Trip to the embassy

On Friday I accompanied the leadership club to the US embassy for a video program with students at UGA and a Georgia high school.  It was a very neat idea and worked well as soon as we got the technology working on both sides… The students from Ricks and the US gave each other ideas on civic engagement and shared what they are currently doing in their schools.  A new US embassy was built last year in Monrovia.  It is by far the most extravagant building in the entire city, and cost 164 million dollars to build.  It just looks so strange to have such a fancy building right in the middle of deep poverty.  It was kind of cute watching the kids react to air conditioning.  They were freezing by the time we left the building and could not wait to get back outside. They could not understand why people would enjoy being so cold. There are no pictures from this trip because the embassy has the highest security of any building I have ever visited. It was a little ridiculous, and no pictures were allowed, not even outside the gate. 

Molding young minds

My 6th graders having a boys vs. girls race to see who could remember the most irregular verbs and their past tense.  Girls won by one and it was an intense battle to say the least. 

Subtle advertising

I thought  many of you would appreciate this... They really cut right to the point.

Answers to Beth's Questions

How hot is it? It's really not that bad. It definitely no worse than Florida, the difference is that there is no air conditioning. 

Do you have a refrigerator/freezer? I do.

Did you enjoy the first beer even though it was lukewarm? Of course? lukewarm beer is always better than no beer.

Are you getting sick from the Malaria pills? I'm not sure. I've had a cold since I got here so I'm not positive what is making me feel sick.  Hopefully I will know soon. 

Does everyone have a crush on you already? Haha I don't think so. Maybe only the two boys that gave me the Valentine's Day flower after they were whooed by my soccer skills the day before. 

Do you miss us more than you can stand? Yes. I can not wait for you, Brittany, Jessica, and everyone else that decides to come to get here. 

Did you swim in the water? Yes.

Were the waves really rough?  Nothing I couldn't handle. 

Do the Liberians swim, too? Some... when I went on Saturday only one out of four would swim with me.

 Ever thought about doing grad school in New Zealand instead of Boston/Chicago? I'm intrigued... what are you thinking? Have you found me a school?

Have you heard from either Loyola or Harvard? I have a phone interview on Wednesday for the grad assistantship I applied for at Loyola. 

Week 2

Week two and things are going well.  My classes are great, although this proves yet again that I could never ever be a teacher for life.  A bunch of girls came out to learn how to play soccer on Thursday. It was a great turn out but the actual practice was madness. I'm not sure we can actually call it "playing soccer" but I do think they had a lot of fun.  We couldn't get a lot accomplished because the boys were way to intrigued and wanted to be a part of everything. They finally convinced us to play boys vs. girls, which was even more madness and consisted  of a lot more screaming then soccer.

      On Saturday I got to go to the beach which was absolutely beautiful.  I finally got to work on my tan and try the local club beer. After the beach I went to the super market to buy groceries for the next couple weeks and they had much more than I expected. I even found shells and cheese and today I made a PP&J sandwich for lunch. It's amazing how a good PP&J never fails.

Pictures!

Three students in their best Valentine's Day outfits after they were allowed to change out of their uniforms. 

I'm about to steal the ball from this poor boy, dribble down the field juking players left and right, and then crush it into the back of the net... They just didn't get a picture of that part :) 

My chicken cooking. 

Driving to find the perfect spot on the beach.

An old beach front hotel that was destroyed during the war and is waiting to be rebuilt. Any takers? 

These sweet senior boys found me and presented me with this romantic heart on a stick. 

This is most of the elementary school building.

I'm here!

I’m in Liberia! Sorry for delay in blogs.  After being on the plane for 19 hours, we landed in Ghana, not Liberia, because the fog level was high and the plane couldn’t land.   People always say to pack essential in your carry on just in case.  Well, my carry on included no clean clothes or any of the things I needed for the night, but it did include 7 airplane bottles, pretzel m&m’s, my pet pal Jezebel, and luckily my toothbrush.  So I suppose I actually did have the essentials with me…

            We left the next morning and made it to Monrovia. My new friend Ansu picked me up from the airport.  He waited for me at the airport for about 6 hours the day before and then came back to get me and waited another 5 hours because of all the delays. He is a good friend for sure.

            Getting my luggage from baggage claim was one of the craziest things I have ever experienced. It was pure madness. There were about 250 people crammed into a hot room not much bigger than my living room, all trying to get to luggage belt thing, and for some reason everyone felt the need to be screaming. I got lucky and squeezed my way to the front pretty quickly because some guy saw my Jesus tattoo and let me through. 

            It was about a 2 hour drive from the airport to Ricks. I took a quick tour of the campus and then went to bed.  I got up Sunday for church at the school, which was mostly student led, so it was cute. Then I went back to bed for almost the entire day. 

            Yesterday I met my classes and all the teachers but today was my first day of actually teaching. I am teaching Language Arts to 4^th, 5^th, and two classes of 6^th. I didn’t get a whole lot out about comparing adjectives or types of verb phrases because they just wanted me to talk.  I was in 4 separate classes today but they seemed to all have the same questions.  Is your mother alive? What is her name? Do you have a father? What is his name? What do they do? What are your brother’s names? How old are they? What do they do? Do you have a best friend? What is her name? Why do you play soccer? What is your favorite color? Do you have children? Are you married? Why not?

            I am going to start teaching the girls how to play soccer tomorrow after school.  They are super excited and the boys just keep laughing. We will show them.  I’m off to the beach for the first time. Pictures are coming soon!

Step One Complete

Hello my loyal fans! Here is my blog.  Don't expect much, because I don't have Amy here to keep up with it this time, but I will post pictures and funny stories as often as possible.  Currently I am in Atlanta on Mary Kate's couch and my next post will be from Liberia!