My week was plus one…

The end of the journey…a day late and a dollar short as the saying goes

I apologize for the length to this entry but I had trouble with internet connections and getting it posted and I promise I will post some more photos after I get home.

Anyway to recap the week and the reason for this short trip to Liberia:  The Conference~ I think that it was quite successful and well attended.  I invited six of the teachers that we have trained over the years and asked two of them to help with my presentation. We got off to a rather slow start because the room for the Opening had A/C, but unfortunately it was not working and this was the room where President Sirleaf was to address the attendees. So literally we had to move all the chairs from the upstairs room to another and unfortunately smaller room. Then to add to the lateness of the opening, everyone had to be checked by Security because of the President. Then groups that were represented were summoned to enter and thanks to FOL being an NGO, I was able to get into a room that was much cooler. Of course, I had been in the room previous to this to help set up chairs.

The President did come even though we were told it would on be a “walk through to meet and greet” because she was to attend a Cabinet meeting (on the budget-a good excuse), but she ended up staying longer than expected and watched a series of school kids recite lessons about patriotism, the flag and national anthem. One woman who might well audition for American Idol with her jazzy rendition of the National Anthem, a song that is hard to sing in any fashion sang too.

The nuts and bolts of the workshop was the presentation of the new Early Childhood Development Curriculum and this, of course, is what I have been waiting for Ministry of Education to do for 12 years! That is that it would recognize the importance of early childhood education and for me even stronger would be so something about the huge need to train teachers and principals properly in early childhood methodology! The woman who did the presentation with whom I have worked with the last three years had such passion in her presentation. I do hope that all the powers that be finally get it and support the new curriculum and get things moving forward.

The second day of the conference I sat in on the Higher Education Symposium to find out what (or not) the higher education institutions are doing to support ECE. Let me tell you it is shocking the small numbers who are being offered ECE training and education. There is not even an ECE program at the University of Liberia or the two rural training institutes! At Tubman University there are only 12.

After lunch I was on the schedule to present a two hours session on the methodology that we have been teaching the Liberian teachers since 1999 (and for me since 2001). I had been told it would be two separate sessions but no matter I’m a teacher, I can be flexible… But little did I know that this flexibility would come into play before I even began my presentation.  Second to an incident that occurred in my hotel I had to move rooms and settle into the cafeteria, I was pleased at the number of attendees (over 70-and about 300 were in attendance at the conference). Yatta, Chris and I made a strong impression with our hands on activities and enthusiasm. As mentioned the first time I was on alert for some adaptability  was when I discovered that things were missing in my room. Upon returning to my room one evening, I discovered that the maid threw out all of my collected items for the Treasure Box, an integral teaching tool of collected and recycled materials (tea wrappers, paper strips, water bottles, beer caps, wrappers from any and everything and a jar of collected items that I had saved from home). I went down to the hotel desk to report something had been taken from my room and I am sure the clerk thought I would be reporting my laptop or some of real value but no, I said someone took my Junk/Treasure Box. She called the maid who had seen it in my room and thought it was garbage even though my plastic bag was on top of the table with all of my other things. Amazingly I found the jar of things in the cleaning room but not the real junk from the bag. That returned the next evening…

Nevertheless I am an experienced teacher and can often teach in the moment so I was able to make some other modifications that had to be made for my presentation since part of what I was going to deal with was why wasn’t the GOL (Government of Liberia and Ministry of Education doing more to help with ECE and training its teachers and as I shared earlier we learned that the Ministry is stepping up and has this new program ready to be rolled out and set to train trainers of teachers. My hope is this is what will happen sooner than later. I encouraged the teachers with me to sign up to get the initial training in June that might allow us to get our project registered with the Ministry so we too can move forward. By the time I got home, I received a call asking if I could repeat my session the next day. Even though I had handed out most of my handouts and given away materials from the previous day, we did the best we could in a room full of kids while waiting to see a dentist were watching a video on a small laptop and teachers completing their evaluations and talking. I felt I was truly in a Liberian classroom with too much noise, no materials and too many people!

The week was a full and it flew by-with the conference, trying to make contacts for our project and sharing some meals with friends here As I await to fly home at ROB airport, I am awaiting the first leg of my three stops to get home (Monrovia to Brussels) after a very pleasant lunch with Jim and Lyn Gray and John who is here working at LU for a bit of time at Thinkers’ (pronounced Tinkers) Beach. There were a number of others there to enjoy Sunday lunch at the beach.

However, WAWA reared its head again like the Junk Box episode… WAWA meaning that West Africa wins again… I did not get on the plane and leave as planned on Monday because a large bird evidently while our plane as it was taking off in Banjul, The Gambia flew into the plane and caused damage. The plane landed at Robertsfield and I guess was not in shape to fly back to Brussels. I am not sure why it took so long to let us know, but by the time it did, it was getting dark and needless to say there were many disgruntled passengers. Being disappointed to not be able to start my journey home, I realized that there was nothing that could be done about it as the saying goes: “What to do?” The airlines told us they would help with transport back to the city (an hour and half drive) and hotels. I had started chatting with the World President of OMEP (the sponsor of the conference I attended), and she had never been to Liberia so I was able to help her with logistics. I was able to retrieve my two bags, and we called a hotel and even found a taxi and headed back to Monrovia. Unfortunately the hotel even though quite a bit more expensive was not as comfortable or nice as where I stayed all week.

Normally driving at night is way down on my list of things I choose to do in Monrovia, but having no choice I was shocked at the traffic that was on the long dark road on a Sunday evening back to the city. There were numerous bars and clubs playing music, people on the road and too many of those motorcycles. Evidently there is a rule that motorcycles cannot be on the road after 10:30 or so. Traffic in Monrovia is terrible, and it is hard to imagine how it will ever improve.  The stoplights I suppose are a start even though the pedestrian don’t seem to obey the red light and there are not enough of them. Even stop signs that are now on corners are ignored and motorcyclists don’t have to take a driver’s test and do not know any of the rules of the road and it is doubtful they would be observed anyway.

Because we had another day in Monrovia and I had the OMEP President with me, I asked her if she wanted to go to the Ministry of Education and see things there. For those of you who have read other reports of my work in the MOE to see the Minister or Assistant Ministers, you have to climb nearly 110 steps to the 8^th floor in the dark that was usually quite littered. To my surprise there was light at each landing and the floor and walls were clean. The Department head of ECE shared some facts about the huge numbers of preprimary students in the schools and the fact that more of the students are over the traditional age to be in preschools. There are 1.4 million students in school grades nursery through 12^th grade and 600,000 of them are in preprimary Nursery, Pre-K and Kindergarten! I was told there is Ministry website but slow to load. I will look into seeing what else I can find out on the website.

The Department Head took us to two schools, one a demonstration school and other at a school that is a huge contrast to what the MOE is trying to do. The demonstration school is in the Waterside Market. Waterside for those who remember it looks very different than before. It is still very congested with people galore selling things but it appeared cleaner. The school is on the top floor and it has divided the preprimary and the elementary school. The preschool teachers have been trained, and they are doing what appeared to be developmentally appropriate practice. It was such a joy to see the room divided with student activity centers. The teachers attended the conference and moving in the right direction. It would be nice to paint more of the walls white and move from the top floor. The fact that their mothers are downstairs “making market” is good. It took some convincing to put their children in these different kinds of classrooms, but from what I can see the children are thriving. The parents pay small fees by donating greens or rice to help with costs. Enrollment is full, but class size is appropriate and at times there are two adults working with the young students. This is not the case for the other school.

The other principal has been asked repeatedly if she wanted the MOE to turn her pre and primary classrooms into a demonstration site, but the principal said no each time. What a shame as this school in contrast had over 100 students in just one pre primary classroom. The room was full of desks and small chairs and no centers, materials or what seemed like trained teachers. So there remains much to do but I must say overall I do have some hope that change is in the wind and there are people who will make this happen. I think the officials who make decisions understand now that there must be a concern and money spent to educate appropriately the youngest member of the Liberian society. One of the papers wrote a fabulous complimentary article about the conference but unfortunately he misnamed the organization OMEP and called it OMED. Liberians are famous for turning titles into acronyms so not sure what the author was thinking. Again the ECD needs good press hopefully after I left there will be more stories published about the conference and to get people behind the new curriculum and training.

On the Weather front…rainy season is on its way…It was nice to get a taste of rainy season and should be more active when I return in May. It was quite a nice storm. It rained for along time and left more puddles than I am used to seeing maybe because the roads in Monrovia are in fairly good shape and the side streets that are dirt roads in some places tended to. This is not to say that is the case up country. Traveling during rainy season is a challenge up country. It was hot as usual but being in and out of A/C from time to time and having A/C at night made all the difference in the world. I was very busy with the conference and appointments but I certainly had time to enjoy dinner out most nights with friends.

Liberia is a unique place where many choose to live and visit. I know it is a place that has a hold on me as many can know especially since I seem to return often. I am feeling positive that change is on the horizon and much of what FOL has been trying to do since 1999 might be reaching closer to our goals where the preprimary and primary schools and teachers are trained to teach developmentally appropriate and that the GOL will support its teachers with trainings and support. I know I am an idealist but this is what keeps me going; Liberia is not there and there is room for FOL to continue its help and I guess I will be back to what I can.

Until next month I will include more photos and adventures on the road up country. Thanks for your interest and support!!!