Friends of Liberia: CNC Report

Communities Nurturing Children Projects

Frank Ardaiolo, Tom Powell and I visited our community projects on our recent visit to Liberia. We had limited time and our schedule had to be extremely flexible, so it was not possible to alert our communities to our visit. We dropped by on our way to Suacoco, where we had work to do for the Teachers Project. Here's what we found:

The School at Johnsonville

The town has been described over the years by CNC advisers and travelers as a "suburb of Monrovia," a self-contained town an out-of-the way place. Over the years, it slid up and down my mental map of the road as it wasn't on any of the actual maps I had. Finally, having been there, I would have to say its "not far" but suburb gives the wrong impression. It is about 30 minutes up the main road from Monrovia and several more minutes up a rutted dirt road that has not seen a lot of traffic. Where the town begins and ends was not clear--not too many people live close by the main roads any more. The first thing that greets a visitor is a charred bust of Tubman on a pedestal in the middle of the road. There is other evidence of war on a gutted buildings closer to the school that was the clinic. The school, however, looks pretty new, thanks to CNC, and it was delightful to see the brown and white L-shaped building surrounded by children.

The Rev. Shaw, also the school principal, had sent word to Jeanette Carter, CNC advisory chair who actually surpervised the construction of the school, inviting her back. We found him late on a Friday morning, standing in the schoolyard, switch in hand, overseeing a sort of formless recess that precedes lunch time. He and a couple of the male upper-grade teachers were very quick to figure out who we were and organize themselves for a tour of the school. This was done in a churning sea of children.

The most obvious thing is the lack of furniture. Children carry their own chairs to school. There were rag-tag collections of chairs in some classrooms. A couple of classrooms had schooldesks of the type we have been asked to provide for the school. A three-seater bench with 3-foot - wide sloping desktop and single shelf below. But disturbing for a newly redone school is the appearance of bamboo room dividers to separate two classes within one room. They are rough-hewn bamboo poles, halved and spread out so that they don't block much noise. One teacher noted that the dividers have cut the children with their sharp sides.

We were a little spoiled by our previous day in Monrovia touring the Catholic primary schools with Catholic Education Secretariat Director Stevenson Seidi (one of the Gray children). That set our expectations very high. The primary advantage the Catholic schools had was a sense of order. The Johnsonville school was not as well kept, the blackboards didn't carry the signs of a structured lesson. The books in evidence were neither grade appropriate nor related to each other. They could have been better swept, but hey, they didn't know company was coming.

The principal convened the primary grade teachers in his office. Two were very young (one nursing a baby was the principal's wife), the third was a proud 26-year veteran of elementary teaching. The two young women were not responsive to questions about what they would like to learn at a workshop, how the day was structured at their school, what they were using for materials. The older woman answered as if she had read the proposal. She said she would like help with methodology and classroom management. When asked whether it would be difficult to get away from home for a three-week training session, they all said no. I had the impression the younger women may have had trouble understanding my English.

After the meeting, the principal was intent on our seeing the "cafeteria," where the Bulgar wheat lunch was being prepared. We all trailed over, dozens of kids in tow, to the thatched-roof enclosure with two cookfires with black iron caldrons over them. The kitchen ladies gave us the laugh of the day. As we lifted our cameras, one woman said to Tom (whose white-blond hair automatically made him chief of mission), "Shall we stir the pots?" Then she and her colleague set to winding the pots, hips swaying until you'd have to have a video camera to catch the action. The joke was that they want a new cafeteria and they wanted to be sure we got the photo we needed.

The principal also pointed out the gutted clinic as a project that needed work, but he was less insistant about that than the need for a cafeteria. He is, after all, an educator. All the staff we met were very grateful for the assistance on the school, particularly pointing out the roof, which was apparently made of high-grade material. Tom and Frank were getting more of a hard sell on what was needed for the school and the list was pretty extensive.

Owensgrove:

Since the team's second site visit was to Owensgrove, another hour down the road, the late afternoon arrival found the school empty. But even an empty school, particularly one so recently refurbished, can testify to the activities within. Here the Owensgrove school was a disappointment. Floors were unswept, walls unadorned and there was so little evidence of organization at all. No posted schedule. Granted, the main refurbishment appears to be the roof there and the rest went in the clinic in town.

The team was greeted by a fellow living near the school who knew PCVs in the 70s. Someone went to get health workers from the clinic, and they invited us to see what was going on there. It made up for the school in my book.

The freshly painted building was one of the cleanest and best maintained that we would see on the trip. Walls were covered with hand-printed informational charts on such subjects as nutrition, disease prevention, family planning. The four rooms were divided into "wards," and these were identified by directional signs. The clinic was a perfect example of the benefits of training. The four full-time staff members introduced themselves by profession. One physician's assistant, Monger Watt ("5,000 Watts" somebody said), had just returned from polio eradication training in Buchanan. Another PA, Benson Karper, was holding clinic. Solomon Zangai, registrar. Martha Williams was dispenser of drugs (from the shakiest bookshelf you wouldn't even trust your books on). David Freeman, janitor. There were two women identified as "volunteers" who helped out for food. There was a midwife assisting a woman in labor, who lay moaning on a mat on the floor.

The principal of the school, Harry Johnson, caught up with the team at the clinic. He accepted some school supplies and asked about furniture for the school. He was also aware of the teacher training possibility and wanted to be sure his primary teachers were included. He said he had 215 students in elementary and 250 in kindergarten. Five kindergarten teachers. He said many of the K-3 teachers are still in school themselves. He would like to see curriculum development, class management and "some lessons for the little ones" in any teacher training session.

Summary:

I gained a new appreciation of the difficulties Jeanette Carter had supervising projects even this close by. Johnsonville obviously expects a cafeteria (they didn't get a clinic). Owensgrove's cafeteria is more primitive than Johnsonville's but they don't expect one. The clinic would like some support in the form of shelves, bedding, supplies.

Both schools expect some desks. Luckily we didn't get in to how many. We are still working out just how much we have for that in the budget. But Jeanette, working with Stan Olsen, a carpenter and administrator with the Lutheran Church who offered his assistance, will check our carpenter shops, take bids and get back to us.

The Don Bosco idea, getting voc-ed students to make the desks, didn't work out for a very Liberian reason: It costs more to get something done at a school, it is slower and the quality is less reliable. Even Mr. Seidi, interceding to the schools under him, was told that the price was firm. It was higher than outside commercial rates.

Anyway, as Stan Olsen pointed out, we would want a lot of desks and the chances are that we will be using several suppliers. He gets pews made for the Lutheran churches. So he is on the lookout, as is Jeanette.