17 January 2017: Liberia- Swamp fishing / Going to school in Duoplay

I tried fishing! Did I catch anything? Read on!

My blog is getting even more famous with the local rags. Detour to Duoplay proudly proclaims,

               The next day after I arrived in Liberia was a Monday, so Milea took me to her school where she teaches math and chemistry. We got to school at 7:30am, when the other students and teachers were also supposed to show up. Most of the teachers weren’t coming to school because the government stopped paying them, among other complications, and a lot of kids were absent too because their teachers weren’t there to teach them. Milea wouldn’t be deterred, though, and came to a relatively empty school to teach. I sat in as she taught 10^th, 11^th, and 12^th grade math and chemistry classes. Props to her for teaching things that, to my knowledge, she had little to no interest in before. She was pretty good at teaching, too! Her classes were very small, the smallest being 6 people in 12^th grade and the largest at 24 in 10^th grade. Teaching in Liberia is more akin to teaching in the US, with no going around and marking of classwork that sucks up most of the class time, as is standard practice in Lesotho.

Chairman of the (chalk)board

The awesome 10th graders

A 12th grader answering problems up at the front

                After school, we decided to go fishing. Milea had seen people walking around with nets and had been invited to go fishing before, but today would be the day we actually tried it. We followed some kids with nets to this swampy area. We kicked off our shoes and stepped in, the mud squishing through our toes. We watched the others and tried to copy the fishing technique of reaching down to swirl up mud to get the fish out and moving. With the water up to our waists, we tried a few times to use the nets to scoop up fish from the water, with no luck. It was really fun nonetheless.

Lots of people fishing down there

Jamama showing Milea the ropes

Nope, no fish in there

Milea tries with the net

Thumbs up for fishing

                Milea had some other experience with planting rice in a swampy farm a few months earlier. People plant and eat a lot of rice here. They grow it in the swamp, harvest it, dry it, beat it to get the grains out, and swirl and toss it in a circular woven tray to get the chaff out. It’s a lot of work! It really made me realize how easy I had it with easy access to grocery stores in the US.

                After we got back from the swamp and our muddy pants had dried out, we were gifted some little catfish-looking fish by Milea’s neighbor. Then we both realized that neither of us actually knew how to gut/prep fish, so when one of her child stalkers, Jamama, came to eat rice and soup with us, we just gave her the fish. We were telepathically telling her, “Shh, don’t tell the neighbor lady who gave them to us…” Yeah, we’re both not really fish-loving people.

Side note: A big staple in Liberian cuisine is rice and “soup,” which is more like a sauce/stew/gravy that goes over the rice. It can be made out of lots of things, including peanuts, fish, bitterball (a nasty, bitter squash), fish, beans, fresh or dried meat, mashed up cassava greens, and almost always has copious amounts of hot pepe and diarrhea-inducing red oil derived from palm nuts.

After that, my out-of-shape butt followed a much-more-in-shape Milea on a run down the dirt road. Milea was like whoosh down the road and I was like yup…I haven’t run since I had access to a beach in South Africa. Except for when I broke down and got some cheap shoes in Zambia, the only shoes I had to my name for the past four months were my Chacos sandals, so running wasn’t exactly on my daily schedule. It was pretty fun to get out on the road, though, seeing the red dirt road in front of me contrasting with the green jungley trees to either side. We were in the midst of the dry season, and boy was there dust everywhere. The reddish orange dust had settled on every leaf on the plants lining the road, and you couldn’t help but squinch your eyes to avoid all the flying dust when a motorbike buzzed by.

The next day at school, Milea was happy to let me teach her classes for the day. There were no chemistry classes that day, only math, so I felt in my element. Unlike in Lesotho where they very ineffectively mix up all the math topics in each year, here they actually do one math topic/subject per year (geometry, trigonometry, etc.). Her students ranged in ages from the normal young-teenage age to fully grown adults, many with kids, and a few who actually brought their kids to school out of necessity sometimes. I did miss teaching, but after I was done, I didn’t miss how much it tires you out by the time the school day is over. I went home and ate some lunch while Milea stayed to have her reading club after school. She has a few motivated students who are really pumped about getting their reading levels up, which is awesome, and it’s great that she gives them a chance to practice by joining this club.

The outside of the school, complete with newly-built fences to keep children in and goats out

Coming soon: I get out of Duoplay and visit the big weekly market, with many market discoveries to be made!