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