Sustainabilty!

Day 10

Storm blowing in off the Atlantic

I will start today's blog at the end of our day today. We (Tim, Jay, Xane and I) were driving in the Cruiser through the dark and crowded streets of Monrovia, headed back to the hotel and Jay's house. It was as late as it has ever been on a return to home base. We were all pretty quiet, very tired and looking forward to getting the day done. As usual, it was a very eventful, very busy day. 

Tim, at moments like this between destinations, when we have a minute to catch our breath, will pull out his trusty phone to continue his way through his massive email contacts list, emailing everyone he knows asking for whatever support they can give to help us pull this off all the way. That's when Tim made a startling announcement. He had just read this from our GoFundMe page:

Wow! Instantly our quiet, tired cab erupted in cheers and celebration. All four of us were instantly re-energized, alive, chirpy. It was the brightest cherry on top of a day of great success. In case you can't quite make out what the picture above says, I will spell it out for you: "$1001 Student Council Florida, Hey Colin from the Student Council. Keep it up much love from everyone. EAT IT LA!" 

The Delphi Academy of Florida Student Council gifted $1001 towards our project. AWESOME! 

For reference, twelve days ago the heroic students of Delphi LA's Student Council gave $1000. (How about them apples, Delphian School Student Council!)

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Quick note from earlier this week. Monday’s breakfast in Senniquellie was, as Xane put it, the best meal he’s had on the entire trip. We dined at Jackie’s Guest House restaurant. We ate bacon and eggs and toast. You can’t go wrong with these three items on your breakfast plate. And Jackie’s did it right. Close your eyes and it tasted like you were at Denny’s. Yesterday’s breakfast was not bacon and eggs. After leaving our rooms at the appointed time of 8:00 am, we met at the table on the front porch area. Shortly thereafter we were presented with the morning’s meal. Calvin had it arranged to be delivered to the porch for us. The dish was called gan-gba: two bowls of goat soup and two bowls of boiled, smashed cassava. Both are staples for the Ganta region. Cassava is a root similar to the potato. It is boiled and then smashed into a doughy ball. The smashing is done by placing it in a big bowl and pounding on it with a broomstick-sized pole, over and over. We saw women doing this in many villages we passed. 

Also presented with the four bowls of food were one small bowl full of water and one empty, large bowl. The water bowl was for washing your hands, the large bowl for catching the water dripping from your just-washed hands. The silverware was your fingers; no forks, spoons or knives. Each of us made a hand-scoops and ripped off blobs of mashed, gelatinous cassava and dipped it into the goat soup. It was a tasty, slurpy, gooey meal.

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Wednesday, 11:46:10 pm in Liberia. At Jay’s house. Sitting on the bed typing. Notice I did not say "my bed". Due to the AC in my room not functioning, Xane and I now share a bed. I am sitting on our bed typing. Xane is asleep.

On to today’s events…

At the very beginning of the day the Cruiser wouldn’t start. Dead battery. We tried to jump start it to no avail. Resourceful people they are, two of Jay’s helpers solved the problem by quickly removing the battery from the other car on the property and placing it upside down atop the Cruiser’s battery so the terminals were touching one another, + to + and - to -, (do not try this at home). We were off! And even though our presentation was just five miles away, we had to set aside two hours to navigate the crazy, packed, traffic jams of Monrovia.

The day's workshop was at the African Methodist Episcopal University in downtown Monrovia, for about forty students and faculty. The time we had in front of the group was about two hours. By the way, this was another example of an event that was not part of the original itinerary. We met Dawn Cooper-Barnes from AME last Tuesday. She was so excited about what she learned from the meeting she requested a presentation to her students and faculty. Thus the workshop. Five successes...

“I really enjoyed the training, most especially on the misunderstood word. I would like to recommend to your group to please do much of this training in our high schools. It was so exciting and very good. Excellent work done team.”

“I am glad to have this great opportunity by listening and knowing the kinds of barriers to study. I wish and hope this program be extended to the rural areas or all parts of this country, in order to educate our young people on barriers to study.”

“Students in the classroom are diverse and have their own unique, multiple intelligences. The teaching-learning process must cater and tailor to the different learning styles of the students. Thus, the training workshop of Applied Scholastics reinforces it, in giving utmost understanding in applying learning in a most practical and applicable manner.”

“Today was one of my best days in the university. This workshop made me understand the many problems facing Liberian students, relative to study, most especially studying without mass. Most often we study and don’t see what we are studying about. Lack of mass was my greatest topic for the day.”

“I’ve been having problems with studying subjects that required lots of reading. By the time I pick up a book to read, I’ll start to feel dizzy, bored and doze to sleep. But today, I understand that with the help of creating mass, I can overcome it. I will take this first barrier solution, which has been my problem, and use it to get my first, second and PhD in my profession. I will own everything I’ll learn from now on. Thank you for this great opportunity.”

Following our visit with these fine people, they treated us to lunch at a restaurant across the street, Monroe Chicken. Or, as it was described to us earlier on the trip, Monrovia’s KFC. It was indeed tasty. (By the way, being treated to lunch was a big change. For all the other presentations to students we’ve had to provide lunch. Not sure if feeding the attendees is an expectation or a successful action for large groups of Africans or a combination of the two. In any case, it helps explain one of the big costs of this entire trip.)

Meeting at Monroe Chicken

Tim did not join us for lunch until later. He went off alone with Ms. Cooper-Barnes to meet with the President of the AME. He returned about forty-five minutes later ecstatic with how his meeting went. The President, as Tim described it, couldn’t keep himself in his chair he was so excited about Study Tech and the possibilities. He loved what he heard and wanted to know how it could be introduced and then sustained on a large scale. Tim was so thrilled that later in the evening he called Applied Scholastics to deliver a quick verbal report on the day’s proceedings (he emails regular debriefs) and the strong desire for a large scale program here, for national sustainability. I don’t recall Tim making a call like this on the entire trip. We were very pleased.

Tim with Ms. Barnes and Terez-Dr. Santos from AME 

We left Monroe Chicken and headed for our next meeting. This one we prepared for ahead of time by dressing sharper than usual. We were also told the security for this excursion would be more time consuming than usual. It was. We made it on time, got through the security details and at 2:00 stepped into the office of the Vice President of Liberia to meet with, as his business card read: "Samuel A. Stevquoah, Chief of Staff, Office of the Vice President, Republic of Liberia”. Though he introduced himself as Steve. He apologized on behalf of the Vice President who couldn’t attend as he was out of the country. What followed was thirty minutes of most excellent dialogue. Tim and Jay spent most of the time speaking, though I did add a few comments about my positive impression of the students I had met in the workshops.

All things considered, it was quite a moment. Yet again I was deeply impressed by Tim and his connections, his smooth delivery, his manners (he is great with names) and his friendly way with everyone he meets. He is a fantastic combination of utmost professionalism and insouciance. Magic. Of course, he had already met Steve and of course he has interacted with the VP before. Mr. Stevquoah liked what he heard about our message and was genuinely interested. Like the leaders of AME, his questions were centered on sustainability. In other words, how can Study Tech as a program be sustained in Liberia on a large scale. 

We left this meeting in good spirits. Our next engagement was a more informal meeting with an old friend of Tim and Jay’s, a gentleman he called a “human rights hero in West Africa”. But that meeting was still a few hours away. We had time to kill. Jay, knowing this, took us to another part of town near the water, a stone’s throw from the slums of Monrovia, West Point. We parked in front of an old, nondescript two-story building. Jay said we were going to see some wildlife. He didn’t tell us where we were headed beyond that. We didn’t know what we were in for. We walked through a dark garage, passed a giant greasy generator, climbed a few sets of winding stairs, and found ourselves on a most pleasant rooftop bar/restaurant called Tides. It was quite a surprise. In a few short steps we left the chaotic, dirty street and appeared on top of the building in a breezy, open, beach bar. The entire southern end of the establishment was open with no walls, just a giant view of the Atlantic Ocean and off to the right, the beaches of West Point. Here we spent the next hour or so. We relaxed, drank some cool water and dined on Kelewele, fried plantains dipped in Liberian hot sauce. Very tasty.      

Our last stop of the night was a meeting with a gentleman by the name of Kofi Woods. He is the human rights hero described by Tim. Mr. Woods is a human rights lawyer, a former national minister in two offices, defender of the poor and a well-known dissident. He is very well-spoken, quick-witted, charming and a great story teller. Many years ago he spoke out against then-president Doe whose brutal and militaristic reign still scars the country. For this Doe made every newspaper in the country print a story telling the nation not to hire Mr. Woods for any reason. Later he spoke out against former President Taylor, currently serving life in prison for war crimes and other heinous acts, and was forced to leave the country by Taylor. 

We met Mr. Woods at a small but surprisingly modern, clean and incredibly well run hotel and restaurant. The restaurant was top notch, from the music to the decor to the very good and inexpensive food. But above all that the service was incredible. The owner took great care to make sure the staff did everything just right. The staff were very professional and wore matching attire. For each course, a muscular young man held a chalkboard menu tableside while the waitress took our order. A completely different experience from any dining experience we’ve had yet.

Much of this dinner was Tim and Kofi chatting, catching up and talking about court cases of national importance, cases with human rights implications for all the countries of West Africa. There is a new regional supreme court called the ECOWAS Court of Justice (Economic Community of Western African States) that hears major cases from the region, the rulings affecting all of West Africa. Kofi told a story of a recent case which put him at the receiving end of a phone call from the president asking him to back down on an issue. He didn’t. Honestly, it was hard to hear much of what Tim and Kofi spoke of, it was very informal and personal between the two of them. But it was a great experience.  

Following this long dinner/meeting we headed back through the now very dark streets of Monrovia towards the hotel where Tim is staying and Jay’s house. This brings us full circle back to where I started this post and the thrill of what we discovered on GoFundMe as we made our way home. 

Thank you again, Delphi Florida Student Council. You made our day.

Until tomorrow...