February 2012
Naw wei got into a fight this month. Terrifying…as the
Liberians say ‘Dat no small fighting-o!’ The other dog tore through his ear,
into his face and around his scrotum. I spent a week bandaging him up. Fights
with other male dogs are rather common, but are usually not serious. Since
then, I punish him any time I see him in a fight or try to start one. Just
another stressor on my often already high-stress life. I have successfully
taught him to ‘bust me’ or as you would call it, ‘pound it’. Mom also mailed
him an engraved tag with his shot records printed on it, thanks mom.
I remember being on the plane… waiting to go to Liberia
and meeting one volunteer at the airport who had already been in the country
for a year, I noticed that his feet seemed to be stained brown. I honestly
worried that this would be me in one year. Yet, every night I wash my feet…and
then I step out of the tub. :)
Once upon a time…. ‘TIME!’ =is what the Liberians say to
the storyteller to tell them that they are listening and eager to hear the
story. There lived a wee little spider above Stephanie’s bedroom window. On
impulse, Stephanie went to kill it straight away. But at the last moment
decided….nah. It wasn’t hurting anyone. She’ll leave it be. And so one month
went by, two months went by. The spider got bigger and bigger but that was
okay. It stayed above the window all day and kept a good control on the number
of flies in the house. And then one day, just like in Charlotte’s Web, it
disappeared. Stephanie was surprised to admit that she missed the company of
that little spider. She has yet to find a replacement fly killer that keeps to
one area and is as sweet as the first. The End. :)
Our school, the Bong Mine Central High School (BMCHS)
recently started a teacher’s association to support the teachers of the school.
Some of them still do not have housing to live in, and many of them are not on
government payroll or are not paid regularly. Officers were voted on, and I was
nominated and won the position of Treasurer in a landslide vote. …I think this
means they’re sure I’ll keep the money safe and not spend it on myself. I’ll keep you updated on what tasks we take
on as soon as a constitution and by-laws are established.
I also started the Bong Mine Central High School Health
Club in Feb. After teaching health topics in Period 4, I asked for a list
of students interested in starting a
health club. I got a great response and from the many names, drew 12 from a
hat..erm, or plastic bag. We met for the first time and I explained to them
that even though I was their acting advisor, this club was for them and I
expected them to do most of the work. They would hold meeting, and vote on
officers and write by-laws. Not all of these they have been able to do alone,
as I learned that many of them are not familiar with how these clubs function.
But they’ve stepped up to the plate and are running most of the show themselves
(One step closer to sustainability!) We have students from the 7th,
8th, 9th, and 10th grade involved and an even
number of girls to boys. The goals (as they have drafted them) are to raise
awareness on health issues in the community and inform students as well as
community members how to keep healthy through poster sheets, live action
dramas, and workshops.
I also have two chickens! My fellow teacher and friend
Sarah Jamison gave me my first rooster who I named McNugget. McNugget is a
young fella, all white with a little brown on his back. I’ve wanted a chicken
for some time now.
I somehow feel that you can’t be a PCV in Africa without
keeping a chicken at least once. :)
McNugget was joined by Tater Tot a week later. Both
roosters are doing fine together but I know they really want me to find them a
woman. I’m working on it. I tied them to the porch of my house for the first
three days after I got them. I fed them rice and water and untied them at night
and put them inside. On the third day, I untie them and they leave….roam
allllllllll over the area, eating bugs, grasses, seeds, rice and what have you
until dusk comes. Then they come back to my house on their own and prance into
the shop room where they hop up onto their little woven chicken baskets to
sleep for the night. They just must take care to avoid the devious Chicken
Rogue aka Hawk who will swoop down and carry any size chicken away. When the
chicken rogue is near I know because the neighbors will yell ‘Chicken rogue,
chicken rogue, chicken rogue!’ while they throw rocks or bust out the
slingshots (respectively called ‘rogue guns’ here).
China Union is supposed to be responsible for doing many
things now that they are taking over the iron ore mine previously operated by
the Germans before the war. They are responsible for the renovation of my
school (we’ll come to that later) and paving the road from Kakata to Bong
Mines, taking over the German-built hospital, and running the mine. (I’ll give
you one guess as to which one of these things they are actually doing real work
on.) :/
Anyway, they started to roll all the bumps and ginormous
craters out of the 19 mile road from my site to Kakata. My only road out of
here. The road used to take one hour and forty five minutes to travel and rainy
season…HA! Parts of that road were nothing but a mudslide…which is only fun if
that’s why you’re on the road. Now you can travel the 19 miles in about one
hour depending on the number of bitter ball sacks and oil stacked inside the
car. The Chinese started to pave the road from the Bong Mine side. The
Liberians were so happy! My students would come to me and say ‘Miss Stephanie,
the coal tar is fine-o’. A paved road in Liberia is called coal tar, but when
you say it in pigeon English is sounds like ‘co tar’. It didn’t take too long
before ‘the co tar, it spoil!’ and the Liberians were ‘vexed’. I heard many
comments along the lines of ‘cheap Chinese co tar’ and such. I wasn’t too
surprised that this would happen, but was slightly surprised that the Chinese
did tear it up and re-do their ‘mistake’. And so currently, as of May 16th,
2012 the road has no coal tar and is a rock-filled mess that takes at least one
hour to drive. Eye, yah.
At the first PTA meeting (I know, right?) the parents and
teachers brought up many topics; one was the empty space where we were supposed
to have a computer teacher. He was around at the beginning of the year, and
asked the PTA to pay him for his classes. For a multitude of reasons, money
business mainly, they never made progress and he left; leaving twelve computers
and no teacher. Who? Who will help BMCHS with this computer teacher business?
Me, of course. :) Although on this, I did volunteer to teach computer to senior
high (10th-12th grade). The PTA was so happy. They love
free teachers….and now I have loooots of things to keep me busy.
Now all that remains is to find out which computers still
work and can I take the viruses off of them?
Stay tuned, :) I’ll add ‘March, 2012’ later this week.
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