Hands on means the fun is on!

Few things are as much fun as getting your hands dirty and putting to test the things that you know.  This is specially true when you have learned things recently that you can put to the test immediately.  This is one of the points that our Summer Start program tries to emphasize.  This week it all just seemed to click.  Maybe it is because the teams (team work being another emphasis area) finally came to the point of deliverables.  Maybe is because of how the staff and students have started to gel so well together and have seemed to work all their kinks out.  Maybe it is because after two weeks or so the emphasis we place on community has allowed the students to let go of the ideas they tend to follow in normal life at their universities.  Either way, this was the week of hands on fun, community building and incredible demonstrations.  

Warm-and-Fuzzies

Mim Jones continues to amaze us with her work and devotion to the student.  She brought to this year's program, among many things, the idea of warm-and-fuzzies.  Each student decorated a cartoon of themselves and pasted on a manila envelope.  We then pasted the envelopes on our cafeteria walls for everybody to see.  At any point students get to write little messages to their peers and deposit them in the envelopes.  Nobody gets to read them until the end.  At first we thought the students might find this silly.  But after the first day of hanging them up it was a clear success.  Students spend hours after dinner writing messages to each other.  They then placed a self imposed curfew and made everybody clear the cafeteria after 10:00 pm so nobody would cheat and peek into their envelopes.  They have been continuing their little messages all week long.  The GIEU students and the rest of the staff had to get in on the fun.  Even our cafeteria staff got their own warm-and-fuzzies.  

Few things get Liberians excited as much as a little friendly competition.  That is what we started the week with.  The first year engineering students have been working in teams of 4 to develop a bridge made out of popsicle sticks.  The bridges were tested to see which one could hold the most weight.  But of course, this is engineering, so the winner would be the bridge that held the most weight while using the least amount of materials.  All the bridges were weighed and then tested till failure.  Then we calculated the load-to-weight ratio to find out the winner.  There were other prices like most innovative design, best report, and the on-time award.  

Bridges are ready for testing

The testing of the bridges was absolutely hilarious.  All of the teams had to get involved with hooting and hollering.  There was chanting and encouragement and laughing and really loud coaching from the team members not placing the load on the bridge.  The load consisted of wet sand dumped into a bucket that was tied to scale and then the bridges.  So the team member placing the sand in the bucket had to deal with their team mates' insistence on going faster, slower, left, right, up, down or simply not worry and just dump the bucket full in there.  

Second year student Angie inspects the bridges

Our second year students were there to encourage their freshmen colleages.  But they were also the judges in the best design competition. It was really nice to see the kids that were here last year encouraging the newbies and receiving kudos for having gone through this before.  We must be doing something right, last year the winner held around 50 pounds.  This year the lightest bridge held the most weight at a whopping 140 pounds!!!!  

Students botanical presentations

Our agriculture students were not left out.  They went on a field trip to survey local farmers and learn what the issues those farmers face are.  The students took a list of questions that had to deal with subjects from economics of the farm to its biodiversity.  The students also did measurements at the farm of things like acreage and crop coverage area.  They then went on a field study of the surrounding areas.  With the always enthusiastic help of Mr. Lahai, our botany professor, they took field guides to identify plants in the area and their uses.  The students treated us to a presentation of their preserved samples along with a discussion of the uses of those samples in medicine, culture, ornamental, and environmental uses.  The samples showed all sorts of uses: caine juice liquor, balms for rashes, tea for malaria and even a highly powerful plant used in potions for the poro and sandie societies.  

Vaccinating the goats

Later in the week the agriculture students went to our new experimental farm of Kpondeh Town.  That farm is being funded by a UNDP proposal that SWB and our NGO partner CRCA received for sustainable farm.  There the Lofa Educational and Agricultural Foundation (LEAF) and the county livestock supervisor gave the students a practical training.  They learned how to handle animals, factors for the establishment of a farm and the needed vaccines and medicines for goats, sheep and some other animals.  Of course, they their hands dirty by actually vaccinating all the goats, sheep and dogs in the farm!  

The Egg drop machines

We closed our week with a marvelous EGG DROP competition that our good friend and Peace Corps volunteer Ryan Macloughlin coordinated.  It was an optional competition and the only prices are bragging rights.  The students were instructed to create groups with at least one agriculture student and one engineering student in each team.  They were then to create an egg protection machine to enter into the competition.  The materials available were cardboard, popsicle sticks, masking tape, and rubber bands.  

They built their machines on Saturday afternoon.  Even the Teaching assistants, the GIEU students and some of the instructors entered the competition!  On Sunday afternoon we gathered around the 150 ft tall clock tower on our campus.  Each team sent a representative to launch their machine to see which ones would allow the egg to survive the drop.  

Despite of my incredibility about half of the 13 teams actually had a successful attempt.  The designs involving parachutes made out of cardboard seemed to fair the best.  Unfortunately both instructors that entered the competition failed!  Sara and Ryan are going to have to figure out a better way to save their egg!  

So, the third week of our program ended with a big success, some broken eggs and a lot of laughs. 

Some of our favorite warm and fuzzies

The testing!

We tested all to failure

Alex checks out the setup

Case Lee tests his bridge

Practicum at the farm

The baby goat

Aarlos vaccinates the sheep

Group Picture

Kabeh only wanted to hold the baby goat

Yes, he got vaccinated too

Sara's not so successful egg machine

Mim at the testing site

Ryan's egg DROP

Parachute designs were very successful

Celebrating the survival of the egg

Not all successes were parachutes

Amos and Borbor check out their surviving egg

Sara's egg was not so protected

All the winners

Oasis

Last year our Summer Start program was done at Cuttington University.  While there I remember the distinct feeling that Cuttington was a sort of oasis in the middle of a rebuilding Liberia.  Rolling hills over look rubber, rice and cassava farms.  Tilapia ponds dot the sides.  Little roads lead to villages that bring their wares to market.  Beautiful houses protect the staff and even give them gardens and porches to spend their afternoons in.  The students and the staff walk to the river to wash their laundry every weekend but more out of community than need.  There was running water in the houses.  Electricity was available… sporadic but available.  The neighboring city of Gbanga had most of what one would need, including a night club, a taylor that made "so fine clothes", and a breakfast joint with egg sandwiches.  It was easy to enjoy the place and feel as if in a far different place than Monrovia and it's craziness.  

Ryan leads a music night

I remember attributing the feeling of progress to the presence of the university and the education that it gave to its students and the surroundings.  I feel universities tend to bring this sort of feeling to their communities: a sort of wellness and progressiveness.  But there are exceptions.  University of Liberia is a bit dysfunctional as I mentioned before.  Our arrival did not help.  The buildings were still not quite livable.  The university had serious delays during the semester which caused finals to land right on our schedule.  Our students are having to leave our classes to go take their finals.  Never mind the problems that brings to our camp, the students seem stressed and over worked.  

Students survey the Kpondetown farm

I dont blame the students.  They had no hand in the scheduling issues (other than a few days of rioting a couple of weeks ago).  Professors tend to cancel their exams and reschedule for another day, regardless of what that does to the students.  Some of our students have four tests scheduled for the same time!  Worse than that is the solution to the issue.  The student has to choose what test to take, then fail the other ones, or receive an incomplete on their class.   The strategies the students follow to cope with this are almost comical.  Some of the students try to take a test as fast as they can then rush to the other one and try to at least get some points on it. Some students foreseeing this problem study very hard for their midterms so that if they come to this they can at least pass the class.  Some students just pick the test that represents the largest percentage of a class grade and take that one.  Needless to say,  GPAs here literally mean nothing.  Professors also tend to refuse to come to campus and ask students instead to go to their private offices to make presentations.  This puts a huge stress on the students who tend to pay more on transportation than on tuition and fees.  

So the view of Universities providing that oasis of development and peace has been shattered for me here at UL.  However, something has happened over the last two weeks.  Students.  Students living together and struggling together.  Students being coached, encouraged and mentored by people who have their best interest in mind.  Peace Corps volunteers, UL and Cuttington selected staff, RTI employees and UM faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, have been giving these students all they can each and every day.  The results have been amazing to say the least.  The dorm and the "Chinese Buildings" have turned into a place of laughter, studying, reading, experimenting, dancing, pranks, and even worship.  

Checking out the rabbit farm

Fellowship is sprouting everywhere like wild flowers in a burnt field.  The small courtyard in between the buildings has turned into a mini-soccer field with daily games and a referee.  We are having a 4 on 4 tournament today.  The cafeteria empties after food to turn into a study room and small study groups.  At night, we show movies and students half watch and half read their articles and homework.  Facilitators from our staff help the students study for their finals. Yesterday the students commandeered the kitchen staff utensils and attention to build their popsicle stick bridges.  They spent most of their Saturday morning tinkering with their designs.   The dorm breaks out into laughter and song.  Our very artistically inclined Ryan smith leads the students in evening songs with his guitar.  It usually takes about a half hour before the students take over with their singing to drown him out.  It almost always ends up in a dance party of some sort.  

Checking the goat farm

It is not only fun and games.  This week the students visited three different farms.  They surveyed the farmers, observed their growing and management methods, listened to their issues and identified crops and wild species in the fields.  They surveyed plots with crops, taking measurements and estimating crop coverage.  The computer lab, once plagued with viruses on every computer, is now virus free and has been full of minds learning to type, produce spread sheets, create documents and prepare presentations.  The second year Engineering students have been test driving a server packed of information for their different research projects in alternative energy, water purification, hydroponics, and irrigation.  

 Slowly but surely the feeling of being on an island from the rest of the world has been emerging.  The ocean of craziness laps at the shores but more and more we feel the oasis sprouting up from inside to create development, spread education and improve the conditions of the people in it and around it.  The oasis is taking root and growing.  I was wrong, the institution of universities does not create the oasis.  It is the people, the students, that make it.  It is them who, with a  little bit of our help, have made an oasis of sanity in the midst of the craziness.

Futbol in the rain

After surveying the farmers the students process their data 

Daddy does research ont he internet

Amos and Stanley check on data for their project

Ryan teaching computer lab

Steph explains exercises in the computer lab

Just plain fun in the lab

The antivirus stick that Kathleen, Bonnie et al used to clean the computer lab at UL.