Meeting Ellen, and getting electricity...what a day!

So, today has probably been one of the more memorable and eventful days of my Peace Corps service.

First off, Jesse and I have been working on getting ourselves hooked into our neighboring NGO's electric grid (they run a generator and have solar panels to keep themselves in electricity) and today, after waiting the past two weeks for permission to be granted at all levels of the organization (from the local office to the regional office in Ganta all the way to the director in Monrovia), we got word that it was fine on Wednesday. That same day we had an electrician over to check things out - he was less than competent, so after worrying that he was going to break the NGO's electric components, we decided to consult another ex-pat friend of ours to combine all three of our backgrounds in electricity (analytical chemistry lab finally paid off) and figure out a way to hook ourselves in. We decided the power we would use was going to be minimal enough that we could basically just run an extention cord from one each of their outlets (solar, and generator), and hook our house's power input cable into one or the other depending on the time of day. Jesse and I went to Ganta, bought the cables, electrical tape, and appropriate plug ends, came home and hooked ourselves in. This involved me (being the lighter and I like to think more adventurous of the two) getting up in our house's crawlspace to run the extension cord over in our ceiling. I made a few dead-lizard friends and got super dirty and sweaty, but sure enough within a few hours, we were hooked into the power grid. We now have close to 24-hour electricity by the combination of generator power and solar panels.

Let me repeat that, WE NOW HAVE CLOSE TO 24 HOUR ELECTRICITY.....IN OUR HOUSE.....

Needless to say, I'm very excited, Jesse already got himself a standing oscillating fan, and mine is being delivered on Tuesday when market day comes (the guy was getting a shipment in from Monrovia this evening, but since he's an hour's drive away, I talked him into sending it down to Saclepea with a friend of his on Tuesday). This also means my Rosetta Stone learning can re-commence (it's been a week or two - I've not really had a dependable source recently), and my internet browsing and movie watching will increase. Of course, my Peace Corps work will be positively affected as well.

As for the other piece of information for today. I got to meet President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf today. Well, to be more precise I got to be one of the handful of teachers and school administrators who got to walk close behind President Sirleaf while she toured our recently renovated school buildings. Basically, she was doing a big tour of the country - stopping in different cities to see different things. Her main focus was supposed to be stopping at our new weekly market site to cut the ribbon, so to speak. She also came to our school - and Jesse and I were there among the throngs of other Saclepea citizens who came out to see her. Her motorcade pulled in, and she got out with a few of her staff and several armed bodyguards (as in, military guys with AK-47s). She walked through the large tunnel of people that had formed (in which I was in the back of), but as she walked towards the school, I noticed she was going around a building to an area that was less crowded for the moment. Since it's my school, I knew of this passageway that was opened recently, so I ran through there (along with many of my students who also know the passageway), and came out the other side ahead of the President and her people. All my students sort of cowered against the wall to get out of their way and all of a sudden I was in the middle of the group of official people who were walking as part of the tour group, so I seized the opportunity and continued in step with them. This meant I was about 10 feet away from the president, walking with her staff and a few other teachers from my school. At one point one of her staff noticed me and asked me if I was a teacher at the school, then I chatted a bit with her about our market, and how our classes run. Meanwhile we were all following the president as our District Education Officer showed her the new parts of the campus. She seemed very tired (I think she's been on the road doing things like this for close to a week now), and didn't speak at all to anyone other than the DEO, but it was impressive to be that close to the President of Liberia and to chat with her staff casually the whole time. Definitely a day to remember.