lovely.
It's a city, so there's not a lot of wildlife around these parts. I did, however, have my first encounter with a roach this morning in the bathroom. He was quite large by Virginia standards, perhaps three inches long. I let him have his bathroom time and tiptoed around to brush my teeth. Liberians on the street will catch animals and try to sell them to people. I was offered a boa constrictor the other day when leaving lunch at another hotel. My co-worker said someone had a sea turtle outside the gate the other day when she came home (yes, 100% illegal. Trust me, it's not the only illegal thing going on around here.) She was also given a crocodile by some men once. Unfortunately, Henry was eaten by the guards at her friends compound where he was living in someone's bathtub (the ducks didn't make it either). There are miniature deer as well (Duikers), but I haven't seen one yet.
The ex-pat community here is huge! I went to trivia last night with my co-worker (a little different than what we have at Mellow) and met people working for NGOs, UNMIL, the US Embassy, a start-up microfinance company, and a guy whose biking around the world. They were from the states, England, Norway, Denmark, Germany by way of Uganda, Mexico, just about everywhere. It's really quite an interesting mix of people here. The Lebanese population here is also large. A lot of Lebanese have been here for years, so they're more settled and own businesses, etc.
I have internet at the apartment so I'm able to regularly check emails, etc. It's quite slow, though, as it is at the school. Honestly, I'm happy just to have it. I'm not feeling very well today, so I'm sitting at home on a Friday night posting to my blog. I think the anti-malarials I'm on are making me a little out of it. Nonetheless, I'm happy to have the time to sit down and write this out. I feel like it's been a whirlwind of anything and everything lately! On that note, I will say goodbye here. If you've made it this far--kudos to you. I will post again soon. Next week we're starting to get ready for school, so I'm sure fun and interesting things will be happening then.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
I made it!!
Just wanted to drop a quick note to let everyone know I made it safely to Monrovia. The flights were uneventful, I got lost in the airport in Brussels (or rather, I didn't know where I needed to be and they don't post the gate assignments until 45 minutes before the flight), and arrival in Monrovia was hot and hectic. The airport is tiny, there are tons of people running around trying to direct everyone, and as soon as your out people surround you trying to give you rides, watch your bags, ask for money. It was crazy.
Then I went to dinner with the director and his wife. Then moved into my apartment. It's small, but has everything I need (except an oven!). Today I went to the embassy for my security briefing and embassy pass. Some of the things they talk about are scary (where's your safe haven?), but I think they just want to scare you into being careful. Overall, not a bad start. I'm tired, but excited to be here.
Then I went to dinner with the director and his wife. Then moved into my apartment. It's small, but has everything I need (except an oven!). Today I went to the embassy for my security briefing and embassy pass. Some of the things they talk about are scary (where's your safe haven?), but I think they just want to scare you into being careful. Overall, not a bad start. I'm tired, but excited to be here.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Getting Ready
I'm trying to convince myself to start packing for the next two years of my life since I'm leaving for Liberia in nine days. I've gotten most of my shots, my prescriptions, packed up most of the apartment in Charlottesville, sent in for my visa, received my plane tickets, and fought with the health insurance company daily to figure out why my coverage hasn't begun yet. All I have to do now is pack my bags. Emotionally and mentally, I'm sad to leave, but ready to go. I've started the goodbyes and will complete them in Charlottesville later this week. It's time to move on to adulthood and start my first full-time job and move out on my own. Liberia is a big first move, but it should be exciting! I'm hoping to use this space to update everyone on my travels, job, students, social life, and anything else. Feel free to respond with what's going on in your lives and wherever you may be. I look forward to keeping in touch with everyone and sharing big life stories!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
