Dear LR-4
In June the fourth group of 2-year Volunteers, LR-4, will arrive. Today I dedicate my post to them and their earnest preparations.
Dear LR-4,
Hi! How are you? I know we haven’t met yet, but I’ve been thinking about you a lot. See, I know exactly what you’re going through and I want to tell you it’s going to be all right. More than all right, really. You see the same thing happened to me just about two years ago…
I had been sitting on my porch for a week waiting for the UPS man to bring my invitation package. I’d been Googling and reading and trying to guess what Peace Corps was planning for me. When the brown truck finally stopped I said, “I’m sorry but can I hug you?” then made the patient man wait while I opened the heavy envelope.
LIBERIA. SECONDARY MATH TEACHER.
I was confused. I had always thought I’d accept with a smile and without hesitation. But teaching… in Liberia…? I read every scrap of paper in the envelope. I read everything I could find online. I lay awake for three nights trying to reconcile my head with my heart. This was no small thing.
See, LR-4, I had a math major but I hadn’t used it in five years. I wasn’t a teacher. I’d worked in television. I’d worked at a non-profit theater. I’d worked in a gym. My math was so rusty I kept multiplication flash cards on my nightstand just to be ready if someone tried to quiz me. (Which they do when you say you’re a math major!) In fact, when I applied for grad school I scored below average in math. LR-4, I was such a hot mess I hadn’t even been out of the country. I thought about all of this and I was scared!
I was scared of what people said about Liberia and I was scared that what I could offer just wasn’t enough. Then on the third night my heart said, “Listen, what if we can?” My head snatched at the air for a response, but my heart continued, “What if we can change just one life?”
Then we must go. We must try.
Two years later I can’t believe I ever questioned coming to Liberia or being a teacher. (I am even extending for a third year.) I know everything seems stacked against you. I know the problems seem too big and too plenty. But I remind you: What if we can? It is so easy to change someone’s life. And, really, it will also change your own.
I won’t lie to you. This is Extreme teaching (yes, capital E extreme). My classes each have 50 to 100 students and we don’t have enough books or desks. Most of my students have families and some are the same age as me or older. They come to school tired and hungry, without pens and paper. But they come. And they come because they want a better future. They come because they believe they can be better.
See, I don’t think of myself as a math teacher, although I spend a lot of time doing math. I think of myself first and foremost as just a teacher, or perhaps a life coach. My job is to help my students find the strength to move forward and to believe that they can move forward. My job is to be someone they can trust and go to for help with anything. The most important things you teach your students will most likely happen by accident and have nothing to do with your subject area. You never know who is watching, who is listening, and who is growing.
Last year several of my seniors had a program for me before they left for teacher training college. We had spent every Sunday afternoon doing math together. But what did they talk about in their speeches? “I can see the way Ms. RB treats people,” George said, “and it has changed the way I treat people.”
Math opened the door for those conversations and those interactions. Content is very important—and I teach a lot of it—but it is also a great vehicle for bigger messages and lessons. Many of my students have found confidence and motivation through mastering advanced concepts. Two years ago I stood in front of them and nervously taught the order of operations. Now these same students are literally cheering as they solve logarithms, radicals and binomial expansions. “Ms. RB, we are really doing math now!” They have struggled and persevered and dared to dream for more.
What does Ma Ellen say? “If your dreams don’t scare you they aren’t big enough”? Last year I had a dream and my students had a dream and today one of them is studying at EARTH University in Costa Rica on a full scholarship. I thought it was impossible. They thought it was impossible. But we all looked at each other and said, well, what if we can?
So, LR-4, that’s my question for you. What if you can? What if you too can do what everyone says is impossible? I had no special training or preparation before walking into a Liberian classroom. There is no secret ingredient. There is just you. If you care, if you believe in your students and yourself, that is more than enough.
Have a safe journey in June. We’ll keep the rice warm for you.
RB
PS Want to know what I said last year? Read Dear LR-3.
Holding Up the Sky
Several years ago I saw my dear friend Afton perform in a play of folktales from around the world. She was brilliant, as ever, and her performance in this small small tale has stuck with me. In fact, on the days doubt and frustration stalk me I find myself thinking of her and saying, “This is what I can do. I have to do my part.”
Humming birds, if we all have the courage to do our part we can turn this thing around.
One day an elephant saw a hummingbird lying on its back with its tiny feet up in the air.
“What are you doing?” asked the elephant.
The hummingbird replied, “I heard that the sky might fall today, and so I am ready to help hold it up, should it fall.”
The elephant laughed cruelly. “Do you really think,” he said, “that those tiny feet could help hold up the sky?”
The hummingbird kept his feet up in the air, intent on his purpose, as he replied, “Not alone. But each must do what he can. And this is what I can do.”
– A Chinese Folktale
Let Me Carry Your Load
The Way is Up
I haven’t been writing much the past few months because, as my service comes to a cross roads, I’ve pushed my nose yet closer to the grindstone. In a few short months I will leave Sanniquellie and, pending a few clearances, start a new chapter at Tubman University in Harper. It’s exciting and terrifying, the same mix of feelings that I had leaving America.
Sanniquellie is my home.
As the days start to number themselves I race to squeeze just small more out of each one. But whereas my final days in America were focused on what to take, here I find my thoughts turning to what will remain. What legacy, what path, can I leave for my city, my students, my family, after I go? How can I ensure that the people I love will be ok after I go?
I can’t. All I can do is clear a path, point the way, and hope they’ve learned enough. This part, the trusting and turning away part, is the hardest.
The past few months have been all about my seniors. Last week I submitted eight applications for EARTH University in Costa Rica. The students had been working on them since November, collecting documents, writing essays, and endlessly rewriting essays. Whatever happens I hope they are proud of their hard work. Most of them have never spent that much time on a piece of writing and there was plenty of cheering and “bawk! bawk!”-ing as I packed each one in the ‘finished’ pile.
I also had two students from last year apply for government scholarships in Botswana. It was amazing turn around and one of those weeks that makes me reconsider my position on god and prayer. (It works in Liberia.) We had exactly ten days to complete the application and get the boys to Monrovia for birth certificates. The moment I saw the posting online I called Prince and told him to drop what he was doing and come to the internet café. We started working on his CV and essay immediately and I sent him to find Romeo. “Do you have people in Monrovia? Call and tell them you’re coming.”
Two days later they were in a taxi running to Monrovia. “Be strong, my sons,” I said. “Be clever and polite but don’t back down until someone helps you.” They did exactly that. The first and last time either of them had been in town was for EARTH interviews last June, but three days later they were back in Sanniquellie, documents in hand. By the grace of god my office was able to submit everything in time and we’ve entered the waiting phase.
None of these students could have applied without me and without the help of my office. That’s what makes it so difficult to leave. I want to see the right things happen for the right people and that will be hard to facilitate when I leave Sanniquellie. So much here depends on who you know. For most of my students I am the only person they know with the power to open, or even knock on, doors. I know they are strong and they will be ok, but it isn’t easy.
Last year I watched my favorite student—the class deuce and the WAEC deuce—go off to teacher training college while people from the bottom of his class enrolled at Cuttington and University of Liberia. He just started his assignment as a student teacher, pitching phonics to a classroom jammed with pre-primary kids. This injustice has weighed heavily on my heart and I don’t want to see it happen again this year. These kids deserve more. Yes, Liberia needs talented teachers. But she also needs strong, ethical ministers and not everyone is qualified to do both.
If I could choose one thing to remain after I go it would be hope. As much as I’ve taught math it’s gone hand in hand with hope and strength. Advanced math is important not just for a grade but because there is hope of passing the WAEC, of going to college, of using it as engineers, agriculturists, and doctors.
The way, my children, is up. The path is made by climbing.
“When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream.”
– The Alchemist
Just a Girl
In November I started working with eight students on applications for EARTH University. I knew I couldn’t handle it the same way I did last year when half of Sanniquellie chased me begging to apply so I quietly called my five top boys and three top girls to my house. I explained the scholarship and started working with them on essays.
The boys were excited and eager and each came to my house at least once a week for advice and revisions. We talked about Costa Rica, travel, and honorable leadership. I loaned them books and paid for them to attend computer school.
The girls, in sharp contrast, seemed mistrustful, like they suspected a bait and switch. But I wasn’t dissuaded. I arranged for their own computer school through the local US AID office and gently prodded them to participate more in my class. All three are extremely bright, fine mathematicians, and would be prepared for college if given the opportunity. I knew EARTH really wanted to find talented girls so I secretly pinned high hopes on them.
Then my favorite failed in three subjects second period and landed on the academic warning list. I discovered they all had children, ranging in ages from one to six, and the youngest of my girls was 23. They’d been afraid I’d find out, but there was no more hiding when we finally did the application forms on Saturday. When they told me I smiled encouragingly and told them what to write on the lines, but my heart sank.
When a female student is discovered with “big belly” she is put out of class and must attend night school until she delivers. Each of my girls had been forced to sit down from school because of her children—that’s why they were older than the boys. Last week the administration checked all the classrooms for big bellies and at least four girls were put out of my 12th grade. Second semester of her senior year, six months away from her national exams, she’s cast off to join the other second-class students at the second-class extension school. Last year 42 students from the extension school sat for WAEC. About 15 passed. In my regular 12th grade class 86 sat for WAEC and about 70 passed.
The injustice made me stomp my foot in class and knock the desks. “Where is Gloria?” I asked last Friday. “I haven’t seen her since Monday.” They all twittered and one of the boys piped up, “Night school, Ms. RB. Gloria has big belly!” I laughed and called them crazy. “Gloria? Gloria does not have big belly. That girl knows better.” But they all nodded and yelled, “It’s truth! It’s truth!”
It’s truth.
One of my strong, fiery, clever girls stumbled on the last turn just as the finish line approached. I hadn’t selected her for the scholarship because she’s been acting strange the past few months. Now it all makes sense: She was hiding a pregnancy.
Last year I allowed everyone to apply for the scholarship because I said I couldn’t ‘play god’ and decide who did or didn’t deserve an opportunity. This year I knew I had to make some choices, if only for my own sanity. These choices have weighed on my heart heavily each day I enter class and joke and laugh with the 92 students I didn’t choose. When I was in high school I was always the one they didn’t choose and I remember the bitterness of that injustice. Soon they will find out I passed them over and I don’t know what I’ll say.
There is a quiet girl at the back of my 12A class who is sharp as a whip. She races through her problems and smiles patiently until I come to check. What really makes her stand out, though, is that I don’t know her. She wasn’t at Central High last year like 95% of the other students. The only way for a new student to enter in 12th grade is to come from the night school. …but the other night school students struggle to read. How is Angeline simplifying radicals to perfection in half the time as the boys?
My heart went out to her and today I let it take hold. I pulled her aside at recess. I wanted her to apply. I wanted to help her change her life. “How old are you?” I asked ushering her into the deserted classroom. She paused then looked right at me, “I’m 30.” My heart sank. You have to be under 25 to apply to EARTH. “What do you want to do after graduation?” I asked trying to hide my shock. “Medicine,” she said. “I want to be a nurse.” I patted her on the back with a smile and a heavy heart, “And you will, girl. You’re a fine student, really. Tell me if I can ever do anything to help you.”
What does a girl have to do around here? You can’t go to school when you’re pregnant but you can’t be a woman until you’ve born children. And to not be a woman… chaaaa! That’s not good-o. “Then what am I?” I ask them sometimes. “I’m not married. I haven’t born any children. Am I a small girl? Am I irresponsible?” They just laugh. “Noooo! You’re different.”
But why, my girls? Why? Why can’t you have the encouragement, opportunity, and future I received and you deserve? Thank you mom and dad, thank you Bryn Mawr, for giving me this life.
My Pot Can’t Boil
This song is blowing up on radios and cell phones across Liberia. On a recent trip to Monrovia I frantically hummed the catchy tune to all the cassette boys. “No, my man, I don’t really know the words but it’s like this…” Check out the lyrics and I think you’ll understand why it has us so hooked.
Everybody pot boiling, my pot can’t boil
The only time my pot can boil when a car kill the dog.
The government breaking so the youth is still jerking.
School fees got me sent from school cuz my pot not boiling.
Corruption in the city got me kicking some dust cuz my pot not boiling
Sholee says she be leaving me tonight cuz my pot not boiling
Landlord say I should leave tomorrow cuz my pot not boiling.
Too much big big talk
And result to negligence
They neglected to build the country
No development
So so embezzlement
Send the money through Ecobank
Building other country’s banks
How my pot will boil
As a boy
Baby mamma coming
Children crying to the house
Even the leadership did some D.I.R.T.
But only Charles Taylor in the Hague, I.C.C.
Bad Santa
My second Christmas in Sanniquellie started hopeful and quiet enough. I got up early and went to the market to buy meat for my soup. The butcher gave me a nice cut of cow meat and, hidden between the fish stalls, I fortuitously found a woman with a pile of frozen chickens.
No one was harassing me. No one was grabbing me. No one was calling me white woman. Perhaps it would be a good day.
I went home and started my preparations, cutting the meat and the pumpkin, cleaning the pin feathers from the chicken. Then, as I knew they would, things started getting out of hand.
Everyone wanted something and what I had to offer wasn’t good enough. They wanted money. They wanted food. They wanted me to dance for them. Everyone demanded “gimme my Christmas!” but only one person offered me my own.
Christmas Eve, at about 9:00pm I heard a small voice on my porch. “RB? Come outside. It’s me!” I opened the door and small Zed shoved $5LD (about seven cents) in my pocket. “Merry Christmas, RB,” he smiled in the dark.
Thank god for him.
Having been through this once before I was prepared to take the day in stride and was doing ok until I went to draw water around 5:30. I was on my second bucket when my neighbor across the street came over. I greeted him and wished him Merry Christmas. He just shook his head, “Things are not alright with you and me, Ma Rebekah.” This was a shock. I told him I didn’t understand and asked what was wrong. He proceeded to tell me for half an hour that I had been the cause of a great humiliation for him and his family some two months ago. I suffered my own great betrayal and his family, like many of my neighbors, was wrongly interrogated and embarrassed. Then he said I had only made it worse by refusing to give him $150US to bail his wife out of jail (in a wholly unrelated incident). “You told me you didn’t have it. I’ve never been to school, but I’m a clever man, Ma Rebekah. Don’t play with me.”
What is happening? Why today? Was it the palm wine talking or was he seriously mad at me?
I finally pulled myself free but as I lugged my buckets to the house, willing my mouth to stay shut, he yelled, “Pray about it, Ma Rebekah. Pray about it and God will tell you what you need to do for me. You need to do something for me.” Then he threw in as an after thought, “What are you cooking? Bring my own, ya hear? Bring my own.”
“It is burning right now,” I hissed under my breath and disappeared into my house as fifteen children swarmed the door screaming for stick candy. I chunked a fistful in the yard and barked, “Merry Christmas. Now go, ya hear??”
It was true. My food had all spoiled along with my day as Miaway lashed me with his tongue.
I piled the blackened pots in the corner and poured myself a very stiff drink. I don’t know how Santa does it, all this quiet, jolly giving to us ungrateful mortals…
I watched a Nigerian show about an angry, crazy, prince until the candles burned down and my battery died. I really sympathized with him…
Go Back! Just Go Back!
It was a significantly slow and silly week at school. The Ministry of Education calendar said we were to continue up to and including Christmas Eve and, damn it, the administration was determined to follow orders. But students don’t always follow orders. The flood of green and maroon uniforms dried to a trickle as the week progressed and everyone, including me, fought against the clock, arriving closer and closer to class time.
Each morning a handful of seniors stood clustered around the podium even though it was well past 7:30 and devotion should be in full swing. When I entered the gate they would nod to me feebly and climb on the platform. “Well, if she’s here I guess we have to do it…” They’d ring the bell weakly but no one would come out to the courtyard. A dozen people would start clapping and half heartedly sing a few gospel songs before starting the anthem and raising the flag. Then they’d all look at each other as if to say, “Now what?”
Almost on cue an engine revved outside the gate and our principal burst in on his motorbike, his Armani coattails flapping behind him. Cheers and clapping filled the air as he circled the newly awakened mob his eyes sparkling but his expression deadpan. He parked and unlocked his office. We all held our breath to see what he would come out with. Would today be the day we got break?
Wednesday he burst out of the door without a word and leapt into the mob with his rattan high over his head. As if repelled by a magnet, they laughed and shrieked and ran in all directions, until he turned the other way then they ran back to see what would happen to the unlucky people he caught. “Go back! Just gooooo back!” he boomed. I raised an eyebrow at my seniors still in stitches on the podium. “Let’s go!” I pointed to the door. “Or he’ll come for you next!” They filed in and we slogged through another day of radical expressions.
The next morning we repeated the scene with fewer characters. The late start. The poorly pulled together uniforms. The mumbled songs. Then just as we teetered on the edge of anarchy we heard the engine and Mr. Demie kicked the gate open and roared inside. “Give our Christmas!” they chanted jumping and screaming. He shot them a severe look over his small silver glasses but the edges of his mouth struggled not to twitch into a smile. They are all terrified of him but they also love and respect him. It’s a tough balance but he manages it well.
He disappeared into his office and we all fell silent. Would it be the rattan again or would it finally be Christmas? He emerged with a large stack of blank sheets and quietly locked the door. He climbed the podium and they burst into applause. He shook his head in warning as if to say, “don’t push it or I’ll go back for the stick.” He passed out the sheets and told each prefect to take attendance and hold the class until recess.
They ran to their rooms jubilating. I taught one more lesson on simplifying radicals then they called an emergency faculty meeting (that lasted two hours) and the day was finished. Thank god. Thank god. Thank god. I have a week and a half to catch up on sleep, clean before my mom comes, and keep typing my WAECs.
Ohhhh yes, life in Liberia…
Small but Sweet
The women sing at the opening program several weeks ago.
The literacy class started at the prison a few weeks ago and today was my first chance to observe. Class meets Monday, Thursday, and Saturday but, because of my own school, I can only go on Saturday. I’d been warned they’d missed a few classes so even though I was exhausted from my own week I called George and we drove out to the facility to make sure everything was on track.
We got a late start because ICRC came to distribute mats, blankets, and toothbrushes but everyone was smiles and handshakes as they clutched their books and lined up on the benches. Classes are held in a large, three-sided, outdoor room with concrete benches around the edges. The Superintendent talked to me about getting proper school benches made and Mark, one of the corrections officers and today’s teacher, reminded me that the chalkboard is too slippery and needs to be stripped.
They’ve been working on their ABCs and today’s lesson called for them to practice it on the board. Mark called them up two at a time to write it from A to Z. A small man with eager eyes and a steady hand was first. He took his time then turned to us for approval. “Give the pape a big hand clap!” Mark said as Junior grinned and took his seat. I remembered him from the first day when I came and gave everyone the pretest. He, like the majority of them, had never attended formal school and he was overflowing with excitement to begin.
Even the inmates who had been to school, some of them going as far as 12th grade, were excited. They whispered quietly while others wrote on the board, pointing at their workbooks seriously and helping their classmates. When the ABCs had been written and corrections had been made Mark called two of the advanced students up to read from Sonnie’s Story. An ongoing drama about early marriage, it follows the story of Sonnie, a 16 year-old girl who is asked to become the fourth wife of her community’s 65 year-old chief. They sang several rounds of a raucous ABC song that sounded more like a gospel hymn than education and it was time for numeracy. They practiced counting and using the numbers from 1 to 9 and, after three hours, we called it a day.
Mark called me up to make an impromptu speech (after nineteen months I’ve gotten used to this) and I thanked them for their hard work. Then six of them swarmed me to tell me they needed glasses. When I’d visited a few weeks ago to bring the workbooks someone had run out and pressed a note into my hand: “To: Sis RB, From: Cell #9.” It thanked me for bringing them the classes but lamented that they had difficulty reading the materials because of their eye problems. I told them I’d gotten the letter and I would try to help, but health isn’t my area. I’m not sure they were getting me (but after nineteen months I’ve gotten used to that too).
My pressing concern right now is getting a shelf made. US AID has agreed to give us some books to set up a small reading room for those who are slightly more advanced and to encourage those just beginning. We have the space and an inmate who could serve as librarian; we just need something to put the books on. Oh, it’s always the minor details!
Mark made me promise to come back next week and George dropped me in town. I stopped in the market to get some pineapple and ice bottles, a brilliant combination with Kate’s new cooler.
Progress is small but, really, it’s sweet.
The path is made by walking.
~African Proverb
A Seed Parable
Grandpa carried this handful of hard “gnang” around for days trying to sell it to us. Eventually he just left them on the floor.
A few weeks ago I received a box from my mother. It contained the usual things: small cars for the kids, stickers for my students, and snacks for me. Normal, forgettable things. At the bottom, however was a file folder stuffed with various articles and clippings. I flipped it open and found an inconspicuous photocopy on top. It was an excerpt from Megan McKenna’s Parables: Arrows of God that had been reprinted in Sun magazine in September.
I hope it speaks to you as much as it did to me…
A Seed Parable
There was a woman who wanted peace in the world, peace in her heart and all sorts of good things, but she was very frustrated. The world seemed to be falling apart. She would read the papers and get depressed. One day she decided to go shopping; she went into a mall and picked a store at random. She walked in and was surprised to see Jesus behind the counter. She knew it was Jesus, because he looked just like the images she’d seen on holy cards and devotional pictures. She looked again and again at him, and finally she got up her nerve and asked: “Excuse me, are you Jesus?”
“I am.”
“Do you work here?”
“No,” Jesus said. “I own the store.”
“Oh, what do you sell in here?”
“Oh, just about anything!”
“Anything?”
“Yeah, anything you want. What do you want?”
She said: “I don’t know.”
“Well,” Jesus said. “Feel free, walk up and down the aisles, make a list, see what it is you want, then come back and we’ll see what we can do for you.”
She did just that, walked up and down the aisles. There was peace on earth, no more war, no hunger or poverty, peace in families, no more drugs, harmony, clean air, careful use of resources. She wrote furiously. By the time she got back to the counter, she had a long list. Jesus took the list, skimmed through it, looked up at her and smiled.
“No problem.” And then he bent down behind the counter and picked out all sorts of things, stood up and laid out some packets.
She asked: “What are these?”
Jesus replied: “Seed packets. This is a catalog store.”
She said: “You mean I don’t get the finished product?”
“No, this is a place of dreams. You come and see what it looks like and I give you the seeds. You plant the seeds. You go home and nurture them and help them to grow and someone else reaps the benefits.”
“Oh,” she said.
And she left the store without buying anything.
So my question for you, is what do you have enough hope to plant and courage to help grow? If you look hard you’ll see the seeds have been in your pocket all along.
life magnanimous 