I don't even really know where to begin on this blog post, and the fact that my laptop is at 10% battery life and I can't charge it until at least tomorrow is definitely going to be a factor in my writing quality.
Well, Jesse and I left Gbarnga this morning with our counterpart, Mr. Gwaikolo, at around 9 or 10 in the morning. It was interesting having had a one week long orientation/training with half new people, and saying goodbye as everyone took off for their respective villages - none of us sure if we'll see one another again.
Jesse and I stopped in Ganta, another volutneer site, and Liberia's second biggest city, to buy the essentials that we assumed we wouldn't be able to find in our "village". A mattress, good broom, plastic chairs, buckets, pots and pans, plates, etc. We then drove the final hour to our "village" to discover that it is actually a city, and a largeish one at that - at least by my standards. We got a flat tire as we were entering the town, and I was surprised to see 4 or 5 cell phone antennas in the immediate area. While the tire was changed Jesse and I remarked on how many different NGO and international organizations had signs posted at the entrance to the town announcing themselves (UN, WFP, MSF, ACF, USAID, etc etc).
Well, we got our flat fixed and drove into town, the city just got bigger and more obviously city-like. We got to our school and got out, leaving our stuff in the car. We were welcomed by a few students in uniform as well as the Principal and a few teachers. We were then told that there was a "small ceremony" that we needed to attend, and we were ushered into a classroom (a NICE classroom, again, by my standards) where there were around 30 adult men (other teachers, representative community members, officials, etc) there seated in the students desks waiting for us. Next to the front door there was an electric keyboard and a tamtam drum set up with a couple of students at that table. There was also one set of student desks set up on the side next to the front of the class for me and Jesse to sit at.
So, basically, our school threw us an amazing welcome ceremony. The school choir (yes, I said school choir) sang for us, a senior student named Rebecca sang a solo for us, a few speeches were made by officials (principal, vice principals, registrar, and representative elders), telling us just how happy they were to have us, how much it meant for them to be able to host us in their school (the "Johnny Voker Family", to use their words) and what an inspiration we were to everyone. Afterwards they asked us up to say a few words, which was great because it gave me a change to let them know just how touched I was to have this experience through them.
Anyway, so we had an incredible welcoming ceremony, I took pictures and some videos that will hopefully make their way to Facebook when I have access to speedier internet (I'm typing this from my bed in my house in my village by the way, crazy...).
So, our house, second wow of the day. It turns out we are living in what used to be the Doctors Without Borders house. It is very nice (by my standards, has a solid roof, solid floor, clean walls, no visible rodent droppings, and lots of easy to open and close windows that are screened already). There is a living room, dining room, kitchen area, and 4 bedrooms of various sizes (I picked the second smallest one, Jesse picked the 3rd smallest, the largest room we're making into our kitchen, our kitchen we're making into our "hang out" space because it's breezy and looks out to our neighbor's yard). We have an indoor bathroom with a toilet (no running water though, Jesse and I are actually the most bummed about this toilet situation, we would have much preferred a pit latrine as they don't require flushing and toilets require dumping buckets of water into them whenever you do number 2 (we've already made a rule for doing number 1 outside whenever possible)). But yeah, our house is beautiful, a great amount of space for both of us, and is going to be relatively easy to keep clean.
As for people, when we met the students, one of the first students we met who has become one of our good friends is Borris, one of our seniors. He has been very helpful so far and seems very willing to help us find what we need in the town. Also, as we were walking around we ran into Lara, a former Peace Corps Volunteer who is now in charge of the World Food Program (WFP) office here in Saclepea (yeah, there's a full scale office of the World Food Program here...along with the UNHCR refugee program of the UN, the UN Bangaladeshi engineering group, and tons of other international organizations). Anyway, Lara welcomed us and invited us to a WFP event tonight at their compound (so nice, electricity, running water, beautiful grounds, etc etc). We met the Major in charge of the UN engineering group in charge of the roads in this area, and overall had a great time. (Ok, I remember I had more to write on this post, but my laptop battery died while I wrote it a few days ago, and now that it's charged I have so much more to say, so I will just start on a new post, sorry about that).
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