June 21, 2012

Yesterday my camera was stolen. After working all day with a group of about 36 high school students (and a couple of youngsters), my camera was taken out of my bag.Upon noticing, I told a few students and pretty soon several were in an furry. The principal, which was in the administer training came (even though it was after 3 and the sessions had ended), they all stayed and tried to figure it out. I told them not to worry and that it was my fault for having it out and not watching it. They were mortified, saying how it was "a shame on Liberia" and "not right." As the teachers and I pulled away for the day, we left the group working it out, trying to get the story straight and using cycles to bring in the students who knew everyone that was in the room. This morning when I arrived and was quickly getting my Language Arts teachers and students together, they all were apt to talk to me. They told me they had figured out who the three students were that came in and were not really part but interested and they plotted to take it. One student did. All three were taken to the police and one confessed saying that it wasnt him, but a friend. Now the friend wasnt in the room, so everyone knew it musta been the boy. So, the teachers went to the house of the suspicious friend and when the friend tried to run out the back, they caught him and took him to the police. The camera was found too. This all was happening after 9pm. They came together and wouldnt let it stand. They took action. The boy was in jail as of this morning. So, I asked, after being regaled with the story of his "capture," where is he now? " I was told he was in jail because there was no collateral to get him out. I asked where the camera was.At the police station. I told them to use the camera for collateral and to get him out. The most important lesson for me though was that humanity is good and can come together to make someone feel important. I felt it, heck, I was told it! "When someone does something to someone we care about, they are doing it to all of us." Best lesson ever. Humanity is wonderful, complicated and wonderful.

June 21,2012

This is our first first day in charge of the Best Practices/Wetlands Teacher conference. It began with our cars and a long conversation with Samuel (one of the drivers) about God and love. He is going to be an interesting character in my journey on this trip. I can feel it. The conference began with each of the content area groups (math and science, LA and English, History) being put into groups and us talking about our own positive attributes and how they work in group dynamics. These teachers wrote words such as LOVE, CARE, LEADERSHIP and even FLEXIBILITY. Some they copied from our example and others, they felt compelled to share. We then added the words to petals and made a garden of flowers with all of the positive things we bring to a community of learners. Posted on the walls, these flowers would hopefully remind us of our own roles in a professional learning community.

A quick aside, thank goodness for the ingenuity of Kristy who brought duct tape! Our carton of supplies set in April had not been let out of port and thus, we were teaching with only what we brought in our luggage. Without her tape, we would have been in a BIG ole bind. The walls though are concrete and nothing sticks for very long. Each day we had to reapply tape somewhere!

After our attempts to get to know everyone (including duct tape name badges), we began our instruction. Blooms Taxonomy and KWLA charts were our teaching goals. We used the wetlands as our examples. Through these best practices for comprehension instruction, these teachers would not only learn the strategy, but have a unit embedded around them, a unit perfect for their community. The KWLA went off well and they enjoyed engaging in the activity. I think they will need not only more practice, but specific practice embedding it in their own content area. For the science teachers, this will be relatively simple, but for everyone else, not so much. Good thing we will have tie for them to practice! Blooms taxonomy was a new idea for everyone. Several of the participants told me that a) they had heard about Bloom's before and, b) it went from low levels of memorizing text to higher and more substantial levels of understanding text.

Thus, we all had to get them to understand that memorizing is the lowest level, no matter the length of text. It was so fun to see them attempting questions and pondering over the handouts. My group had made packets of handouts, being careful not to have too much, but to provide just the right amount of support for our teaching. For me, I realized it is hard to teach without powerpoint to help guide you. I am so used to using it, it feels weird not to have it their to guide me. IT is a good guidance, I think, but a semi crutch, nonetheless. I think we all left the day feeling like it was a whirlwind of expertise. Kristy and I feel fairly seemless as we coteach and Joo is learning to find her voice and expertise as a teacher. She is the only one that doesnt have teaching experience, but I can tell she is going to be able to fit right in as we begin to know our flow better. Im so loud as a teacher, it is nice to be balanced with some that are more quiet.

June 20, 2012: We begin!

Here we go! At 630am, I was downstairs and ready to roll. Breakfast is included in our stay so I ate up. Being I am a silent, not good morning person, explanations had to be made to the group, but all was well as our drivers showed up on time and we headed to VICA, the school we will be at for two weeks training the teachers (Joo, Kristy and I), administrators (Martha) and librarians (Kathy). The first day was ethics and professionalism which they desperately needed. There is little accountability or self regulation at schools. Most use punishment of students (expulsion, caning, yelling) as ways to manage the class. Some teachers accept bribes for grades and others don't even come to class. There was a whole talk about sex (last trip) and role call (which takes a lot of time they say).

We focused on honesty, both within their professional life and within themselves. The team (Kathy, myself, Kristy, and Joo) worked with them as they looked at themselves as educators, then their role in the school (sharing out with each other when they felt okay to), and then their role within the community. The big question was, "Who are you in the world and who do you want to be?" Everyone was hungry for thinking and talking and shared with each other and with the group. We ran a powerpoint through a generator and they all watched careful and attempted everything we asked them, regardless of their trouble understandings us (which would get better as they got more used to the accents etc) and their limited literacy skills. Most have writing that looks like a 3rd grader, arduous, slow, and with weird formations in their letters. It could easily be misrepresented as a child's penmanship. The heart is so there though and they try so hard to get it all, to soak it in. I loved watching their hard work.

Their was much talk about not feeding them during the lunch hour. Many come from a long way and have no time to return home for lunch. As such, the soda and water we provided was it for them. We, on the other hand, we able to go to the church wherein Bendu, the cook hired by Pastor Gyanfi, would prepare us our food. I loved the rice and beans, of course and mostly that is what I ate. The food at the hotel was expensive so I ate a lunch and the breakfast and had my granola at night, even though I enjoyed the women so much I would come for a glass of wine and the conversation each night. It is always interesting to be a vegetarian in a developing country as rice and beans is "poor man's food." They dont know why I wont eat/dont like meat and find it not only uncommon but downright weird. It was nice on this trip to have someone else who is vegetarian. She was so generous with sharing quite often and I didnt have to worry about a stray meat piece! The water from which the fish come from is full of bacteria as many use the rivers/wetlands as both bathrooms and rubbish bins. They wash cars and clothes in the river while using it to both fish and clean dishes. So, even though I eat fish, I surely wouldnt in Liberia! This is a mindset my team hopes to change in the coming weeks. It was hard to know that the teachers and administrators wanted lunch (and needed lunch), and that we couldnt provide it as the price we were quoted was just too much per day. With 70 participants, the cost was nuts for everyday for 2 weeks.

This was one time I could clearly see that having support for education from those in the US could change the learning experience. As students, we need food to learn and to think. For a hundred dollars or so we could have fed them. But, most people donate to the areas that see quick, change: water wells and supplies for a clinic. Education takes time to infiltrate, time to percolate in order to see direct, tangible change and many dont understand how literacy is paramount to the success of a nation rebuilding. When those wells break or the clinic gets the medicine and no one can read for understanding, it all breaks down. Education must come first!

In Africa before, we fed children for a dollar a day, but here, I think there was some problem with what they wanted to charge us Americans and it didnt work out. On the last day though, we would be able to feed them due to an anonymous donor for about $2 a day. It was wonderful to serve them with plates piled high of potato greens, chicken and rice. Thy will be done!

June 19, 2012: Touring the schools in Lower Virginia, Liberia

June18/ Touring the schools
About Liberia, West Africa, my experience: There is no way to show what the 14 year Civil War did to this country. There is no way to explain the poverty, the filth, the utter devastation left on the people and yet explain the almost tangible hope they seem to have. That being said, here is my attempt: For one, there is no trash service. Trash lines the road, floods from the house and, due to the rainy season, literally moves across the street in rivers of iron- colored goo. The smell while driving is of pure petrol and putrid air and cycles in and out through our windows as we drive over the giant pot holes and through the seas of people walking to and fro with bundles on their heads. The smell of people permeates the markets and lines the food with an almost tastable BO. It is like everything is crowded into one space, lining the streets with raw food and dirty umbrellas, people and their merchandise and at the same time, there is nothing really worth much, nothing Yet, there is something that is so alive and wonderful about the whole scenario. Commerce is alive, the people are beautiful and the hope for a better future lives in their minds, I feels as if there is so much to do and it all needs to be done now. When I think about what is meant for me in my life, having a cause like this, wherein I know I can make a difference even though small, is important. The ladies I am working with are amazing people. I know they feel the same way.

There is also no electricity so everything is run on gas generators. The houses are made of concrete and of course, have no AC. They have no light and no windows, just open areas about the size of an ipad to let the air run through. Mostly though, it means that the bathroom stench (which is not even in a bathroom but is totally just pooped out behind the house.The water that runs down the street is just filled with junk, both biological and refuse. I cant imagine that they are healthy and I completely see the lack of care for their community as why they will struggle for a long time. Even today, the contact person for the libraries, Glorious, threw her Fanta can on the beach as we were walking! After a week of working on understanding the importance of the wetlands and how the environment affects how we engage with our world, the damn can hit the beach. I had to school her and well, carry the can back.

We are staying at a fancy hotel, one of the better ones for Liberia, yet there are cockroaches and everything works, almost. That seems to be a trend here in Liberia: Make everything look good but then when you get down to it, it is broken, flawed and a mess, but a fairly good looking mess. The Cape Hotel is like that. The pictures, even on the internet, make it sound so enticing, but when you get here, it is well, sort of okay.
We spent the first day visiting the schools. I am always reminded that our students who fane poverty are guaranteed the right to go to school. They all get free lunch, and they all are provided electricity, and supplies. It is such a farce to say that our children are in extreme poverty. Poverty yes, extreme, no.

So, the schools: We saw 6 schools (the 7th will occur later in the trip) wherein the teachers will spend 2 weeks at a workshop learning about service learning, KWLA, and other best practices, lesson planning and assessment, particularly ongoing assessment, they are very good at assessing with TESTS (capital TEST). We, Kristy, JooYoung and I have met many times with Kathy to work through our plans. Even now, before we have actually started I know there will be revisions to our ideas and curriculums. Simple things such as while Liberians speak English, they are difficult to understand being that they drop the final sounds and of course have an accent. That being said, they sound as if they speak so fast! So, if that is true for them, it most certainly is true of our American accent, it will be problematic. My Texas drawl and fast speech will be hard for them. But, we will struggle together and learn a lot. I love language! And so far, these people as well!

Their schools are all similar concrete buildings with tin roofs, humid, no electricity, large classes in a room the size of my living room and one teacher, one blackboard and chalk. There is a well close by where kids or others pump the water when needed. There are no bathrooms, although there is a room that has a toliet basin where they go and then wash it out with a bucket. God forbid if you have the classroom with an adjoining wall. The chalkboard is a black board that doesnt really erase and a box of very humid, crumbly chalk for the year. The desks are made of wood, most are rickety and scary for someone my size to sit on. A couple of the schools have benches. It is all very "Little House on the Prairie" without any of the charm. There are no posters, no tablet paper, little supplies and nothing to make a teacher's job easy. I do so hope our strategies, planned with little supplies needed, will be usable for them!

When we arrived at Brefo, one of the schools, there were teachers there (one walking with a cane in hand in case punishment was needed?) and children. "Gather the little children" kept running through my head as plentiful kiddies were around and within minutes I was surrounded, showing them my cell phone camera and laughing at my dog videos along side. That would be my learning today: Children gather to listen and learn, no matter where in the world they are. They long for affection, time,value and literacy. They will gather in His name to be enlightened. Today, I sat among angels in dirty clothes with runny noses and little in their tummies and yet, felt hopeful. There is work for me here. I can feel it.

Because there are so few books, Kathy and Anne have been creating libraries in the schools. These libraries are basically classrooms (although one library is housed in one of the teacher's homes, with cinder blocks and about 400 books on wooden planks. The planks bow low because the weather is so humid. It is dark, sticky and the books are dusty as most dont get checked out. Books are such a commodity that everyone is scared to let them go. We saw libraries with padlocks, shelves at the ceiling and screened window holes (there are NO glass windows, of course). Later, Anne told me that in Liberia, in general, there are few books and that many books' pages were used for making cones to sell peanuts (an easy crop here). That just shows merge lack of understanding for the importance of books and more importantly, literacy and education. It will take a psychosocial shift in consciousness to make them change! But, I KNOW we can do it.

The librarian is a woman hired for the about $25 a month to run the library. She (at all 6) is herself most likely a struggling reader and has been told to keep the books safe, which for most means that they are padlocked and only allowed to be taken out by a student for an hour or 2 and a teacher the same. The teachers have very limited access and in some cases, no books to teach with and the libraries, funded and established by Kathy, Anne and others, have not been used well. Glorious, the education point person in Liberia, is in charge of making sure the libraries get utilized. She is in a state of literacy growth herself and, I believe, struggles to understand her roles and responsibilities, but has passion and will learn over time, like all of us. There are shifts happening everywhere in Liberia! Kathy and Anne have done amazing things getting these libraries here, amazing. Now, the hard work of training teachers and holding them accountable for using the books, of not being scared to lose them, of recognizing the importance of text, while living half a world away begins. I'm glad I get to be a part of that! It will be a profound psychological and social shift! Kathy was on it like white on rice as we toured. In time, like the ladies before me, I know it WILL happen. Faith is something I can already tell is important when working here.

After we returned from our tour, walking in mud and grime, we met for dinner, and regrouped to begin tomorrow with the conference. These ladies are hilarious! We drank wine, laughed and I decided I adore everyone one of them. Boy, this is going to be hard work, fun, but hard work! I'm already glad to know them.

The plane and arrival in West Africa

June 16/17
The visit to Africa began in style with an upgrade to first class. The plane was full, I was at the back and as an amazing blessing, a man wanted to sit by his little daughter and wife (and dog) and asked me to switch. I said I would and asked what seat I was going to. Currently, I was sitting in 40E, one of the middle seats of a 4 seat row. He told me 3E. I headed out to go sit and only then realized it was in the first class. Champagne, warm towels and most importantly a seat that LAYED down completely. It was the best 13 hours ever. I watched HBO, Showtime and talked with an amazing man from Harvard (originally Liberia). You will read that post soon enough. Landing in Liberia was an experience The runway had old, long deserted planes rusting in the grasses and blown out buildings along the way. The actual airport was one building. We got off the plane to a walk down staircase that someone pushed the the plane. Then, we were ushered directly into customs by an armed guard. Armed guards were everywhere actually. After waiting in line to talk to a customs agent that asked the normal questions, "How long will you be here? What is the purpose of your trip? Why is your picture a yellow haired lady and now I am a red head?) Okay, that last question wasnt standard, but hilarious in that I thought I was a blonde still! The baggage claim was a mini snake of barely moving sidewalk rubber and allowed about 10 bags to circle in and out.All the bags were completely worse for wear and many were outright opened and had been seriously searched. Still, there were prolly 300 people on the plane and only a room the size of my living room. Each person had 2 bags free (and many, especially returning Liberians) had at least 5. Piles and piles of brightly colored bags the size of a football field would go around once or maybe twice and then be taken off by a guard and deposited on the side area and new bags would get put on. The funny thing was that a) most of the people were still in customs trying to get to baggage claim, and b) the circle was so small that all the bags ended up on the side. The colors of the outfits, the head wear, the people were so interesting to watch! I wanted to ask each one of them what they were doing there and how long they were staying. Okay, I wanted to ask the white people. Everyone else seemed pretty clear about why. Of course, due to me getting off first, I got mine and headed to customs once again wherein I stood there with my bags and they searched each one thoroughly before waving me through. The drivers Kathy had arranged to meet us where there and we all (JooYoung, myself, Kathy, Kristy and Martha) headed out. The others will be arriving on Sunday. My excitement was palpable! Even though it was reminiscent of my previous experience, it was different, it was communal, it was God sent.