Traffic

I returned to Monrovia last night, after being home nearly three weeks because of a family emergency. I was really ready to come back, and after nearly missing my flight twice, first because of some confusion about a “voided” ticket, then thanks to the long-lasting effects of Tylenol PM, I finally made it. This time, there were no delayed flights, no returned aircrafts, only two long days of traveling, a little bit of anxiety, and some grogginess.
When I arrived, Craig, our Administrative Officer, picked me up in his personal car and drove me first toward Monrovia via the direct route, then around the long way because of a religious revival held at the stadium.

My first time here in Monrovia, I became acquainted with the mad driving of Liberians. Motorbikes rule the road, and those driving them know well how to weave in and out of cars, back and forth across lanes, in whatever direction will get them ahead the fastest, much like water flowing over rocks and pebbles. If only we hadn’t been in a regular sized SUV, we might have been able to get around the dam much like the motorbikes. At first, it was annoying, with long waits between inches forward. Then cars started passing on the dirt “shoulder” of the road. I put shoulder in quotation marks because this part of earth could also be considered the sidewalk, and in some areas the ditch. Several times I was afraid for those walking a few feet away from us.

Craig is very patient, more so than I. I had just finished 40 hours of stop-and-go air travel and at first was too tired to care about a little stop-and-go road traffic. But if I had been the driver, I would have been cursing and screaming long before Craig’s slight temper began to show. After a while, the cars started passing us on the left, in the cross-traffic lane. The logic must have been that because open space could be seen, cars should fill it up. It wasn’t long before traffic was completely blocked on both sides of the roadway. After waiting for over an hour, Craig’s patience was finally tapped and we turned around and went through Firestone. What should have taken 40 minutes took us about 4 hours.

Red Light, which I have only visited once, was named after the first traffic light to be installed in Monrovia, way before the civil wars. Now, it’s just a swirling chaos of cars and trucks – no traffic light to be found, weaving in and out of makeshift booths selling regular market goods, innumerable motorbikes and people. Red Light is where to go to catch a car going out of town, or be dropped off on the way in. On our way through, we saw a man getting a tattoo next to his motorbike in the middle of all the people, dirt, and grease. Since I am now almost halfway through my service, I can’t see myself needing to come back to Monrovia anytime soon, especially since next time I probably won’t be so lucky as to have Peace Corps driving me. I will, however, miss the chicken shawarma and sushi dinners I've had these two nights here.

I am not a fan of driving – I prefer to ride my bike or take the bus and totally leave the driving to someone else, unless it’s a long road trip and the control-freak button in my brain has been activated. But occasionally I can appreciate a nice drive through town, or a longer trip out on the open road, with the windows down and the radio cranked up; regardless if I have to drive, I will, and I usually do a pretty good job of it. But I could never drive in Monrovia. Most drivers here are stupid, for lack of a better word. Stopping dead in the middle of the road without checking the rearview, driving in the middle even when there are actually four lanes for traffic, pulling out in front of other cars – you name it. The lack of available roads makes it twice as bad, because all of the cars are forced to take the same route. As I told Craig, if I had unlimited access to cash, roads would be my first investment for Liberia. There should have been a way to bypass the stadium on a busy night – just as I would avoid Grand and Oak streets on Sprint Center event nights. There are just too many cars and no way for them all to get where they want to go. Craig himself suggested adding police to direct traffic. Probably both are needed to turn Monrovia into a city that flows.

February 5, 2012: Bahn High School

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Forgot to post that these are my personal opinions and do not in anyway reflect the opinions of Peace Corps or the United States government. Some of them aren’t even my personal opinions. There. Hope that works.

I have been in Liberia for two weeks, at my site, Bahn, for one, and all of it has been a whirlwind. I have barely rested – there are so many people to meet, and my principal is a man of action. Gbarkenah (Bar-ken-eh) is from Bahn, but was living in Monrovia when the Ministry of Education, under the new president Ellen Sirleaf Johnson, asked him to return to his town to take over the school here. Mr. Koboi, the Vice Principal of Student Affairs, has a similar story. So many were displaced during the war, and only recently those who studied at University have started to return to their towns to work. Students range from 17 to over 40. Older students want education too, and because there is no electricity (or anyone to administrate), there can be no night classes. Schoolhouses have been destroyed or neglected, and teachers have been killed or taken refuge in Monrovia and the United States. Now, after 9 years of peace, education is recognized as the key to Liberia’s progress.

Gbarkenah studied Math and Economics and taught for many years, and when he says he wants to turn the school in Bahn into a modern educational environment, I believe him. His ideas include turning un-used classroom space into department offices for instructors to work as a team in order to plan their lessons, grade their papers, and provide help to students when they come for it. This, he says, will make the students’ level higher – because the classrooms are so crowded, teachers cannot help students individually (my two 10^th grade classes will have at least 75 students each. The registrar has not yet come, so I still don’t have class rosters). The students say it is not their fault if they fail, because the teachers do not help them. The teachers then take pity and pass students who should otherwise fail. If begging doesn’t work, you can still pay or sleep with your teacher. My principal, at least, seems to realize the danger in passing students who don’t know the subject, and for the rest of the community, we will see.

Gbarkenah is a stickler for the rules, and if a girl comes to class with her hair unplaited, he threatens to send her home (though I haven’t seen him actually send a girl home – it’s only the first week so maybe he’s giving them a little time). The students also wear uniforms: everyone in white button-downs, the girls in skirts and the boys in pants, color-coded according to their year. Freshmen and sophomores wear green; juniors and seniors wear burgundy, with the seniors all wearing ties that stop about halfway down their chests.

It’s a bit odd for the principal to insist on such order, when the rest of the school is barely standing. I am teaching two sections of 10^th grade and one of 11^th, and none of my classrooms have enough seating room. In my 10^th B classroom, there is one ~4 square feet chalkboard on the wall in the darkest corner of the room. The students crowd together in haphazard rows, literally on top of one another. There is a larger board at the back of the huge room, but when I asked about using it instead, the principal told me it would be too much trouble to have the students move the tables and desks around. Too much disorder, he said. Both of the boards are only warped planks that have been painted black, and after much use of “hard” chalk, lessons have been permanently scratched into the wood, making it even harder to read my writing. The buildings themselves have deep holes in the concrete floors, and nothing has been so much as swept in probably months. Girls carry their donuts and pineapple to sell during class, and those damn plastic baggies are everywhere, along with dust, spider webs, and cheap notebook paper. The computer lab, with 15 dusty computers, sits unused because the school’s generator doesn’t work. There is no computer teacher anyway, and if there was, no time to fit the classes in: elementary students use the building in the morning, and high school students attend from 1:00 to 6:00 with a 30 minute break. They’re required to have language arts, literature, math, history, biology, chemistry, and physics every year.

During this first week of classes, the schedule has been changed three times in the week, but no one adheres to it anyway since there are still so many missing teachers. Only about a third of the teachers have come to school. Classes start at 1:00 and my first is supposed to be at 1:45, but if there is a room with no teacher I’m supposed to just jump right in and start teaching. Then, if the instructor does show up, he can either kick me out or wait and teach after me. Or, of course, he can just say “someone’s in there” and go sit in the teacher’s lounge, or go home. At first, Mr. Payne, who was teaching all the English classes before I arrived, was on campus regularly. I asked him a couple of times to bring me his notes so I could pick up where he left off. But he has disappeared now, and after glancing through a student’s 3 pages of English notes – 3 pages for an entire semester – I’ve decided to start afresh. Apparently Mr. Payne is in Ganta, the closest banking town, but many teachers and administrators haven’t been paid all year. Some blame the Ministry of Education; others have told me that the banks take civil servants’ money to “speculate.”

 I hear that the students are eager to learn, and so far it appears to be so. I have heard “thank you for coming” at least twice for every hand that I’ve shaken. Students, teachers, and townspeople: everyone tells the principal “thank you for bringing her.” I’ve walked through the town twice, and my principal made the announcement that students were always welcome at my house, a bit of a shock to me. Most of the older people remember Peace Corps from before the war, and those who are too young to remember are probably just coming to beg a better grade, but for now it at least feels as though they’re glad I’m here.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012; Atlanta Georgia

How long does it take to get from Kansas City, MO to Liberia? At least four days, but it could be longer. More than 52 hours ago, I left Kansas City, anxious for the awaiting African adventure. And now, I’m laughing with my new Liberian friends about the announcement that just came over the loudspeaker. “Ladies and gentlemen, as you can see, we don’t yet have our aircraft. Right now it’s coming over from maintenance.” Maintenance!? We all groaned and laughed awkwardly, now connected as friends through the 2 days spent in Atlanta, because of a maintenance issue with our aircraft. In addition to the twelve volunteers delayed, in our group are numerous Americans working for non-governmental organizations, about 20 dressed in Army fatigues, a businessman who splits his time between America and Liberia, a Liberian woman with her three kids, aged 14, 8 and 18 months, finally returning to Liberia after 21 years in Minnesota. Her husband has found a job there, and she is joining him. Their kids have never seen Liberia. Her daughter loves to scream just to make noise. I know this because I sat right behind them for the two hours we were actually in the air, presumably on our way to Accra, Ghana. Another man is returning to Liberia because his father is (or was) dying, and he hoped to see him one more time. At this rate, he’ll be lucky to make the funeral.

Having met the other volunteers prior to departure, we are quickly making friends. Part of the ease is because we’re all RPCVs, and so already share a connection that other new travelers might not understand. When we were turned around, we were surprised, yes. Not because we were going to be delayed, but because we were going to be delayed before even leaving US airspace. This kind of thing is normal in so many other parts of the world, but for it to happen here, in the greatest nation on earth, somehow feels wrong. We somehow feel entitled to at least reach our destination before being so inconvenienced. The cause of our delay turned out to be a faulty navigation system. They told us they thought they’d fixed it before we left, but they actually made it worse. You would think, in America, they could test these things before taking off!

I wonder if this is somewhat easier because of what I’m already expecting in Liberia – long wait-times, uncomfortable transit, dirty clothes; if I’d been on my way to vacation in the Mediterranean, would I be disgruntled and angry? Would I be like the well-dressed gentleman who demanded that they allow us access to our checked bags, after so many had left? It was this complaint that extended our time spent at the airport yet another 2 hours after landing, only for half of us to learn that our luggage had probably gone ahead to Accra, Ghana. Delta confirmed that my luggage had indeed arrived in Accra, and was on its way to Liberia. My confidence in them at this point is not so high.

The day is finally here. I should be leaving for the airport in less than 30 minutes, so I'm officially starting my blog from my sister's comfortable suburban home in Kearney, MO.
In the last two weeks since moving from my apartment, I've slept on two beds, 3 couches, an air mattress, and a bunk bed in a room shared with 6 other girls.
I've also been living out of about 10 various bags, lost countless articles of clothing and accessories, and just discovered yesterday that the reason my hair was so stiff and weird was because the green bottle contains shampoo and conditioner, and the blue bottle post-shampoo curling product, instead of the other way around. No matter how high-quality your shampoo, it will still make your hair as sticky as syrup if used incorrectly. But, in my defense, I did label the bottles (with everyone's favorite "permanent" marker!) only to have it rub off.
Thank you to everyone (especially Nicole, Karen, Brian, Jackie, and Mom) who has let me crash their pads, taken me out to dinner, or otherwise helped me celebrate my upcoming adventure! I'll see you all in 6 months or less, and until then, you can send snail mail (and I'm talking slow) to:
Jennifer Slinkard
Peace Corps Volunteer
P.O. Box 707
Monrovia, Liberia
West Africa

See you soon!