Excited for the program!

By Ryan Smith:

I have turned to the next chapter of my experience here in Liberia.  I was living my days back in Sinkor with a pseudo-Western panache, and now I am thrust into the Liberian countryside, and have officially switched my mind from planning logistics to teaching kids about engineering and agriculture.  All the while, meeting some amazing new people who, the more I get to know them, the more I realize that they are superstars.

The training session at Cuttington has officially begun, and that means that all the logistics I have been envisioning for months is finally coing true!  And it’s a bit surreal.  The people I have only heard on the phone or through email are finally here to meet me face to face, and the team is finally coming together.  And this is where I stop and realize how privileged I am to be working with such amazing people, and how grateful I am that they saw value in the EHELD program enough to spend several weeks with us, teaching the next generation of bright young Liberians about careers in engineering and agriculture.

Who are these people?  They are the Peace Corps and my fellow U of M graduate students.  They are an amazing lot.  All 20 of them.  They each bring their unique talents, bright personalities, immense experiences, and upbeat enthusiasm, and as I sat with them in that dusky lounge the first night at the dorms in Cuttington, I knew something special was coming together.

It’s been great to feel like I am at summer camp again, after several years.  We have been rooming together in the dorms, eating together, walking together, and doing evening activities together, and after the lights go out, we still lay back on the lounge couches or in our bunk beds and talk even in the darkness.  It’s been just a bunch of close-knit stuff that makes the bonding between us even stronger.

Each day, we have been preparing for our math, English, exploratory lab, hands-on lab, and life skills sessions, so we can feel comfortable teaching them at our camps.  So the 20 of us gather round in the minimalistic class room and talk about the curriculum.  And that’s where the magic happens.  Having such a diverse group of people, who have seen so much in Liberia, have so much local knowledge as well as theoretical and practical knowledge, has resulted in an amazingly productive way of gaining feedback on the curriculum in a way that is not possible any other way.  The Peace Corps know what topics will resonate with their high school students; they know how village youth think and how they behave.  And so right on the spot, the approach to our curriculum was changed for the better.  As we moved forward, the feedback was riveting and as valuable as gold.

This Fast Start camp is going to be amazing.  I am particularly proud to be part of the Zwedru camp, who will have a powerhouse group of 4 instructors ready to ride over 8 hours on the rough country road to Grand Gedeh county.  Ryan McLaughlin is a brilliant and experienced Peace Corps volunteer with massive scientific knowledge and ability to understand the mindsets of rural Liberians like those in his village of Karnplay, Nimba County.  Caleb Lush is another Peace Corps volunteer in Sass Town, Bomi county, and he is an outgoing, energetic, and upbeat teacher of English at his school, who has developed his own library for students to use in the village, showing that he can make anything happen with a little bit of determination.  And finally, Aisha Moinuddin is a graduate student at UM, who has a degree in both engineering AND Law! Wow.  She is amazing and focused, and also displays an exhuberant energy and enthusiasm for engineering that will be positively infectious with the students.  She also developed the curriculum for the camps, so I know for a fact how engaging these programs will be, and I can’t be more excited.

I have officially hit the road toward my Zwedru camp, and I am writing this blog post from a guest house room in Zwedru!  I am part of an advance team to take a look at the Zwedru Multilateral High School to check everything out before students arrive.  We all expected the trip to take 5 and a half hours, but because of the torrential rain, our trip clocked in at a total of 9 hours!  On the way, we saw at least 5 trucks completely stuck in the mud, and one truck completely toppled onto its side in the mud.  When my fellow three instructors hit the road, I know they will be in for the same bumpiness that I encountered.  But I know they are resilient and will tough it out, for the sake of the students!

Until next time!