Last Two Days in Liberia

We spent Friday and Saturday in meetings and doing some sightseeing.  Here are some pictures of the sights.

The new bridge will be finished in November.  This will help clear up some of the traffic on the old bridge.  It takes about 45 minutes to travel about 11 miles because the traffic is so congested.

Trash is a problem, although it gets better each time we come.  We saw some goats eating the biodegradable parts of the roadside trash.

 The economy is up but mostly on a small scale.  There are lots of small vendors in the market places with everyone buying and selling.

 Centerpoint is a library in downtown Monrovia.  We shipped some books over on our container in April.  Minner (in the center) is their librarian.  She came to our training on Monday and Tuesday to learn about cataoguing books.

                                                                                                                            Of course we had to visit the beach and it was beautiful.

  We leave on Sunday for our long flight.  Liberia will be missed but we are excited to get back home.

Adult Literacy Celebration

This evening the adult literacy classes held a celebration for their progress this year.   Only 60% of the adult population in Liberia is literate.  This past year Liberia Now started an adult literacy program hiring two teachers who held classes three times a week.  These classes were one of our most successful programs. Linda and Jerry surpassed all expections and did a wonderful job of teaching adults to read.  All of the students who finished the program were reading by the end of this year.  One student, Marie, didn't even know the alphabet at last September.  Tonight she read a speech that she wrote.  All of the students are amazing as they all worked very hard to learn while also working and taking care of their families. 



Marie reading the speech she wrote.

Final Visits to the Libraries

Today we had the final visit to the libraries to deliver the rest of the supplies and to see if the librarian had any questions before we left.  Each library has a sponsor school in the U.S. that donated most of their books.  We visited Pamela Kay High School yesterday and they are temporarily using boxes of notebooks to hold the shelves up before they build more permanent shelves.  Today we first visited Tegeste School and they were ready with their shelves.  Then we moved to Saytumah and they were also ready.  After that we went to see the new school that Liberia Now is helping to build.  The foundation is laid and the walls are up. After that we went to Massaquoi village school and helped them organize their library.  We visited their classroom and saw their community garden project.  We traveled back to Bushrod Island and went to Mark S. Richards High School and Brefo School.   Both of these schools are in the slums of the city.  It is really humbling to see how such poverty exists in the world today at the same time that many people live in a world of wealth.

Pamela Kay High School - The Wonder Lair Library

Tegeste School - The Reading Castle

Massaquoi Village School

Saytumah School - The Reading Den

 

Richards High School - The Reading and Beyond Library

Brefo Academy - The Reading Tree

Liberia Now Librarian Association

Today we finished up librarian training.  We taught them the Dewey Decimal System and how to have a check out system.  Liberia has very few libraries and most of those are not really libraries but rather reading rooms.  The people think that books are too valuable, so they won't let the books be checked out and taken home.  Our program requires that a school has a check out system, but training them to think differently about books is very difficult because of this mindset.  Many of our new librarians have never read an entire book on their own.  We also taught them how to scan documents and send reports on a computer.  Only three of the five the librarians had ever used a computer.  They are all very excited about their new job and have decided to start a librarian association and have named it the Liberia Now Librarian Association and will meet four times during the next school year.  They also decided that they would all help each other set up their new libraries next week.

Adult Literacy Classes

One of Liberia Now's projects is adult literacy classes.  We went to watch the class on Monday night.  The students are 12 women from ages 22 to 48.  They have children and go to market to sell everyday and then three evenings out of the week they travel to go to reading class.  Half of them did not even know their ABC's when they started the class last September.  They can all read now!  They all had their latest assignment to read to me.  They are my heroes!

Linda (the teacher) and Anne

Readers Marie and Helena

Church in Liberia

On Sunday we went to an African church.  It was too much fun.  They sang and danced and sang and danced.  Melanie got into the action and danced around with everyone.

Missing Chart Tablets!

Friday we trained the kindergarten teachers in literacy activities using big books, small readers, and shared writing.  All the books had been delivered, but we were missing the abc charts and the large writing tablets for shared writing.  Oh no! Where were they delivered?  Of course only 2 people on our entire team have cell phones and Melanie and I are not one of those two.  At lunch we found out that it was probably delivered by mistake the day before to either Pamela Kay High School or to Rev. Koffa School.  Melanie went back to teaching and working hard, while I began a journey to the two schools in search of writing tablets.  First I went to Pamela Kay School, which was close to where we were, but no luck.  Then we went through thick and heavy traffic and Duala Market to Koffa.  Success!  We drove back with only 30 minutes to spare and the teachers learned how to write a class story.

Logistical Adventures

Thursday was the final day of delivering books to the six schools.  Anne, our logistics director, did a fabulous job with getting all the books to the six books.  Here's her report for the first day of delivery (Tuesday).

Liberia Now sent plywood on the container to be cut into planks for the shelving for the libraries.  We had hoped the plywood would be cut by today (Tuesday), but that had not happened.   When I asked about it again this morning I was told, “no problem, it only takes five minutes.”  I am learning everything is five minutes here.  That was at 8:00 am this morning.  They were still cutting wood at 3:00 pm.

First we had to get the generator and the saw from the community center over to the storage area (2 hours).  Then we had to find the person who knew how to use the saw (1/2 hour).  Now to figure out where to cut it because there really was not enough room in the storage area.  Liberians are extremely resourceful at getting things done – they pulled a desk out of somewhere, stuck it in the mud and laid the plywood sheets on top of it (1/2 hour).   Then there was a problem with the generator and everyone walking by had to offer to help (another hour).    For a while someone had to hold some button on the generator while the guy sawed.   I did finally figure out the five minutes part – that would be how long it took to cut one plank. …..   We had 80 planks to cut.

Finally we loaded up books for the first school and headed out from the storage area.  We could not drive all the way to the school.  But no problem – as soon as we pulled up as far as we could go, we were swarmed with at least 40 very excited children all in their nicely pressed school uniforms.  They started grabbing boxes, put them on their heads, and marched off down the path.  I followed.  We got all the boxes stacked in the room where the library would be.

African Kindergarten and Lunar Eclipse

Astronomy Night was an absolute success! The San Antonio Astronomy Association donated 10 telescopes. We invited the science teachers from the schools we are working with and trained them on how to use the telescopes. Then we waited for it to get dark. It's the rainy season in Liberia, but it was mostly clear...except for where the full moon was. There was an enormous cloud right in front of the moon. We knew it was going to be a full moon and everyone waited with great anticipation. While waiting all the teachers were busy finding stars. Finally the moon rose above the clouds and it was a full lunar eclipse! Imagine looking at the moon through a telescope for the first time in your life and seeing a rare central lunar eclipse. Everyone was excited and did not want to end the event.

Today Melanie taught an hour of kindergarten.  We were observing a kinder class and the teacher asked her to teach a little.  Melanie sang songs, told stories and had a phonics lesson. She had a great time and the kids had fun too.  I taught a writing lesson to 46 high school students.  It was quite an experience and at times it felt more like crowd control.  The teachers observing the lesson had many questions and are wanting to form a cohort to share their lessons and strategies.

Getting to Work

Today we started training with the principals of the six schools.  Little did we know that there would be welcoming celebration for us.  This included singing, prayer and a wealth of gratitude testimonies from teachers and principals of the schools that have already received a library and the ones that are receiving one this week. We were overwhelmed and thrilled with this reception but it put us behind with our training schedule.  We did get going, and the principals were very receptive to our new ideas. 

Following the training we proceeded to the storage temporarily holding the books.  Much to our chagrin, the books were there but needed sorting. We had a real sweatfest organizing the 23,000 books into 8 stacks...one for each school.  We did have help from Mark, Samuel and John. 

On a side note...the books were being stored in a retread tire warehouse.  It made Melanie feel right at home.




Tomorrow Anne begins to deliver the books, while Melanie and Kathy train the teachers.  Check back with us tomorrow for more adventures.

We Have Arrived!

Melanie, Anne and I arrived safely this afternoon on a long and uneventful 26 hour travel day.  Our airbus 330 chased the sun halfway around the world and we were greeted by morning about 5 hours earlier.  We were greeted at the airport by all our friends, Pastor Gyamfi, Ruth, Samuel, and Rufus.
Tomorrow the six libraries will be named and the training will commnece.  Tune in tomorrow for all the news.

The Books Are Free!

The container cleared the port yesterday and was unloaded today! Whew! Just in time.  The books and other supplies were unloaded at 1:00 p.m. Liberia time this afternoon.  Shipping to Liberia is always a stressful event.  Last summer the books didn't arrive until the end of the week when most of the team was leaving.  We are very fortunate this year that the books will ready for us when we arrive. We all leave tomorrow and arrive on Sunday afternoon in Monrovia, Liberia.  Anne will start sorting and delivering books on Monday. Melanie and I will start teacher training with the principals of the schools. And I know that these guys will be really happy.

Container Still in Port!

The container is still waiting at the port in Monrovia.  Only days to go and the books are still locked in the container. Shipping to a third world country is a nail biting experience.  The regulations and controls that help make commerce smooth here in the U.S. are not in place in Liberia.  The books have been waiting in port for about 4 weeks now.  But the word is that they will make it out of port and over to our central storage on Friday.   Will the books make it out safe and sound?  Will Anne have work to do? Will the children of Lower Virginia have books to read?  Stay tuned and find out what happens next.

Will all the books make it out of port?

Suitcase Adventure

Today I was thinking that I should start packing.  Then I remembered that my suitcases are in the storage...way in the back corner...and the storage is full...of books!  That's right, we already have about 13,000 books for next year.  Since I'm not Spider-Man and can't just swing from webs to the back of the storage, I figure I will either have to move lots of boxes in 99 degree weather or squeeze and climb over mountains of books.  I opted for the mountain climbing. It was like scaling Mount Everest, but I was victorious!  Now for the packing.

13,000 new books for next year

June 2011 Trip

This Saturday we'll be taking off on our latest adventure to open six new libraries in Liberia.  Several schools in San Antonio have had book drives this past year collecting thousands of books for this project.  In April Liberia Now shipped over 23,000 library, reading, and literature textbooks to Liberia.  The books arrived in Liberia in May but they are currently at the port. Once they have been released, they will be temporarily stored at a central location.  Next week our team will swing into action delivering the books to the new campuses and training the teachers and new librarians on the use of the books.



Loading the Container in April 2011