I've been home for two weeks now, and it feels GREAT.

There is not one single thing that I miss about Liberia at this point. It's fantastic to be clean and groomed and feeling like a human being again, not some strange exotic animal on display. It's wonderful not to wake up frightened in the middle of the night because of strange noises. It's amazing to eat fruits and vegetables every day, and not a few times a month.

I've been outrageously lazy since I've been home, spending most of my time sleeping, watching TV, and participating in other mindless and unproductive activities. Liberia feels like a distant dream at this point. The peaceful order of Pennsylvanian suburbia -- the green rolling hills, the neatly manicured lawns outside of the quaint two-story houses, the comforting summer smells of cut grass and outdoor grilling, the well-monitored kids and well-fed dogs playing outside in the perfect 75-degree weather -- feels like the only blissful reality in the world. It's easy for me to forget about the Liberian mud, the stench of Liberian litter, the discomfort and frustration and tragedy of Liberian living.

And I want to forget it. When I think about the past nine months, I experience a little shiver of unease. I want to believe that when I got on the plane and traveled back across the ocean, the Liberia I was living in disappeared, that only the happy little world I am now inhabiting remains. I don't want to think about poverty. I don't want to care about the insoluble difficulties of international development.

The scary thing is, for the most part, I'm succeeding at not caring. Somewhere, behind my childish relief at being home again, I want to want to care. Instead, I find myself questioning whether I really want to work internationally again. Why be a glutton for punishment, especially when I have doubts about the ethicality and efficacy of international development work? Why not stay home and pursue the American dream, the house and the yard and the pool and the kids and the dog and the white picket fence?

As my overwhelming sense of relief at being home begins to subside, these little nagging doubts and conflicts in the back of my mind are starting to creep toward the front. I'm realizing that I am actually embarrassed to talk to people about my experiences in Liberia -- embarrassed, perhaps, because they did not live up to the reality of what I think others think a Peace Corps experience should be. To be perfectly honest, I'm firmly convinced that I did not "make a difference." The best I can hope for is that I didn't actually make things any worse; I have no illusions that I actually made things any better for any of the people I was supposedly "helping." But people don't want to hear that. They want a neat little sound bite about the experience, want me to say that "it was hot and buggy and challenging, but so rewarding! The best experience of my life!"

So I feel awkward and artificial, trying to process and package my experiences in a way that makes them acceptable, without denying the very real challenges of international development or belittling the accomplishments of people who do international work. I also feel ashamed when people say (as they often do, perhaps through lack of anything else to say) things like "That's very impressive! I could never do something like Peace Corps!" I feel like I have a dirty secret to hide, a secret about my ineffectiveness, a secret about my frequently less-than-charitable thoughts and actions, a secret about my failures as not only a teacher but a compassionate and caring human being.

I supposed this is reverse culture shock, although it seems to be manifesting itself in strange ways. On the surface I feel only relief, yet I find myself fretting inordinately over little things. Last night, I was up until 3 AM worrying about meeting my fellow first-year medical students in the fall. How can I face them, I kept thinking, when I know what a fraud I am? How can I gloss over the past few years of my life to make myself seem normal? How can I talk about my experiences truthfully without being off-putting, condescending, and/or boring?

The reality is, if I could go back and do the whole thing all over again, I absolutely would. The experience was eye-opening, thought-provoking, and otherwise invaluable. But there are a host of things that it was not -- enjoyable and effective being chief among them -- and I am having trouble reconciling that reality with the ideal Peace Corps experience that, on some level, I seem to wish that I had had.

It's hard to believe, but this is my last night in Liberia. I'm one day and one official signature away from no longer being a Peace Corps Response volunteer.

I am, of course, incredibly excited to get home and see my parents, my siblings, my friends, and my dog. At the same time, I'm already bracing myself for the reverse culture shock. Hopefully it won't be nearly as difficult returning to the US this time around, as I'm going home after having (effectively) completed my service, instead of being yanked out halfway through. I won't have to deal with the feelings of loss (over my abandoned projects), guilt (over my expensive helicopter evacuation when the Kenyans who were actually in danger were abandoned to their fates), confusion (about just what the hell I was supposed to do with my suddenly unemployed self), and depression that accompanied my unexpected and unwilling return to the US after my Peace Corps Kenya service.

At the same time, I can already feel the subtle effects of reverse culture shock. Watching the overly made-up, plastic looking newscasters on CNN World from my hotel in Monrovia, I once again feel a sense of anger at the vapidity of the Western media. Watching the dumbed-down analyses of world events, watching Larry King awkwardly strut and pose in an advertisement for his show, watching the same 5 video clips played over and over and over again, I am struck by the mind-dissolving superficiality of these “news” shows. I have the unsettling sensation that my plane ride tomorrow will take me not over an ocean, but to another planet – a soft, safe, neatly packaged bubble world, in which war, extreme poverty, and hunger are pictures on a screen and not realities.

One thing I really like about Liberian culture is that it seems much less image-focused than American culture. Maybe this impression is false, a result of the fact that I, as an outsider, am oblivious to the subtleties of Liberian culture. Or perhaps the relative absence of the media here really does make Liberians less image-obsessed. In any case, I remember being extremely frustrated with the American fixation on presenting a perfect image when I returned to the US from Kenya. I have a memory of turning on the TV a few weeks after my return from Kenya and watching a show entitled “How To Look Good Naked.” The host of the show was attempting to convince an unhealthily obese woman that she was attractive in her underwear (she wasn't). Disgusted, I changed the channel, to find myself watching a “Top Model”- type show, in which a rail-thin woman was reduced to tears by a magazine editor who condemned her as “too fat.” Sickened by the shows individually and particularly by their schizophrenic contrast, I turned off the TV, thinking “What the FUCK is wrong with my society? Why must we be so shallow that we turn the most basic thing – food – into something so complicated?!”

Living in Liberia is frustrating, yes. It's irritating to be confronted with ignorance. But at the same time, I can understand why that ignorance exists; after all, advanced (and even very basic) schooling is simply not available to the majority of the population. In the US, it is infinitely more frustrating to be faced with what feels like much more willful ignorance. I can't help but think, when confronted with evidence of American stupidity, “What's YOUR excuse, white man?”

So yes. I'm aware that the transition back might not be as easy or smooth as it seems on the surface like it should be. But I also realize that I'm incredibly lucky to be able to get on a plane to the US, to a land of freedom and opportunity and personal comfort. My dominant emotion right now, by far, is excitement.

I'm going HOME!!!!

And I'm back in Monrovia again. I said goodbye to my site yesterday morning, and spent the next 11 hours in a Dramamine-induced stupor, which was marginally preferable to the alternative – the intense carsickness provoked by extended travel in sideways-facing Land Cruiser seats on unpaved roads.

In the end, it was not particularly hard to say goodbye to my home for the last nine months. Saturday started off well, as I gave away the majority of my things to my neighbors. It was gratifying to see how much they appreciated the few T-shirts and pens and pencils that I wanted to unload, and it was nice to be doing something – for once – that was win-win, instead of lose-lose. They were happy because they got a bunch of stuff, and I was happy because I got to get rid of a lot of stuff that I wouldn't really use in the US anyway. “See? I'm a GOOD person!” I thought to myself. “I give clothes to poor people! I give school supplies to children!” And I tried to forget about my failures as a cross-cultural communicator and my failures as a teacher: the complaining students, the frustration and anger that I often immaturely failed to hide, my fears that some Liberians' accusations of racism were truer than I'd like to admit (albeit in an unconscious and unwilling form).

But in any case, the good feelings lasted about 30 seconds. That is about how long it took for all of the people who didn't receive anything to show up at my door and start demanding I give them something. Even when I closed the door and the windows, they continued to shout through the curtains.

And so I was reminded that nothing about development work is ever simple. Some of the screaming, demanding children outside my window were actually from the family to which I had bequeathed most of my things. I had given everything to one of the two wives with instructions to share them with the other wife and all of the children, but realized later that she had distributed most of the things to her own children and not the children of the other wife. By doing my “good deed,” I may actually have created more problems by inducing friction within the family – friction that might even end in violence, knowing the domestic abuse history of the family.

In the car on the way to Monrovia, I distracted myself from the discomfort of the ride by eavesdropping on some interesting political discussions between other (Liberian) passengers. One man in particular had a lot to say about Liberian politics and culture. He kept coming back to the assertion that Liberian culture is being eroded by Westernization, that Liberia is losing touch with its roots. The man had some really interesting opinions, some of them very insightful, and some of them not quite logical. At one point, he denounced another Liberian for stinginess because that Liberian had failed to bring back gifts to share after a recent trip to America, saying “This is our CULTURE! We EXPECT you to bring things back for us!”

Glaring contradiction and all (how can you be upset when someone fails to bring you gifts from the culture you are criticizing as destroying your own?), I think this illustrates a really difficult and fundamental issue in Liberia and other developing countries. We like to believe that we can have our cake and eat it too, that culture can be perfectly preserved while technological and societal advancement continues. But “preserving culture” by nature involves the maintenance of a status quo, while “progress” involves change. It is a source of frustration for Western aid workers that some Liberians seem to want to take advantage of the fruits of Western culture without being “stained” by Westernization. Unfortunately, it’s not possible to have it both ways. Sometimes sacrifices must be made in the name of progress, and often in the developing world that means giving up certain cultural beliefs and practices.

Of course, that is easy for me to say. I’m not being asked to give anything up, and it is my Western culture that is responsible for the outright (through the colonialism of the past) and more subtle and insidious (through the domination of world markets and media today) destruction of the traditional African way of life. Still, I think that those who wish to “preserve” culture fail to take into account the changeable nature of culture. Culture is always adapting, and to oppose change for the sake of “maintaining a connection to one’s roots” is opposing a natural and inevitable progression. I think that anyone who has spent time in a modern African city such as Nairobi can agree that African culture can maintain its integrity even as it changes. Nairobi is a far cry from traditional Kenyan village life, yes . . . but it is also a distinctly African city, in its own right.

In any case, I think that part of me wanted a nice, neat little goodbye, a happy scene in which I bid farewell to Zwedru and the people of Zwedru express their heartfelt thanks for my generosity. But just as the relationship between Western and Liberian culture in general is complex and ethically nuanced, my own relationship with my Liberian neighbors could never be that straightforward.

So it's finally settled – I will be leaving my site on Saturday, and flying back to the US next Wednesday. Two days left at the school. Two precious days, each one a beautiful memory yet to be made. Peace Corps bills itself as “the toughest job you'll ever love,” and it's so true; I love being here and I wish more than I can express that I hadn't decided to leave early. If only I had a few more weeks in Liberia, a few more weeks with these precious, lovely children . . .

HA. Just kidding. Since the students know that I've already calculated their final grades, they have no motivation whatsoever to do any work and are more disruptive than ever. Today, I spent 10 minutes trying to get the 8th-grade class to shut the fuck up so we could review the answers to their last homework assignment, only to give up and storm out of the class in tears, after lecturing them about what disrespectful, ungrateful, thieving little shitheads they are (I didn't actually say those exact words) and telling them how happy I am that I'll never see them again (I did actually say those exact words). I then broke down sobbing in the principal's office, whining about last week's theft of my phone and the disrespect of the students.

So on top of the mess of feelings that I was experiencing before, I can add a healthy dose of shame and embarrassment. I could just see myself, sitting there, the poor self-pitying white lady preparing to fly back to her rich country, crying because a bunch of parent-less, self-supporting, half-educated teenagers WERE MEAN TO ME. Waahhhh!! Waaahhhhh!!!

And because I complained to the principal, all 200 of the 7th and 8th grade students are now being punished by being forced to do manual labor tomorrow, cleaning the campus. Some of the good, responsible students in the 8th-grade class came to me to complain about the punishment, and, pettily, I refused to listen and told them their class was rude and disrespectful and SHOULD be punished.

Oy.

To be fair (and as I tearfully kept trying to explain to the principal in between denunciations of the students), I know that part of why I was so sensitive to the students' misbehavior was because part of me IS genuinely sad to leave. This HAS been an incredibly educational, beneficial, and rewarding experience, and I would not hesitate for a second to do it all over again if I had the chance. There are a lot of wonderful, wonderful people here, and I do feel a great deal of affection and sympathy for the students.

But I'm ready to GET THE FUCK OUT.

Emotions running higher and higher as I prepare to leave Liberia.

Friday, one of my students stole my phone. The idea of it more than anything is what gets to me, that one of the kids I've been fighting to teach for the past 9 months would turn around and do something so backhanded. But although I was really pissed about it for a day, the sympathy of community members – including other students – made me feel much better. It seems like every Liberian I know heard of the theft within 24 hours of its occurrence, and made sure to express their outrage at the student thief's actions. And while it's annoying to be phone-less, I really can't cry about it too much; it's only a phone and I wouldn't have used it in the States anyway.

In general, the students have been driving me absolutely up the wall lately. I've essentially finished teaching, and have been returning my classes' final grades to them, which has resulted in a great deal of whining and begging. I don't know why the students haven't figured out yet that the more they complain about their grades, the less sympathetic I become, but I'm less inclined than ever to listen to their complaints.

In addition to the pressures of school, I've been stressed about the details of my imminent travel back to the US. I still don't know exactly when I'll be leaving town, how long I'll be in Monrovia, and when I'll get home; it all depends on whether or not I can find a ride to Monrovia with an NGO. I know that the school is planning to have some sort of going-away program for me, which puts me in a crunch because they want to hold it at the end of the week, while I want to peace out as soon as I find a vehicle traveling to Monrovia . . . but I know I can't leave without letting them have their formal goodbye. So even though I'd really rather just sneak off without a big fuss (though I am very touched that they want to thank me for teaching here), I know that I'll have to adjust my travel plans around the party and try to enjoy it as best I can.

Anyway. I'm sorry for the whiny, repetitive entry, which I realize is probably very boring to you. As you may have guessed from the fact that I've now written three entries about essentially the same topic, I'm having a little bit of trouble these days seeing past my own very mixed emotions. While I'm eager to get back to the US because of all of the things I just listed, at the same time, each day brings a new little reminder of all of the things I love about living here. Yesterday, the neighborhood kids spent a good hour trying (and failing) to teach me to shoot marbles, and it almost broke my heart to think that I will probably never see most of them again. Everything – my affection for the kids, my worries about getting safely back to the US, my regrets at leaving Liberia, my irritation with the students, my discomfort with hearing people half-jokingly ask me (over and over again) to take them to America, my guilt at the fact that my little adventure in Liberia is coming to an end while those who are really suffering are stuck here . . . all of this is making me into a big old emotional mess.

Let's add up the score from the past few days, shall we?

Yesterday morning, I had a fantastic class with the 8th-grade students, who almost started a full-out brawl over the differences between a physical and a chemical change. (The fact that everyone was screaming at each other was not so great, I guess, but the fact that they were fighting about science made me super happy). They asked some really, really thoughtful questions and were genuinely interested, respectful, and fun to be with. Point Liberia.

Yesterday afternoon, I Gchatted with several friends in the US (a rarity – often the internet is too slow), which made me homesick. Point America.

Yesterday evening, I gave the bulk of my baggage to two Peace Corps staff who happened to be passing through town, and who kindly offered to take my things back to the Peace Corps office in Monrovia to await my departure from the country. Bringing all of my stuff out into the yard caused all of the neighbors to gather around and say super nice things about me, expressing their sadness at my leaving. Many points Liberia.

Yesterday night, I spent another in a series of nights with very little sleep, waking with heart pounding at every little sound and finally getting up at 4 AM to investigate some very strange and ultimately inexplicable noises. Point America.

This morning, I was awakened by the sound of pouring rain, and ended up walking to school in the mud through thick clouds of flying insects. Point America.

This afternoon, I showed some of my students a picture of myself with my siblings and they commented on how nice my skin looked in the picture, unlike now when “the mosquitoes are really biting your face.” Point America.

This evening, I had bread, eggs, and cocoa for dinner for the fourth night in a row. Point America.

End result: A tie, in which somehow I am both a winner and a loser . . .

Strange to think I'll only be playing this game for another week. Somehow, the closer I get to leaving, the more I want to get home, and yet the more reluctant I am to leave.

Since I've been here, I've had a lot of conversations with other expatriates about the so-called “aid mentality” in Liberia. The idea of the aid mentality goes something like this: Because there is so much aid money pouring into the country, and that money is so poorly monitored, and the perception of the West as an infinitely deep well of finances is so firmly ingrained, many Liberians have grown used to the idea of relying on charity. After years of receiving something for nothing, there is little motivation for people to invest their time and energy into various projects, because why should they bother to work when the West can just give them what they need for free?

Whether or not I agree with the idea (and we'll get to that in a minute), I can definitely see why the concept of the aid mentality is so widespread among frustrated foreign aid workers. It never fails to amaze me how open people are about begging here. When (as happened this morning) a child walks up to me on the street and screams at me to give him my umbrella – with his parents egging him on in the background – I can't help but think, “Have you no shame??” We as Americans have a certain horror of asking for charity; beggars are looked down upon by our society. We pride ourselves on being an independent nation where every man can make something of himself if he works hard enough. But here, there is little to no negative social pressure against begging or accepting charity, and so people feel free to ask – or demand – whatever it is they desire, whether or not their request is reasonable by anyone's standards.

So in part because of many Liberians' willingness to demand resources without qualifications, many Western aid workers end up frustrated with what they perceive as Liberians' reluctance to invest a lot of time and energy into various business, educational, or agricultural endeavors. “They have so much LAND and they don't FARM it!!” I hear expatriates complain. “We try to teach them to farm and they don't want to learn! They just want us to GIVE them food!” And while I am disturbed by the vaguely racist undertones of these arguments, at the same time I feel a similar frustration with my students, as you, dear blog reader(s?), well know. “Why don't they CARE?? Why won't they WORK??” I keep asking.

But I think it's important to remember that in the past 20 years in Liberia (the civil war began in 1989), long-term planning has not exactly paid off. Perhaps it's no wonder that many people are hesitant (either consciously or out of habit) to participate in activities requiring confidence in the long-term stability of one's government. Why invest in a farm if the legal system cannot guarantee ownership of one's land? Why invest in one's education if one cannot get a job with a college degree? In America and other developed countries, there is a certain amount of truth to the fact that hard work leads to success (although of course things are not nearly as fair or as simple as we would like to believe). Here, cause and consequence are not necessarily connected. In a corrupt, dysfunctional system, hard work may lead to nothing at all. A person may work her ass off only to see another person promoted because of nepotism, or to see her house robbed by the desperately poor.

In any case, it's true that an “aid mentality” is a perfectly logical explanation for the attitude of many aid recipients. Human beings are selfish and lazy creatures; if we have a choice between working for something or being given it without working at all, we will certainly choose the former. But that “aid mentality” is not necessarily the ONLY explanation for why people behave as they do, and believing too firmly in its truth may be detrimental. After all, the logical way of dealing with people who have become overly dependent on aid is simple: cut off the aid. That way, people will be FORCED to work. But what if the “aid mentality” is a myth, or if there are other complicating factors at play? Mightn't cutting off the flow of aid in this desperately poor country actually exacerbate some of the problems that so frustrate Western aid workers? Logic does not equal truth, and I think that Westerners need to be careful about accepting the gospel of the “aid mentality” simply because it seems true on the surface.

Tired and emotional lately, but not in a bad way. I'm inclined to sentimentalization and romanticism these days, perhaps because it's really starting to hit me that I'm going home and I won't be back. The students seem especially sweet and funny – this one saying he will miss me (replying, when I tell him that Peace Corps will send another teacher in July, “But we want you!”), another thanking me for teaching them (“There are only two teachers in the school who care about the students and you are one of them. The others just want money”). I still can't connect many of the kids' faces to their names, but there are many that I do know, and their little quirks and jokes and even their behavior issues seem very endearing. So even if I'm dismayed to realize just how little material I've covered and how poorly many of the students have mastered it, and even if I recognize that a large part of the students “missing me” is more about missing the novel entertainment of a dorky white American than missing my stellar teaching, I'm still not feeling quite as cynical about being here as I have at certain times.

I've also been feeling sentimental for different reasons. Everybody here has a sad story about how the war has touched their lives, and it's very easy to become callous to them, even if I believe their truth. When someone comes up and begins pouring out a tale of woe – you know my mother and my sister died and I had to flee my home and then there was no food and I lived in the bush for eight years and now there are no jobs and I have no money and my three children are sick and I need money, could you give me money? -- I feel (I'm ashamed to say) more repelled than sympathetic. “God, not another sob story,” I find myself cynically thinking.

But then someone will tell their story in a way that penetrates through the thin shield of involuntary indifference, and it's heartbreaking. One of the teachers sat down with me at lunch the other day and told me his: about fleeing to Ivory Coast, about his wife leaving him and returning to Liberia with his five children, about being reunited with them 9 years later, about how two of the children had died and one had been forced into service as a child soldier, about how the other children were completely illiterate because their mother had kept them home to use as labor instead of sending them to school, about how he blamed his wife for ruining the futures of all of his children. It was strange and sad and somehow enlightening to hear this man sitting across from me tell me in a straightforward, almost upbeat manner “My children are wasted. If my woman had sent them to school then I could enjoy them now that they are grown, but I am sad to say that they are wasted.” I couldn't help but think – no wonder people here sometimes seem to me to act in crazy, strange, illogical ways. They have been forced into crazy, strange, illogical situations that no human being should have to endure.

My emotionality has also been enhanced by the fact that, by telling people that I am going home soon, I have opened the floodgates of request. It's awkward, annoying, heart-rending, and sometimes darkly humorous to hear the things that people expect an American to be able to do for them. People who see America as the golden land of opportunity ask me for things that are both pathetic and completely unrealistic – for example, that I buy them a plane ticket and allow them to live in my house as a cleaning person. When I try to explain that it doesn't really work like that – that America doesn't exactly open its arms to immigrants with less than a primary school education and that Americans don't particularly like relative strangers squatting in our houses -- I am often met with disbelief. A security guard with a local NGO wrote his full name and address down on a piece of paper and asked me to find him a wife, and when I told him that most American women probably wouldn't be too keen on marrying someone they had never met, he told me that there were plenty of American women who “needed an African man” and that I could find them on the internet. He would look himself, he told me, except that the internet at the NGO blocked all of the most promising sites for finding American wives.

So yes. In the waning days of my service, now that I know that home and comfort and family and friends are just around the corner, I'm seeing things in a more positive , sympathetic light. I'm doing better at recognizing the humor in different situations instead of being annoyed (as when the other day someone told me I was looking SO FAT that he almost didn't recognize me on the street). And while I'm happy that this whole (to use a horrible cliché) crazy roller caster ride is coming to an end, I'm already missing some aspects of life here in Liberia.

It's odd to realize the extent to which we lonely, individualistic Americans are connected in a digital, if not a literal, sense; whether or not we want to be, we are constantly inundated with information from and about other people. Even without owning a television or a radio or subscribing to a newspaper, a person living in most parts of the US can't help but be informed of major national and world events (although whether we listen to what is being reported or understand it in a broader context is a different story). Information is everywhere – on the radio or TV or computer monitor at work, in the restaurant, the bar, the doctor's office waiting room, the airport lounge, the bus, and so forth.

Liberia is, for the most part, cut off from that sea of information. There are several national newspapers here, but they are of laughably poor quality and rarely make it to the cities and villages outside the capital (the only ones I have seen in my town have been several months outdated). And while there are quite a few satellite televisions in my town (which is, I should emphasize again, the county capital and thus one of the largest in the region), I have never seen them tuned to anything other than soccer or African soap operas. I do hear people listening to BBC Africa reports in the morning, but relatively few people own radios, and poorer-quality radios (such as my own) cannot pick up the station. So along with the majority of the population of Liberia, I am pretty well disconnected from the rest of the world, with the exception of the few times a week that I plug my brain back into the internet or phone my family to actively seek out what is happening in my home country and abroad.

The funny thing is, I don't really miss the constant connectivity, and I don't feel particularly disconnected. The massive flood of “information” that we are exposed to in the US is, I can't help but feel, mostly bullshit. News stories are marketed fast-food style to a population that expects our media, like our meals, in attractively packaged, bite-sized form, but devoid of any substantive value. When I get online, I usually log into Google Reader and quickly scan through the most recent of the thousands and thousands of media headlines from the New York Times, Newsweek, Time Magazine, my hometown's local newspaper, Scientific American, Livescience.com, the BBC, AllAfrica.com, the Associated Press, CNN, NBC, and any number of other random news outlets that I've subscribed to at some point or another. Out of those thousands of headlines, there are usually about 5 articles that are actually worth reading . . . and then only about the first 2 sentences of those generally have anything of substance to say.

This may all sound self-evident to you (who are probably a little bit faster on the uptake than I), but the sheer ridiculousness of the tiny substance-to-information ratio – even from well-established and -respected media organizations – did not strike me until my forcible disconnection from US society and the web.

The other (probably obvious) thing about the Western media that did not really sink into my brain until I spent a significant amount of time away from it this: it is incredibly biased. I think that because I know we live in an open society, a society ostensibly built upon the values of open discourse and free speech, I unconsciously assumed that our media is relatively accurate (as long as one avoids the one-sided sources, the Fox News and ilk). I kind of figured that, although there was a lot of unnecessary crap and “fluff” out there, the “real” news that was reported – particularly from sources such as the BBC and the New York Times – was relevant and reasonably accurate. But what is “relevant” to our population is not necessarily what is relevant to the rest of the world, and what is “accurate” is often totally one-sided, if not completely wrong.

There is, of course, a lot going on in the world, and we are a very busy nation. So it's not too difficult to understand why we like our reports on international events to be pre-digested, with the “good guys” and the “bad guys” clearly identified (since, after all, it's not like we have time to fully understand every nuance of every occurrence in the world; give us the gist of things and forget the rest). In Kenya, immediately following the December 2007 elections but prior to my evacuation back to the US, it surprised me to hear the ways in which the widespread tribal violence was being reported in the States. One friend informed me of a “human interest” special he saw on TV portraying one of the tribes, the Kikuyus, as victims (which they were, in the sense that British colonialism really fucked them over) . . . but which failed to emphasize that the incumbent president of Kenya, whose rigging of the elections provoked the outbreak of violence, was a Kikuyu and that the Kikuyus were in modern times regarded by other ethnic groups as one of the most powerful tribes in the country. (This is not to say that the Kikuyus were to “blame” for the post-election violence – since as far as I could tell they were not any more or less culpable than any of the other tribes that participated – but only to illustrate the fallacy of sacrificing accuracy and completeness to create interest).

Other reports I read suggested that the violence in Kenya might be the first signal of a start to another Rwanda – an inappropriate parallel, given the scale of the events, the number of tribes in Kenya, and the complexity of Kenyan tribal interactions (no single tribe represents more than around 30% of the population in Kenya). In the interest of making the Kenya conflict “marketable” to Americans, the media managed to skew it in a way that obscured its true significance – as a tragic manifestation of long-standing and complex (though previously mostly dormant) ethnic frictions, and a reminder that, in a population that is struggling with massive poverty and eking out a frustrating existence, any spark can provoke a flare-up of senseless violence.

Still, at least the Kenya violence was reported. When I get online, I usually do a quick search for articles on Liberia, to see what the rest of the world thinks is going on here. For the most part, this does nothing but reinforce just how unimportant this country is to the West; if Liberia is disconnected from the international news scene, then the international news scene is equally as unconcerned with Liberia. Aside from a few articles on the trial of Charles Taylor, there is rarely anything at all about Liberia. Events that I would expect to merit at least a minimal amount of coverage – online if not actually in print – receive nothing or next to nothing. For example, a few weeks ago, an outbreak of religious or tribal violence in the northwestern Liberian city of Voinjama resulted in the death of at least one Liberian (and the evacuation of several Peace Corps volunteers). This event resulted in one lonely newspaper article in AllAfrica.com, two paragraphs long, which said only that UN peacekeepers were being deployed to the region. Strange to realize just how much there is going on in the world that we as Americans will never know about, despite the paradoxically overwhelming flood of information we receive on a daily basis.

I started writing an entry about student absenteeism (attendance is around 30-40% right now) and the mix of emotions it produces in me ( . . . relief that I don't have to deal with the kids, shame at feeling such relief, irritation and boredom at having nothing to do, frustration that it will be very difficult to fairly assign grades for the final marking period, exoneration of my guilt at leaving early . . . and so on). I wrote “I feel terrible about wanting to go home so badly and caring so little about what happens to my students, but at the same time I can't help but feel incredibly cynical about my work here as a teacher.”

But then, I went to return my students' exam papers to the 7th and 8th grade classes, and two things happened that made me do a major flip-flop from "cynical" to "sentimental."

My afternoon 7th grade class is a source of constant trouble for me. There is a dichotomy in the class, more so than in any of my other classes; four or five students consistently score around 80-90% on my exams, and the other 45 kids rarely exceed 10-20%. When I returned their exam papers to the kids, most of them – being in the latter category – were dismayed and upset. Please, please come into our classroom and give us extra credit, they begged me . . . and I did, gratified by their interest and also ashamed at their – and by reflection, my – failure on the exam. Walking around the classroom, trying without success to explain math to kids who are completely and totally lost and confused, I realized (or rather remembered) that, despite how things may seem, the kids DO care and they DO feel badly when they fail. Although they are the immediate sources of a lot of my frustrations and so I am tempted to be short-tempered with their behavioral issues, they are the victims. They are the ones who have been failed by the dysfunction of the educational system, and my real frustration as a teacher is with that system, not with the students themselves.

So that was the first thing – a reminder to me that, cultural and classroom management issues aside, my negative feelings should be directed more at the failure of the system than at my students or myself.

The second thing that happened was that one of my 8th-grade students – one of the few who received a very high grade on this past exam – came up to me, elated, shook my hand, and asked if I was happy with her. She failed every other exam this year, but she had one of the highest scores this marking period and wanted me to congratulate her (which of course I did, pleased at her happiness – although I suspected that the high score was due to the probability that she managed to cheat without getting caught. But that's beside the point). And so I was reminded of another very important thing: that the students respond very well to positive reinforcement. That is why my neighbors' kids run up to me when they get their report cards, eager to show me their successes . . . because, although they will be beaten when they bring home a bad grade, there is rarely anyone to say “Great job!” when they get a good one. In my losing battles against cheating and disruptive behavior, I've forgotten how far a simple “Good work!” can go (corny as that sounds).

When I am jogging, it happens quite frequently that children will start running alongside or behind me, often mocking my speech or yelling things I can't quite understand about the “white woman” as they do so. I used to laugh it off, pretend that I was in on the joke, let them know that I knew they thought it was funny . . . but my patience quickly ran out. Now, as soon as a kid starts to follow me, I immediately stop, frown at them, and wave my hand in a “stop” motion to show that I don't want them following me. It's really irritating, but I try not to get too upset about it, because (as I remind myself with varying degrees of success) they are just kids and don't know any better.

But today, as I was running, a fully grown woman – probably around 30 – started running alongside me. Surprised and annoyed that an adult would be acting this way, I stopped running and turned around.

“Don't do that,” I said bluntly.

“Marg shmar shmargh,” she said – an obnoxious, gibberish imitation of an American accent.

“Fuck you,” I said.

Laughing, she turned to her friends. “The white woman says 'fuck you.' White woman calling black woman names,” she said. “The white woman scared of the black woman.”

“Why are you following me like the little children do?” I said.

“The white woman scared of the black woman. White woman calling the black woman names,” she said to her friends again, ignoring me.

“You're very rude,” I said.

For some reason, even though I knew it was pointless and I should really just forget about the whole thing and walk away, I felt a petty, frustrated need to explain that I wasn't being racist – I just really didn't want this woman following me, aping my movements. I futilely tried to explain to some other people who had come over why I was annoyed – since the woman either didn't understand me or just refused to respond to anything I said – but eventually I simply left. When I was a short distance away, I started jogging again, and the woman sprinted up behind me to chase me again. I stopped running and walked the rest of the way home, and, her fun spoiled, she turned back laughing.

Interactions like this always leave me feeling unsettled and upset. It's a mix of my humiliation at being treated as something vaguely less than human, and my feeling of shame in having acted out my frustrations inappropriately. It drives me absolutely crazy when Liberians of any age (but especially adults) talk about, but not to, me as though I am not there – or worse, make fun of things I am saying or doing as though I can't see or hear them (as I felt this woman was doing). But that's no excuse for me to turn around and de-humanize them the way I think they are doing to me.

It shocked me when I first arrived in Kenya, and then here in Liberia, to hear other volunteers or aid workers talking disparagingly about the attitude of “these people” or making similarly broad, negative statements. It was amazing, I thought, how easy it was for “cultural differences” to become an excuse for a subtle racism. Now, when reading through my own blog entries, I sometimes become fearful that I am guilty of the same thing – that, in trying to understand the very real cultural differences that do exist, I am overgeneralizing, focusing only on the negative, refusing to see another point of view and wrongly extrapolating my limited experiences to an entire country of individuals. When I say, as I did in my last entry, “a lot of people seem to think that it is the responsibility of those in power and not the individuals in the society to maintain order. There is very little sense of personal responsibility” -- am I not being racist myself? Once again, I have to ask: when do I cross the line from an objective, though negative, analysis of national differences into cynicism and prejudice?

In any case, it is because of these fears that I feel so confused and disturbed when I experience a total breakdown in cross-cultural communication such as the one I described here. In my eyes, this woman was mocking me to my face and then refusing to actually speak to me – treating me like a child or even a dumb animal . . . but clearly that is not at all how this woman or the other Liberians interpreted this situation. And I can't help but wonder if I, in my frustration and lack of understanding, am unconsciously reinforcing my own hidden racist tendencies, becoming less instead of more understanding. And that thought terrifies me.

This has not been a good week (. . . and it's only Wednesday . . . ).

Things really started to go downhill yesterday, when a student from my 7th-grade afternoon class sat down in the teacher's lounge and proceeded to tell me about his problems with one of his classmates. Apparently, she has been insulting his father and he wants to “beat her.” (“I will beat her. I will beat her on the campus. I will beat her in the streets.”) When I told him that this was probably not a great idea, he proceeded to inform me that nobody has any respect for me and that the students don't listen to anything I say. He said that I don't punish the students enough, that sending them out of the classroom isn't really a punishment at all because they don't care about school anyway. When I suggested that he could bring the girl in and we could talk about whatever problems they might have, he said that it would be pointless since she wouldn't listen to anything I have to say anyway. Irritated, I told him that if that's what he thought then he shouldn't even have bothered talking to me in the first place, but should go talk to someone who he thinks is capable of dealing with the problem.

So he went to find another teacher, and I sat in the teacher's lounge and thought about what he said. Up until now, I've pretty much been ignoring a lot of the little petty fights that go on in the classroom. The students are always fighting over school supplies (“He took my pen!”) and other stupid shit, and it's usually impossible for me to figure out who is in the wrong. So most of the time I tell them to sit down and shut up and do their work and work it out later. I'm here to teach, I keep thinking, not to babysit a bunch of 14-year-olds, even if it sometimes seems like most of them have the emotional maturity of toddlers.

And I think this whole approach has been completely wrong. I guess I was hoping that the students would shape up somewhat once they saw their report cards. I naively thought they might realize that I was going to give them the grade that they earned (be it passing or failing), and that they would not be able to beg or bribe or whine their way out of a failing grade, and that this would motivate them to pay more attention in class. But as my student pointed out, it doesn't work that way, because a lot of them really don't give a shit about school at all. The students believe that I need to be keeping them in line, and the fact that I let them get away with their petty bickering means that I'm weak and irrelevant and undeserving of their respect or attention.

So as I thought this (and realized that I probably should have made more of an effort to understand the students' viewpoint 8 months ago when I first came instead of waiting until it was too late and I was about to go home), the student came back into the room and started repeating all the reasons that his classmates think I'm a laughingstock. And as he went on and on and on about my incompetence, I started getting really pissed, and (it makes me cringe just to think about this) I cut him off and told him I was sorry he had a problem but I just couldn't talk to him about it anymore right then, and that he needed to leave, and when he stood there and looked at me like I was crazy I said he needed to get out get out GET OUT OF THE ROOM!!

Not my proudest moment. Even less admirable was what I did next, which was to be really, really irritable, mean, and impatient with the 7th grade class as they were taking their marking period exam (“READ THE DIRECTIONS! MAKE A LIST! A LIST!! DO YOU KNOW WHAT A LIST IS?” I kept shouting as 30 kids repeatedly asked me the same question about a very simple, clearly explained test item, which I had just explained aloud to the class. Strangely enough, screaming at them neither improved their literacy skills nor made it easier for them to understand my accent).

In addition to the incident with that student, this week has been particularly rotten because we are giving exams, which are always hellish. I know I've complained many times about the cheating before, but it still just blows my mind that it's not just a few – or a bunch – of bad apples; IT'S ALL OF THEM. The second I walk over to address one cheater, twenty people start exchanging answers behind my back. I've torn up probably 10 test papers in the last few days and taken points away for talking from maybe two dozen more, and it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever. The 10th-grade kids actually laugh at me now when I go over the no-cheating policy, because they know that they are just going to go ahead and cheat anyway and that, for the most part, there's nothing I can do about it.

So yeah. I'm frustrated with work in general, and I'm angry with myself for being impatient and immature and taking my student's comments so personally. I'm especially upset because I know he's right: the students' behavioral issues are exacerbated by my inability or unwillingness to deal with them appropriately.

Having said all that, I can't help but make the connection again between the “catch me if you can” attitude I see in the students and some of the issues with society here as a whole. The idea that “someone needs to keep me in line” explains a lot, in my eyes. The stealing, corruption, all of that – a lot of people seem to think that it is the responsibility of those in power and not the individuals in the society to maintain order. There is very little sense of personal responsibility. I can only guess as to why this mentality exists and is so widespread, but I think that, to an extent, it probably developed during the civil war. Sometimes – I think because it's just so hard for me to imagine it – I forget just how recent and how brutal the war really was (very and very). If I think about it, I can see how people who have just come through a violent period of anarchy might be more inclined to believe that the ends justify the means, that they should do whatever they need to do to get by, even if it involves law- or rule-breaking.

Anyway. Thankfully, I have only one more exam to give, and then I don't have to face the students again until next Monday. And after that, there are just a few weeks left until I go home. I just hope that I can make it to the end of the year before I discover any more unpleasant realities about how poorly I deal with stressful situations.

Update on the “break-in” I wrote about last week: It turns out that the two men I saw were trying to steal a station wagon that was parked just outside my bedroom window. Thus the loud metallic sound that woke me, which I interpreted as coming from my tin roof, was actually due to the men's clumsy efforts to get into the car. I'm definitely embarrassed to have allowed my paranoid imagination run away with me, but I'm also quite relieved that the thieves had nothing to do with me or my house.

Anyway.

As the end of my service draws near, I've started thinking about what I'm going to do with all of my crap when I go home. I'm definitely going to leave most of my clothes and extra toiletries and all of that with my neighbors; that part is easy. But what do I do with some of the more expensive things -- my laptop, for example, or my old mp3 players? The laptop is kind of a piece of shit, a Linux-based netbook purchased for $150 online just as the netbook phenomenon was starting to take off. But although it's very basic – it can't do much more than run Firefox and a word processor – it's still a reliable, functioning computer, which are hard to come by here. Do I sell it to someone for cheap? Do I give it to the school? Or do I take it back home and continue to use it until it craps out? The problem is, even though I could certainly afford to buy another cheap little netbook, I don't want to leave the one I have with someone unless I am absolutely sure they will put it to good use . . . and I don't know if anyone will.

And then there is the issue of what, if anything, I want to do for the school when I leave. The principal of the school (who I really, really like . . . actually, the entire administration of the school is pretty great) has been not-so-subtly hinting that he wants me to raise money or donations when I get back to the US. A previous volunteer just had seven boxes of donated textbooks shipped over to put in the school's library, and the principal has mentioned this several times and even made me look at the boxes and a couple of the books inside.

The problem is, I don't really want to give anything to the school. It's not because I'm mean (although if I'm being 100% honest, it is partially because I am lazy). I just don't know what I could donate that would actually be useful. The idea of books is nice . . . but the school already has a pretty decent library full of used books, many of which sit on the shelves unused. I'm not sure how useful it is to spend a lot of time and money collecting old unwanted books from one continent and shipping them over to another continent, where they will be equally as old and unwanted. Do the students here really need another twenty copies of health books aimed at American teenagers? I've flipped through a couple of the health books in the library and it's shocking how little is relevant to peoples' lives here. Teens growing up in an environment in which malaria, diarrheal diseases, and malnutrition are still major problems have more pressing concerns than the emotional changes accompanying puberty, which seems to be the focus of a lot of these books. And the passages on relationships and sexual health, which are significant concerns in a country with such a high teen pregnancy rate, just do not apply in a non-Western culture.

So, if I'm not going to seek out book donations for the school, what can I give? When I initially arrived at the school, the principal told me he wanted help building a science laboratory. But I'm not overly thrilled by that idea either, mostly because of my experiences during my first Peace Corps service. My school in Kenya had a pretty well-stocked laboratory, which was the pride of the headmistress and which still figures in my nightmares. Reactive chemicals – purchased and never used – were improperly stored in crumbling containers. The one time I took my class of 35 into the lab to do a practical, which involved nothing more complicated than measuring the temperature of boiling water, the ancient tubing connecting the Bunsen burner to the gas tap caught fire (twice) and two students broke mercury thermometers. Terrified, I ordered the students out of the lab, and henceforth I never allowed them to use anything more dangerous than a magnifying lens. The mere thought of trying to do any kind of lab activity with the unruly 150-person chemistry class I have here makes me break out in a cold sweat.

All of these examples illustrate the fundamental problem with donations. My basic issue is that all of the things it would be easiest for me to obtain are not the things that the school really needs. The school is desperately in need of money and resources, yes . . . but that money really needs to go to the teachers, first and foremost, so that they start coming to class and stop accepting student bribes. Class sizes need to be reduced before the students can really start making use of donated “stuff” -- books and lab supplies and all that. The students could definitely benefit from computer classes, but the few computers that the school owns stand useless throughout most of the day because the school can't afford the generator fuel to run them or the salary for a computer instructor. And none of these are issues that I can easily fix. They have no one-time solution, but require a continued inflow of cash.

So once again, I'm stuck in a situation that has no good solution. I can be lazy and do nothing, despite the fact that I know the school really does need resources. Or I could try to collect donations of books or school supplies in the States, knowing as I ship them that they are unnecessary and probably not all that helpful, and the only reason I'm even bothering is to quiet the little voice in my head that tells me I should be doing SOMETHING.

I saw a great T-shirt today. In sassy lettering across the chest of a large Liberian man, it said: “I'M NOT ONLY PERFECT, I'M ALSO A REDHEAD” (. . . which seemed like unnecessary repetition to me, but whatever).

Both here and in Kenya, everyday attire is a wonderful, colorful mix of Western and African styles. Tailors in Liberia are cheap, numerous, and skillful, and lappa (bright cotton wax-print fabric, mostly manufactured in other West African countries, such as Ghana and Nigeria) is sold everywhere. Many people (especially women) reserve their tailor-made African suits for Sundays and other special occasions, while wearing cheaper Western used clothing during other days of the week.

The women's African suits are absolutely beautiful. There are many different styles, from medieval-looking princess dresses with flowing sleeves, to severe square-cut suits with boxy 80's-style shoulders, to outfits featuring sleeveless tops and skirts that are tight around the thighs but flare out around the lower legs (reminding me of a mermaid tail). They are almost always flattering on every shape of woman, being tailor-made to her specifications. (I adore these outfits, but am far too aware of my whiteness to wear a complete African suit. As a compromise, I often wear a mix of African and Western clothes – like a tailor-made skirt with a tank top – which has the benefit of making me look completely ridiculous by both Liberian and American standards).

The Western clothing is almost all used and varies greatly in quality. Younger women and professional men tend to dress in very attractive, well-put-together Western outfits – cute tank tops and funky skirts or jeans for the girls, and neatly pressed collared shirts with khakis or business suits for the men. Everyday work clothes, on the other hand, tend to be of the Goodwill reject variety. Did you ever wonder what happens to the T-shirts of 14-year-old princesses once their owners grow tired of them? They're here, letting the world know that a Liberian mother of two is “SPOILED ROTTEN.” The “WORLD'S GREATEST GRANDMA” is apparently a middle-aged Liberian man, and, though I wouldn't have guessed it on first glance, there are several people here who would like someone to “KISS ME I'M IRISH.”

Then, of course, there is the massive merchandising machine that is Obama gear. Ugly, poorly printed Obama T-shirts, often an obnoxiously bright red, white, and blue, are everywhere. Obama keychains (many of which appear to be manufactured in someone's basement from pictures they found online), ostentatious Obama belt buckles, Obama backpacks, and Obama flip-flops (with “BARACK” or “OBAMA” printed along the sole) are hugely popular. I've even seen Obama jeans, the “OBAMA” daintily embroidered in fancy script over the right butt cheek, next to an intricately rendered picture of a dragon. Basically, if you can imagine it, someone in African will slap a picture of Obama on it and make a profit. (Who knew that the our national politics would revolutionize the fashion industry a continent away?)

The past few days have been more than usually eventful (. . . although that isn't saying much, given how boring my day-to-day life tends to be). Let me divide it up for you:

THE GOOD: Because of Easter, we had a 4-day weekend, and I decided to take advantage of it to do something I haven't really done since I've been here: travel. I didn't go very far – just to the next county over, River Gee, to visit another volunteer who is teaching there. He showed me around the town and we dorked out and watched nearly a full season's worth of Battlestar Galactica (side note: HOLY SHIT SO GOOD . . . how had I never watched this show before??). I traveled back on Sunday in the “YOU SEE?,” a run-down yellow cab. The trip back was interesting (though not particularly comfortable – 3 hours of sharing the passenger seat with a large woman, trying to make myself as small as possible so as not to get in the way of the driver as he shifted gears). We saw, among other things: a man wearing some kind of small marsupial-like animal around his wrist like a bracelet, an abandoned overturned truck, and several dead monkeys for sale hanging from sticks along the side of the road (if you're wondering what the going rate for dead monkeys is, one of the passengers bought one for 275 LD – about $4).

What really struck me about that part of Liberia was the isolation. The road was a narrow, unpaved, red-dirt affair, cutting through thick, green jungle. Periodically we passed through a tiny village, but other than that, the road was almost completely deserted. And my friend informed me that there are many more villages beyond the small ones we passed – villages that are not connected to the rest of civilization by any road at all.

THE BAD: I'm sick again. Once again, it's (fortunately) not bad enough to really worry about, but it is enough to be unpleasant. I've spent the majority of the last day and a half either in bed or in my bathroom. Of course, I can't really complain, since it's probably my own fault. You would think I'd have learned my lesson by now about eating questionable things, but apparently not . . . although, in my defense, nearly all of the food options here are pretty questionable . . .

THE UGLY: I think that someone tried to break into my house Sunday night. I was awakened at 4:30 AM by a very loud noise, which sounded to me as though someone was trying to get up onto my roof. (Although, to be objective, it might have been my imagination; I've been really paranoid lately about noises in the middle of the night. Another volunteer's house was broken into while he was at work not too long ago, and since there was no sign of forced entry, they deduced that the thieves had been able to enter through the gap between the walls and the roof. Ever since then, I've interpreted every little unidentifiable sound – every mouse squeak, every roach skitter – as somebody trying to come in through my ceiling. So it's possible that my half-awake brain interpreted the loud noise as someone on the roof simply because that is what I'm most afraid of).

Frightened at the thought of being locked into my house with an uninvited intruder, I opened the front door and went out onto the porch (noticing that my screen door, which I'm in the habit of latching before I lock my main door, was unlatched, suggesting that someone had been trying to enter through the front door). There, I spied a man with a flashlight hiding in the shadows of my neighbor's house, looking toward my bedroom. He flashed the light on me and then quickly flashed it away, and then casually walked out of the compound towards town with another man who appeared from behind the neighbor's house.

The next day, I asked my landlord if he had any idea why two strange men would have been hanging out around our houses in the middle of the night. He talked with my other neighbors, who had also been awakened by the sound that awakened me and who had gone outside to investigate. Apparently, when they saw the two men and inquired as to what the hell they were doing, the men just walked away without answering.

Needless to say, the whole thing freaked me right the fuck out. I talked with Peace Corps, who talked with the local police, but there's really not much that anyone can do (Peace Corps did offer to ask the police to camp out outside my house, but that seemed like overkill to me . . . especially since I don't know for sure what those shady guys were up to). My landlord reassured me that my house is constructed in such a way that it would not be possible for someone to come in through the roof, which made me feel better. And I'm definitely going to be much more careful now about closing and deadbolting the heavy wooden shutters over my barred windows; I can't imagine that anyone would be able to get in through them without making enough noise to wake me and alert the neighbors. Still, I won't lie – I definitely won't be sleeping as soundly as I have been . . . which between the heat and the mouse, rat, and roach noises has not been all that soundly anyway . . .

I've been reading another international development book, by another white man who has worked extensively in Africa and thinks he can solve its problems. It's called Aid And Other Dirty Business, by Giles Bolton, and it's actually quite good. It's much less pompous, more readable, and less reliant on incomplete or anecdotal evidence than The End Of Poverty, and it's more concrete and optimistic than The White Man's Burden.

But I'm not going to bore you with another entry on other peoples' analyses of why Africa is such a clusterfuck. Instead, I'm going to bore you with another entry about ethics. I mention this book only because, nestled among the relatively dry ruminations over why foreign aid is such a mess, Bolton has a page-long side note about a disturbing though interesting topic: the fact that many Westerners take advantage of the thriving prostitution business in Africa.

Bolton doesn't have a great deal to say about this; his point is mainly that many Westerners, despite being perfectly lovely people in their home countries, feel free to engage in morally questionable acts when they are in Africa. He suggests that “it's extraordinary how people and countries will behave when they think no one's looking and they can get away with it”

(the “and countries” is in there because Bolton is using individual expats' bad behavior as an analogy for the way in which wealthy countries often renege on their promises to provide aid to developing countries – at least when voters in the powerful countries fail to demand that their leaders live up to those promises).

It's definitely true that expatriates in Africa can get away with a great deal. In general, expats enjoy more freedom abroad than they do in their home countries. Law enforcement is minimal in many African countries, and the sad reality is that this is especially true where expatriates are concerned (particularly those from powerful Western countries). Beyond that: money equals power, and a little bit of Western money goes a long way here. Many American expats can and do reside in luxurious houses with support staff, a lifestyle they would not be able to afford in the US. In addition, because of the dysfunctional and corrupt nature of many African systems, those with money have the potential to exert much more political control than they would in most Western countries. The result of all this is a place in which expats can and do act according to their whims. And since Westerners who are attracted to the idea of living in Africa are frequently, to put it kindly, adventurous people, and, to put it less kindly, nearly always strange ones, this freedom results in a dishearteningly large number of people engaging in activities that are illegal and/or unethical.

Still, I think that the implication that expats suddenly become willing to do things that they would not dare to do at home, simply because they are not likely to be punished for their actions, is not entirely correct. “Right” and “wrong” are situational, and an action that is unquestionably “right” in the US may be badly advised in a place like Liberia. As an example: although it would be considered amoral to withhold CPR from someone who needs it in the US, it would probably not be a great idea to give somebody CPR here. It would be pointless, since anyone who is at the point of needing CPR is pretty much a goner anyway in the absence of good emergency medical care. And it could actually do the potential do-gooder harm; CPR is a pretty violent act in practice, and could be misconstrued by people who are not familiar with it and do not understand its purpose.

As another example: In the US, we have an idea that, if we witness a wrong act and do nothing to stop it, we are also culpable. But here, where law enforcement is practically non-existent, that doesn't necessarily hold true. One of the reasons that it was so upsetting to hear my drugged-up neighbor abusing his wives when I first arrived was that I kept thinking “I should stop this!” But what could I – a small woman and a recently arrived foreigner – have done, with no police to call to stop the abuse? Doing nothing, while unthinkable in the US, became the only viable option.

Anyway, my point is that living in a foreign country and a different culture inevitably requires a person to think carefully about the morality of his or her actions, and possibly even to act in a way that would be considered amoral in the US. I am not saying that to excuse the actions of Westerners who abuse their artificial power and exploit host country nationals – like the middle-aged European men who are the stereotypical consumers of the African sex trade. Still, I think that it is important to recognize that anybody who lives in a foreign country for an extended period of time is going to end up re-evaluating his or her ethics, consciously or unconsciously. The problem, I think, is when people do the latter – adjust their morals without being aware that they have done so. It is all too easy for well-intentioned people (including not only those sleazy middle-aged white men, but also young, lonely Peace Corps volunteers) to justify behaviors that they would consider unacceptable in other circumstances.

Much better today. It's the little things that do it. An NGO worker pointed out a cute little tea shop in town where you can buy fried egg sandwiches for 35 LD (about 50 cents), and the sandwiches are warm and delicious and contain no bones or intestines whatsoever. The kids around my house (the ones I know and like) have been extra enthusiastic lately, shouting out my name as soon as they spot me coming down the road toward the house and running up to say hello and grab my hand. I've had rice bread for breakfast almost every day this week (a not particularly tasty but somehow very satisfying snack made of pounded rice, oil, and bananas; in the mornings, women and children sell bite-sized slices of it out of buckets they carry on their heads, and I always consider myself lucky if I can buy a few pieces before it sells out). And best of all: yesterday, a teacher randomly came up to me and said I was doing a great job, that the students notice I work hard and tell their other teachers that I make them work hard too.

So yes, things are OK.

Classes have been going relatively well also. It's funny how certain subjects are so much easier for the students to grasp than others. The ones I think should be a breeze often end up being incredibly confusing, and the ones that seem tricky are a piece of cake for the kids. In my general science class, the most confusing and frustrating subject we covered was an overview of the scientific method (too abstract, I think). Yet although the students are still hopelessly confused about this topic, they easily grasped my brief introduction to physics and the topic we are covering now, taxonomy of living things. My math students are having no trouble whatsoever with prime factorization, but addition and subtraction of large numbers still gives them problems – not to mention the most confusing topic we attempted to cover, and which I eventually gave up on: multiplying and dividing by powers of ten.

Of course, a lot of this seeming incongruity has to do with the way the kids are taught in primary school. Concrete topics – even somewhat complex ones – are by far easier for the students to understand than ones requiring critical thinking, which is likely due to the fact that many teachers still teach using rote memorization. But what I find more interesting to think about is the ways in which the students' everyday lives affect their comprehension of certain subjects. For example, the reason that multiplying and dividing by powers of ten was so confusing for the kids was that many of them simply don't get what a decimal point means, and so my instructions to move the decimal to the left or right were not helpful (I realized this after I found out some of my students literally could not tell the difference between the numbers .01, .001, .00001, or 1. My pet theory about why decimals are so difficult here is this: The currency here does not use cents. From a very young ages, Americans are forced to learn the meaning of a decimal; 5 cents, 50 cents and 50 dollars are very different things. But here, where the smallest unit of currency is a 5-LD note (about 7 cents), decimals are rarely used.

In any case, decimals are just one example of the ways in which the most random things – like the currency we grow up with – can affect the way we think. It's funny to think of all of the things we learn without knowing, and to realize that the place in which we are raised can change something as fundamental as our reasoning -- our very brains, in fact.

It's hard for me to think of things to write here lately, because my internal thought process has been going something like this: “I want to go home . . . I want to go home . . . I want to go home I WANNA GO HOME I WANNA GO HOME IWANNAGOHOMMMMEE!!!”

To be honest, at this point, I'm just sick of it all. I'm sick of the apathetic students, the disorganization of the school, my feeling of complete impotence when dealing with student behavior issues. I'm sick of kids I don't know yelling shit at me from the side of the road or running up to touch my skin with dirty, sweaty hands. I'm sick of finding pieces of cow stomach and other organs in my food. I'm sick of the dishonesty and the dysfunctionality of everything. I'm sick of being made fun of all the fucking time.

Most of all, I'm sick of myself. More than ever, I feel hideously unattractive lately, both inside and out. I'm cynical and negative and I can't be patient with the students anymore. The more they make fun of me, the more irritable I get, which just adds fuel to the fire. I'm lazy; it's a real effort for me to force myself to grade the students' half-assed homework attempts, and I find myself escaping from school to use the internet more and more often. I'm unnecessarily cranky with people I don't know, and withdrawn, quiet, and boring with people I do. I'm frustrated and unhappy with my total incompetence at work and in my social life.

So yeah, that's where things stand right now. Now that the end is in sight (less than 2 months to go), I'm constantly fighting the urge to just give up and say: “Sorry, Liberia. Sorry I failed. Sorry I suck at life. Sorry your country is so fucked up. Good luck with all that, but I don't want to deal with your problems any more.”

In Kenya, public transport vehicles are often outrageously decorated. A minibus might not have seat cushions, windows, or brakes, but it will frequently be covered in colorful artwork, including a boldly lettered name emblazoned across the front or the back of the car. Sometimes the name makes sense, like “ROAD WARRIOR,” although more often it is completely non sequitur. Inside, it is common to see English and Swahili bumper stickers, many of them religious in nature (“JESUS IS ALIVE” or “THIS VEHICLE IS WASHED IN THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB”). The fanciest vehicles in Nairobi contain a small TV (always blasting music videos) or colored neon lights.

While there are far fewer public transport vehicles in general in Liberia, the majority of the few that I see around town also are externally decorated with names (“BILL 2000”) or – even better – slogans. “DON'T BE CORRUPT” is one that I saw printed across the door of a pickup truck, and “NO WORK NO RESPECT” or variations thereon seem to be popular (which is, as a side note, somewhat bizarre in a country in which over 70% of the population is unemployed).

But my all-time favorite slogan – one that I think perfectly captures travel in Africa – is one that I saw today. The back bumper of the dilapidated, overloaded station wagon simply said (and I quote exactly): “THIANK GOD WE MADE IT.”

So I just read the book Committed, by Elizabeth Gilbert. Basically, it's one woman's analysis of marriage in Western culture. Although I wouldn't recommend it, it's not terrible – it makes some interesting points – and it has gotten me thinking about cross-cultural relationships.

One of the things that I find the most profoundly confusing here is Liberians' approach to relationships and marriage. (Of course, to be fair, I find romantic relationships profoundly confusing in the US as well. But that's another story, and not one for this blog). As Gilbert debates seemingly endlessly in her book, we as Americans are inundated with all kinds of confusing messages about what a spouse and a marriage should and should not be. But somewhere inside the relatively superficial discourse on gender roles in, the influence of religious and traditional values on, and the legal issues surrounding marriage, there is one basic supposition that affects our views on relationships: our romantic partner should be someone that we like and get along with.

That fundamental assumption doesn't necessarily hold here. A spouse, in many cases, is a work partner, someone to produce and raise children with, to run a household with – not primarily a companion. Companionship comes from other sources in the community – friends and extended family. Of course, with the ever-increasing influence of Western culture, this approach (like everything else) is changing. Still, my conversations with Liberians on relationships often leave me thinking, “what the fuck??!”

A good example of how dissimilar relationships here are to those in the US is the marriage of my landlord. When I first arrived in Liberia, he was living with his 10-year-old son and a young woman who I initially assumed was his daughter. I and my roommate soon discovered, however, that she was his wife. About two months after my arrival, my landlord and this woman got into a screaming, shouting argument (actually, I think the wife was the only one shouting), punctuated by the sounds of the wife punching the doorframe and perhaps also her husband. The next day, the woman packed up and left.

Here's where things get confusing: The next week, a new wife arrived – an extremely large, solid, bad-tempered, and very capable woman. Apparently, the young, attractive “wife” who had left was not actually a wife at all, but a woman he had semi-permanently shacked up with. This wife (who arrived with his 9-year-old daughter in tow) was his real wife, although she had been living somewhere else for the past God knows how many months or years.

So yeah, in addition to being based less around companionship and more around necessity, relationships here are also relatively fluid. I'm constantly surprised at how open many people are about infidelity. Actually, I'm constantly surprised at how open people are about sex in general. Yesterday, when I walked into my seventh-grade class, most of the kids were holding big packs of condoms, which some NGO or other organization had distributed that morning (which is great from a public health standpoint, but slightly distracting when one is trying to teach division).

In any case, because of all of these factors, I personally would be extremely hesitant to enter into a relationship with a Liberian. Admitting this is not easy; to be honest, it makes me feel like a terrible racist. I wince every time a Liberian man asks me “Why won't you marry a Liberian?” or, even worse, “Why don't white women marry black men?” It's not only the outrageous rudeness of the questions that gets to me, but the small part of me that has to admit, “Maybe it's because I am/we are horribly prejudiced.” And yet, I can't envision entering into a relationship with someone who doesn't share my most basic outlook on relationships, someone from a culture that has totally different standards of morality, someone from a place in which lying is standard practice and women are still often second-class citizens. Beyond that, as I said before, the actual and perceived wealth differences between myself and the majority of people around me are very large; this, combined with the fact that many people see marriage to an American as a golden ticket to the land of plenty, is enough to make me very suspicious of anyone's intents.

And yet, even after acknowledging that there are most certainly exceptions, that there are without a doubt attractive Liberian men who would make wonderful husbands by Western standards, I still can't help but feel uneasy as I read over what I just wrote . . . because it sounds eerily similar to every racist argument that's ever been made against any cross-cultural partnership (“they're just too different, it could never really work out” or, even worse, “I think they're wonderful people, but I wouldn't marry one myself”). So I wonder, at what point does being realistically cautious about a situation cross the line into being closed-minded and prejudiced?

I'm irritable today.

It might have something to do with the fact that a medium-sized rat has taken up residence in my room. Being woken up at 3 AM by vague but very loud rustling noises, and knowing that you cannot simply turn on the lights but instead must wander blindly over to the vicinity of the unidentified intruder to light a candle, which then might or might not illuminate something terrifying . . . contrary to what you might think, it's not fun. But after 3 nights of hiding in my bed with my music turned way up to drown out the scary noises, I had finally had enough of my unwelcome visitor, and last night I decided to grow a pair and deal with it.

So let me tell you how not to deal with a rat in your room. Don't spray it with insect poison, even really strong and effective insect poison, because it won't kill the rat. What the poison will do is linger in the air for the rest of the night, prevent you from sleeping soundly, and provide you with a nasty headache in the morning.

Of course, most of you are probably smarter than I am and wouldn't even have considered this tactic. In my defense, it was a desperation measure;. I have not yet found traps or rat poison available for sale in town, but instead only an extremely ineffective and messy product called Rat Glue. The alternative to Rat Glue, which I tried before I resorted to the insect poison, is attempting to manually eliminate the rat, which in my case involved chasing it around for an hour with a broom by candlelight and unsuccessfully attempting to smash its brains in on my concrete floor.

So yeah, the whole vermin situation certainly isn't helping my mood (although, thankfully, the bats have been vanquished; my landlord installed a screen over the hole in the ceiling that prevents them from flying into the house). But there are more important reasons I'm in such an awful mood lately, and they all relate to several decisions I've made that are now coming back to bite me in the ass.

The first decision I made was school-related. This period, I flat-out failed any student who showed any evidence of cheating on this period exam, giving them the lowest possible grade for the period (the Ministry of Education specifies that all students must receive at least a grade of 50%, even if they do 0% of the work). I also decided that students who failed the exam would not be given the opportunity to take a make-up exam. And, furthermore, I took 10% off of the grade of every student I heard or saw talking during the exam, whether or not there was any sign they were actually cheating.

From my American perspective, this does not seem like an unreasonable approach. And I clearly warned the students beforehand of what I was going to do. But because cheating is so widespread, and the kids are so used to getting away with it, this zero-tolerance policy has resulted in a LOT of trouble with the students. In my 150-person chemistry class, 21 kids received a 0 on the exam, and about a dozen more lost points for talking. The percentage of kids in my class who are failing is extraordinarily high, well over half.

So my students are confused and hurt and blame me for their failures. Two students came to my door at 8 AM this morning to argue with me about their grades. And while I spent the better part of an hour explaining to them that, yes, the evidence that they were cheating was irrefutable, and no, I wasn't buying their lame explanations, and yes, they were going to fail this period, and no, they could not have a second chance, and no, they should not blame ME for giving them a 0 when they were the ones who had made the stupid decision to cheat after I expressly warned them what would happen to cheaters . . . this clearly wasn't getting through. I'm pretty sure that, regardless of what I was saying, what they were hearing was this: “I am the teacher and I have the power and I am the one making the decisions, and you are fucked because I have decided to fail you. Sucks to be you!”

So yeah, even though I don't know what else I can do, I still can't help but feel that maybe I'm being too harsh, that being such a stickler isn't really helping anybody. If the students are taking away nothing but anger toward me, I haven't accomplished anything.

The other decision I made recently that has not worked out so well is more administrative in nature: I am going to leave before June 26th, my official end of service. I made this decision after I found out that the school year, for all intents and purposes, ends in mid-May. There are two weeks in May during which no students are allowed on the campus (during this time, the seniors will be taking the standardized national high school examination). Students then return to school the first week in June to take their final exams.

Following this schedule would mean that I would basically sit around for half of May and most of June with nothing to do. This sounds horrible to me, and anyway, I have things to do back in the States – such as being in a good friend's wedding and preparing to start med school in July. So, I talked to the principal and he agreed that, instead of waiting around, I can give my exams on the last day of class in May and then peace out.

When I talked to Peace Corps to see if they could move up my official close of service date, since I will have completed the project I came here to do, they sent me a series of unpleasant emails implying that I was uncommitted, that I was disappointing Peace Corps and my school by wanting to go home early, that I had some ulterior motive (??), that it was “inappropriate” for me to give my exams early, and that they absolutely would not grant me an early close of service. This, shockingly, did not change my mind about not wanting hang around in Liberia for an extra month, chasing rats around with brooms at 3 AM. Of course, Peace Corps can't physically stop me from leaving, but this means that I will essentially have to “quit” and accept the fact that, in Peace Corps' official eyes, I was not a “successful” volunteer with a “successfully completed” service.

So although they didn't make me change my mind about leaving early, what the emails did do was make me feel shitty about everything I'm trying to do here. Of course, it doesn't take much to make me feel shitty about that, especially given the situation with the students lately. There's a part of me that knows I wouldn't be nearly so upset by all of this if I were 100% confident that I was making the right decisions – that the fact that most of my students are failing doesn't mean I'm a total failure as a teacher, that my rigidity with cheaters is totally justifiable, that my desire to go home early doesn't mean that I'm a terrible person or a flake. But I'm not confident of any of those things. There's a little voice in the back of my mind that keeps saying, “Peace Corps is right. You signed up for 10 months and you should stay for 10 months. You're lazy and you're finding excuses to go home early. If you were more committed, if you were more understanding, if you were a better teacher, your students would not be doing so poorly and you would be able to do something constructive with your time outside of school.” And I can't quiet that voice because I have a nagging sensation that it is correct.

I've been entering my students' grades into my laptop, and thus have spent a great deal of time lately looking at long lists of student names. So I'm finally inspired to write about something I've been meaning to address for awhile: Names and naming.

Traditional African names (to make a vast over-generalization) generally have a specific meaning. Sometimes the meaning is relatively trivial. At my site in Kenya, with the Kalenjin tribe, children were usually named after the time of day during which they were born. This, in my humble opinion, is not a great way of doing things. In a class of 40, I generally had 10 “born-in-the-mornings,” 10 “born-in-the-afternoons,” and 10 “born-in-the-evenings, with a few strange ones thrown in (my favorite being Chepchirchir – born-when-there-was-a-lot-of-activity-and-everybody-was-running- around-like-crazy). Most people had a “Western” name as well – Judith and Daisy were popular girls' names – and then a family name.

Here, it seems as though a lot of people also have an African name, a family name, and a Western name, but most people go by their Western names. The funny thing is, although these names are certainly recognizable to Americans, they are unusual and sometimes unintentionally hilarious. Names with meaning are popular: “Princess” and “Prince” are by far the most common, while “Promise,” “Patience,” “Precious,” “Love,” and “Secret” are also frequently encountered. There are a few names that seem outrageously pretentious by American standards; for example “Glorious,” “Wise,” and “Holy” are three of my students. Archaic and Biblical names are also very popular (names that I personally had previously associated more with cranky elderly white folk than strapping young West Africans). I have an “Ebenezer,” an “Ezekiel,” and several “Emmanuels,” “Ophelias,” “Reginalds,” “Alvins,” “Melvins,” and “Sylvesters.”

The traditional African names in this region, from what I've been told, seem to have relatively complex meanings. The principal gave me the Krahn name “Zarkpa,” which he tells me roughly means “someone who is making up for the shortcomings of his predecessors.” Apparently, this name is frequently given to children who have had older siblings that died. (The reason the principal gave that name to me is somewhat less morbid: In the past two years, the school has had two Peace Corps volunteers who each stayed for only six weeks before going home; hence, I am making up for their departures. No pressure or anything).

And then there are a few names that, as a white American, make me somewhat uncomfortable. There are several “Browns” in my classes (I always think “thank God my parents didn't name me 'Pink'”). And one kid in my neighborhood simply goes by “Black Boy.”

I just met Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of Liberia. She shook my hand, thanked me and my sitemate for our service to Liberia, and posed for a picture.

Too fucking cool, right??!

One of the bizarre and interesting things about Peace Corps is that sometimes it allows you to be more important than you actually are. Even though we're the lowest of the low on the international service totem pole, we represent something that everybody can love. It's hard to argue with Peace Corps in the abstract, even if the reality of it doesn't quite live up to the ideal.

And so by virtue of our status as living symbols of goodwill, we sometimes get paraded around in front of people who are much more important than we are (“Look, poor American volunteers!!! See how great the US is for sending these?? Ain't we somethin??”). Tonight, I was lucky enough to attend a relatively small dinner at the Chinese UN compound, where some of the guests included the American Ambassador to Liberia, the Chinese Ambassador to Liberia, and the President of Liberia herself. The whole thing was awkward and intimidating (thank God my sitemate was there as well) – but at the same time, it was an incredibly cool and unique opportunity. (Also, it was tasty – a nice change from plantains, cassava, peanuts, and rice).

To back up a little bit: The President arrived in town on Monday evening. Wednesday, it was announced that she would be visiting my high school and the adjacent midwifery training school. The principal thought she would be arriving around 10:00 AM; however, nobody was able to confirm a time. At 8:00 AM, I and the students arrived at school as usual. By 9:00, everyone had piled into the auditorium. Three hours later, word arrived that Her Excellency was on her way. A dozen or so Indian UN police appeared on the campus around 12:30, and several (strangely casually attired) security members began a short and extremely pointless sweep of the front quarter of the auditorium. Shortly thereafter, the President and her entourage (rhymes with “encourage” in Liberian English) appeared.

The ceremony proceeded in true Liberian style, with prayer, singing, speeches, and of course lots of requests to the President for money and resources. It ended, however, in a somewhat more dramatic than usual fashion. Just as the President was preparing to exit, a teacher from the high school stood up and shouted that he had a BURNING ISSUE TO ADDRESS with the President. After a short and very embarrassed period of confusion, the President allowed him to take a microphone and present his complaints, the chief of which was: Most of the school's teachers have not been paid in over a year.

After hearing this (extremely valid) concern, the Minister of Education took the microphone and explained that they are aware that some teachers are not getting paid. He also explained that they had issued some checks that were supposed to have gone to the teachers and, gosh darn it, they just couldn't figure out where all that money ended up; it seemed to have disappeared somehow. But rest assured, they were doing their best to track it down, and if the teachers could just be patient a little bit longer, they would all get paid in the near future. (OK, I'm paraphrasing, but that was the gist of it).

In any case, the whole thing was very exciting. It also reinforced the precarious position of the President – a lot is demanded of her, and the Government's resources are very few. Foreign countries are (rightly) becoming more and more loathe to lend or give money because of the rampant corruption. It's difficult to make any headway of any sort without resources, and people are quick to blame the President and the Government of Liberia when they do not see immediate and dramatic improvements in their everyday lives. (Of course, to be fair, I suppose that all of these problems exist, to a greater or lesser extent, in every government; witness all of the flak that Obama is taking these days).

Anyway. In any case, I should go to bed. With the thrill of meeting two Ambassadors and a President, not to mention the excitement of eating Chinese food, I've had about all I can handle for one evening.

I'm supposed to be giving an exam right now. This particular exam was scheduled to be given last Thursday, and has now been postponed twice – once because school was canceled for a soccer match, and again because school was canceled to clean up for the President's visit. Now, the exam is going to be delayed a third time, because three-quarters of the students decided not to show up for school today (apparently, again, because of the Presidential visit tomorrow).

I am no longer surprised by any of this. I will, however, allow myself to cynically observe that the whole situation beautifully illustrates the priorities here: Soccer first, then politics, and then, -- falling way, way below those and a score of other things – education.

I won't lie; I am especially cranky because life here has been particularly uncomfortable lately. I didn't think that the heat could get much more unpleasant, but somehow it has. Whereas previously it had generally cooled off in the evenings, it has been unbearably hot at night during these past two weeks or so. Even though it still cools off somewhat outside, since I don't have electricity (at least not consistent electricity that I can keep on all night) and don't know where I could buy a fan even if I did, there is no way to make the air circulate through my living quarters. Thus, my room is hot and stuffy and very difficult to sleep in.

To make matters worse, all manners of creepy-crawlies have been infesting my house. I found a mouse in my oven mitt last night. Some kind of maggoty little bug got into my flour. There are roaches in every room. I have, fortunately, had some help combating the roach problem. Unfortunately, that help has come in a form that is even more unpleasant than the roaches themselves: large spiders and bats (which eat the roaches in a way that would be more helpful if it were not so disgusting, and if it did not involve leaving lots of small roach parts about).

Out of all these things, the bats are definitely the worst. They enter the house through the roof, and then fly down through a hole in the ceiling and hang from the laundry lines or ceilings in the bedrooms (though, thankfully, they have only invaded the unoccupied bedrooms – my own is still bat-free). And they shit on everything. The worst part is, the hole in the ceiling through which they enter is in my bathroom, where I generally do private things that should never, ever, ever involve flying mammals, particularly fast-flying mammals that have a habit of swooping down in a sudden and surprising manner.

Still, when I think back to the image I had of Africa before I came, things are not that bad. I had envisioned huge and hairy tarantula-like spiders, thick clouds of monstrous flies, and all manner of venomous snakes and scorpions (the latter two of which I do see, but rarely -- and when I do, they are usually dead, and never in my house). I pictured giant rats in my bedroom and hordes of loudly buzzing mosquitoes keeping me awake at night (thankfully, there are very few mosquitoes, though I still religiously take my Lariam and sleep with a net). So in comparison to that, what's a few roaches, some spiders that rarely leave the dark corners of my house, a cute little mouse, and a bat or two that usually stay confined to my attic . . .?

Big news in town: the President of Liberia is coming next week.

This has resulted in a great deal of activity. The thick undergrowth along the sides of the roads has been cleared away and burned by armies of machete-yielding workers. Everything that can possibly be painted is getting a new coat of paint (including the sidewalk curbs, which, if the quality of the work is any indication, were painted by the town's under-five population). School is closed on Monday so that the students can beautify it for the President's visit to the campus on Wednesday.

Of course, everything that is being done is completely superficial. Potholes are temporarily being filled with dirt. The new paint jobs only cover up rust and general deterioration. The whole town is essentially being whitewashed, with little to no actual improvement of basic facilities.

Still, it's exciting that the President is coming, and it's nice to see even the minimal improvements that are being done. Stay tuned for updates on the Presidential visit itself.

In personal news: I heard back from that third medical school, and I was accepted. It goes without saying that I'm incredibly excited, thankful, and relieved (that the whole process, with the crazy cross-country interview tour, was not for naught). It's nice to finally feel like I have a direction in life. Having said that, I'm still so, so glad, for so many reasons, that I took time to work and do Peace Corps. If nothing else, I now have a much better appreciation of how lucky I am to be given this opportunity. (I only hope that I can remember that when I'm a stressed, overworked, and debt-ridden student).

Liberia is an angry place. I've mentioned this before.

Of course, it is a gross exaggeration, but it is nonetheless true in many respects.

It's angry in the sense that many people make little effort to disguise their feelings when they are upset. In the US, outbursts of anger in most environments – particularly when one is among strangers or in a professional setting – are considered inappropriate and indicative of an emotional immaturity. Here, displaying anger seems to be a way of commanding attention and respect, of proving that one has power and authority in a given situation. Thus, public shouting matches are not at all unusual, and even (or especially) respected authority figures participate; I often witness loud arguments that originate over anything from a taxi driver's inability to make change to a teacher's failure to show up at school regularly.

As I alluded to in a recent entry, I'm starting to feel as though this might be partly the source of my classroom management issues at school. Authority figures are expected to be pushy, loud, angry, and bossy. I, on the other hand, endeavor to be none of those things. I don't want to scream at my students. I don't want to treat them like wild animals who need to be controlled. But I'm feeling lately as though that is what I'm being pushed into doing. The students are used to responding to shouted commands instead of rational pleas for good behavior. My forced patience, my quiet reminders that their disruptive behaviors are harmful to themselves and their fellow classmates – many of the students interpret this as weakness (as my principal and several fellow teachers have pointed out to me).

So, these days, I yell. And I scream. And I rip up test papers when I catch the students talking or cheating during exams. And I try to make the cheaters I do catch as publicly humiliated as possible. And I don't feel bad about it, except that I feel bad that I don't feel bad.

Because here's the thing: Even if this is a culture that respects public displays of anger as an indication of authority, and even if I am being forced to work within the confines of that culture, I still don't believe that displaying every little negative emotion is an effective way of doing things. I think there is a reason that controlling one's feelings is valued in the US. Getting into a shouting match is not a great way to get things done. And so I'm stuck – do I bend to the system, and yell and scream along with the angriest of them, or do I try to stick my ground and lead by example, even if it means losing the battle of classroom management?

As I've said, lately I've been doing the former, but I'm disturbed by the vague feeling that this is mostly due to an exhaustion of patience rather than a rational decision to try to be more authoritative. I'm also disturbed by the fact that, on some level, I think I might actually like it. I'm not a naturally patient person – my inner redhead does come out sometimes. So I have a guilty suspicion that I may be channeling my frustrations with life in general – medical schools, Liberian culture, and so on – into anger toward my students.

Life in a foreign country is full of little mysteries. With enough time, some of them eventually end up being solved, but others continue to produce bafflement, even after months or years of living in that country. Somehow, you get used to being in a state of perpetual mild confusion.

For example – why do people here regularly shout “Thank you!!” at me when I am jogging past? (“Thank you” for moving by so quickly, because you are sweaty and gross? “Thank you” for providing us with entertainment, because you look so ridiculous when you run?) Why do the children continue to shout “WHITE WOMAN WHITE WOMAN WHITE WOMAN,” even after I've waved and said “Hello?” (What response, exactly, are they looking for? Or are they simply showing off their powers of identification?) And why is the standard silverware here a fork and spoon – almost never a knife, despite the fact that most meals include large chunks of very tough meat?

The thing about teaching, which somehow I always forget, is that there is rarely an “aha!” moment. Even in something like mathematics, which it seems like you would either understand or not understand, the process of learning is more of a slow and painful slog (with plenty of backsliding) than a steady progression with plateaus of understanding.

Even after a year of teaching in Kenya, and a semester of teaching here, I'm still amazed by how little material we are able to cover in every class. I'm teaching a section on prime numbers and prime factorization in my 7th grade class now, and one of the topics that we are supposed to cover is something called the Sieve of Eratosthenes. I had never heard of this before, but looking it up online, I learned that it's a neat little system for eliminating all of the numbers in a given set that are not prime. Since it is in the syllabus, and it's a pretty simple little trick, and it has a pretty awesome name, I figured we'd give it a shot.

Big mistake. The whole concept of prime numbers is incredibly confusing to the students. And with so many other topics to cover that are so much more relevant to everyday life – decimals, fractions, and percents, for example – I'm wishing that I'd scrapped this whole section completely. But, oh well. Too late now.

I feel like I make that mistake a lot here. Somehow, having gone through an educational system that actually functions, I'm always surprised and confused when I discover that something that seems intuitive is in fact exactly the opposite. No matter how well I think I've broken a particular subject into easily understadable chunks, I still always seem to end up discovering that I've made some leap of logic that has left most of the students completely bewildered.

In other news, the six-month volunteers who came with me are leaving next week, which is, first of all, a bummer, and second of all, hard to believe. Time flies when you're having fun . . . or, alternatively, when you're teaching a million classes with a million students each . . .

Liberia, like much of the rest of the Equatorial world, basically has two seasons: dry and rainy. Rainy season, according to the handout Peace Corps gave us in training, generally lasts from June to September or October. The rest of the year is supposedly dry season.

I mention this because it rained last night. I can't complain about this, really; the temperature is about 15 degrees cooler than usual today, which is fantastic. Furthermore, the rain has provided a brief respite from the dust that characterizes dry season by coating everything – plants, vehicles, shoes, clothes, hair, feet, lungs – in a thick, dry, reddish-brown layer.

The downside is, the alternative to dust is mud – sticky, squishy, red-clay African mud. No matter how thoroughly I clean myself in the morning, I invariably end up covered with it within an hour of leaving the house. This is particularly embarrassing because Liberians, in general, are very clean and very well-dressed. I am constantly amazed at how well-put-together they are able to appear, whereas I feel like Pigpen from Charlie Brown, with a permanent aura of dirt wherever I go.

There are other negative aspects to the rainy season that had me hoping that I would be done with my service and gone by the time it started again. Students (surprise!) tend not to go to school when it is raining. When it rains during the day, sometimes the noise on the zinc roof is so loud that my voice cannot be heard at all above the roar. And the noise at night makes me nervous – people have told me that rainy nights are common times for break-ins; the wetness keeps most people indoors, and the noise disguises the sound of any intruder. (Though I should mention that, despite my house's lack of razor-wire fence, electric lighting at night, or security guard, which are some of the requirements for UN housing, I still generally feel quite safe).

Still, like I said before I started complaining, I really can't complain. The rainy season at my site in Kenya involved weeks and weeks without a hint of sun, weeks in which clothes never truly dried and the roads were completely impassible. So in comparison, especially considering the fact that I hardly ever travel, this is not bad at all.

In personal news, which you may or may not give a crap about: I've heard back from two out of three medical schools, and I've been wait-listed at both of them (most schools are not outright rejecting people at this point, but instead accepting or wait-listing them, at least until the end of the “interview season”). I'm resigning myself now to the fact that I most likely will not get into school this fall, and will have to reapply next year. That way, if I do get in, it will be a nice surprise, but I'll be prepared for the worst. In any case, once I look past the humiliation of rejection, and the waste of money that this round of applications cost, the prospect of having another year free is actually kind of exciting. Maybe I'll try to find an AmeriCorps position, or another one with Peace Corps Response, or maybe I'll just move to the Pacific Northwest, where much of my extended family lives. The possibilities are, if not endless, at least . . , plural.

Anyway. That's life in Liberia at the moment: wet and muddy, but generally pretty OK.

Something that I ate recently caused me to wake suddenly at 5:00 AM and made me decide that, rather than going to school this morning, I should probably stay in the vicinity of a bathroom until the party in my intestines has died down a bit. Oh, the joys of life in Africa.

So instead of teaching, I'm sitting at home grading. I just finished a pile of chemistry makeup exams, which I administered on Tuesday, to the great displeasure of both myself and all of the students who elected to take the exam. All except for one of the 15 or 20 students who took the exam failed, many getting no more than 6 points out of 50.

I'm particularly frustrated in this instance because this was a makeup exam, which I not only administered to those who were absent during the administration of the first exam, but to anyone who was unhappy with their exam score and wished to try their luck again. The frustration comes from the fact that the makeup exam was almost identical to the original exam; I merely whited out the numbers in the questions requiring calculation and entered new numbers, and made some other small changes. The fact that the students did so poorly on this repeat exam leads me to believe that most of them failed to actually study the material, or try to understand the mistakes they had made the first time around. (Although, to be fair, it is gratifying to know that quite a few students did at least care enough to re-take the exam).

What's even worse – I had repeatedly told the students that I would give the makeup exam at 1:00 on Tuesday, 1:00 on Tuesday, 1:00 on Tuesday. The majority of the students tumbled in to the classroom laughing at 2:15. When I told them that I had a class at 2:00 that I was already late to, and why in God's name would they show up more than an hour after I said I was giving the exam?, they begged and pleaded and eventually got me to agree to give the exam at the end of the day. Thus already irritated, I was not pleased when they then spent most of the test period trying to peek at each others' papers and discuss answers. So in that way, we all spent a miserable hour together – all of us frustrated, unhappy, and eager to go home after a long day.

Do you know what the saddest part of this whole situation is, the part that is most disturbing to me? It's that, right now, I honestly do not give a flying fuck whether they fail or pass. I don't know what to do with kids like this – students who make little to no effort to study, then beg, plead, and whine when they fail, and genuinely expect me to change their grades to passing. I don't know how to get it through their heads that I am not failing them because I feel like it, or I enjoy making them unhappy, or because I'm lazy. Somehow the idea that a grade is intended to reflect the material that one has actually learned, with students that truly understand getting passing grades and those that don't have a clue what's going on getting failing grades, is not getting across. And I guess it's no wonder – in this system, there probably isn't that much correlation between mastery of material and grades; the students who make it worthwhile (monetarily, sexually, or in some other way) for the teachers to give them passing grades are the ones who do the best on paper.

Anyway, in general, I'm having a really tough time not being extremely short-tempered with the students these days. The strange part is – it actually seems to be helping in terms of classroom management. I find myself yelling almost all the time, in a tone of voice that I had previously reserved for instances in which I've found my dog with one of my more expensive belongings crushed between his teeth. I lecture the kids regularly, calling them rude, disrespectful, thoughtless, and immature, and call out talkers individually in the classroom in attempts to humiliate them into silence. I remind them frequently that a lot of them are failing, and that if they have any desire to reverse that trend, that they should probably shut the fuck up (OK, I don't use those words exactly) and make some sort of effort to listen to what I am saying, even if they have a hard time getting over the ridiculousness of my speaking voice and accent.

And I guess maybe this approach isn't really a bad thing. Part of me does feel bad about it – Liberia is, to vastly oversimplify and generalize, still a pretty angry place, and these students aren't exactly lacking in situations in which they are yelled at, berated, and humiliated. So in that sense, I don't feel like I should add to this by piling on my own abuses. Furthermore, as I've pointed out before, a lot of the students are failing simply because they have a lot of other more important things on their mind, like how they are going to feed themselves or take care of their children. On the other hand, I'm not making the classroom situation any better for anybody by allowing the students who talk and joke and generally distract all the others get away with what they're doing, or by giving everyone passing grades out of pity. In any case, I almost feel like the whole thing is somewhat out of my control – that the patient part of me has somehow been broken, and the irritable, cynical, don't-give-me-that-shit part has come bitching and nagging to the surface.

I'm reading back through my past few entries – particularly the ones from right before and after I came back to Liberia – and am somewhat embarrassed at how negative and how painfully introspective they are. Even after only having been back at site less than a week, the question of why I wanted to come to Liberia in the first place no longer seems like a reasonable or necessary query. I wanted to come because I like this kind of work – it's challenging, thought-provoking, and (more frequently than this blog might incline you to believe) feels worthwhile. Above all – it's interesting, and I feel like I learn a great deal from it.

Anyway, enough of that.

It turns out that part of the absentee problem last week was caused by a small conflict with regards to teacher salaries. As I may have explained before, the school day is actually broken up into two sessions with two different groups of students – a morning session that lasts from 8-1 and then an afternoon session that runs from 2-6. Theoretically, this should break up the enormous classes without adding considerably to the teacher workload, as teachers should be able to simply repeat the lessons they planned for the morning session in the afternoon. In reality, the morning and afternoon sessions are not really on equal footing. The morning classes are still much larger than the afternoon classes, and teacher and student absenteeism is much higher in the afternoon – perhaps because teachers and students alike are tired by that point in the day, or perhaps simply because it's really, really hot in the afternoon, which makes it hard to concentrate or even stay awake.

In any case, as I understand it, teachers who teach both the morning and afternoon classes have been getting paid twice as much as those who teach only one session. However, this past payday, the government apparently decided not to release double salaries to the teachers, and only released a single salary. In response, most teachers here stopped teaching in the afternoon, and actually instructed all of the students to go home. Fortunately, this issue seems to have been resolved; teachers are again getting paid their full (or rather double) salaries, and so are (slightly more regularly) attending classes, which means that the students are also coming to class more consistently.

I'm glad that the issue seems to have somewhat worked out, but the whole thing just reinforces (again) how fragile and dysfunctional the system is. The teachers don't necessarily care about their jobs – they did not hesitate to screw over the students in this situation – but to be honest there isn't much incentive for the teachers to care. Many of them are not teaching because they love teaching; they are teaching because it's a job that pays money, and I'm sure that ideally they'd rather focus on their own families and children than a bunch of unruly kids who don't particularly want to learn. Once again, it's a catch-22 in which everyone loses: The teachers have little motivation to teach without decent salaries, but the government can't afford to pay decent salaries. The students therefore get a shit-poor education, in which they are not highly invested, and with a poorly educated population, development and economic growth stagnate. With a lack of economic growth, the teachers won't get paid, and the whole cycle continues.

Of course, that is an overly simplistic way to look at the situation. I'm sure there are some or many critical factors that I am overlooking. Once again, I'm reminded of the viewpoints put forward in The End Of Poverty and The White Man's Burden. If I were Jeffery Sachs (author of the former), I would insist that this cycle could be broken by an infusion of cash from the developing world. If I were William Easterly (who penned the latter), I would caution that my efforts as an outsider are bound to come up against a host of unforeseen blockades, and that instead of funneling my cash through the government and the Ministry of Education, I would be better served supporting less centralized, smaller-scale, more “grassroots” endeavors. Fortunately, for more reasons than one, I am neither of those people. Instead, I am a lowly Peace Corps volunteer, and can therefore rest comfortably in the fact that it's not my job to solve the problem of how to develop the country. Instead, I'll just focus on my one tiny part, sympathize with teachers, students, and government officials alike, and be thankful (once again) that I grew up in America and not Liberia.

After a month of traveling, it's nice to be stationary again and settling back into a routine.

There have been some small changes since I left . One of the restaurants in town now sells Western food (pizza, fried chicken with french fries, hamburgers, and so on). Someone is building a video club on my compound (“video club” meaning essentially a shack with a TV and a generator, and either a VCR or DVD player or a satellite connection, at which people can pay a few Liberian dollars to take in a show). The Ethiopian UN soldiers have left and a new contingent of Pakistani soldiers has come in to replace them. The house my landlord is building behind mine has had its mud walls plastered with cement and is nearing completion.

It's actually pretty cool to see how things can change in such a short time. I would interpret the progress of building projects – even small ones like the video club and the house – as a positive sign regarding the development of the country. People perceive things as stable enough to invest in longer-term projects.

Of course, many people (particularly those who are affiliated with the UN) are predicting that the country will fall apart again as soon as the peacekeeping forces leave (which I believe is supposed to occur completely by 2012 – but don't quote me on that). From my perspective, it's somewhat hard to believe, because my town seems so stable and the soliders seem to do so little other than occassionally walk around town looking intimidating (or, if not really intimidating, at least looking official and armed). But I guess that doesn't really mean anything; the idea of a peacekeeping force in general, I suppose, is to provide a presence that keeps any kind of threat of violence underground. So the stability I witness could be nothing more than a sign that the UN forces here are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing – maintaining peace – and not an indication that the country has actually achieved any kind of lasting stability. Unfortunately, I can't see that there is any way to tell the difference until the peacekeepers actually pull out, and things either fall apart or do not fall apart.

Speaking of stability – the President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (“Ma Ellen”), announced recently that she will run for a second term, although she had originally promised to serve only one term. I can't say that I know much at all about Liberian politics beyond the fact that they are incredibly, pervasively corrupt, and extremely complicated due to continued problems with tribalism. However, from my completely un-knowledgeable perspective, the President's decision to run again seems like a good thing and a bad thing. It seems good because, as far as I can tell, the President seems to be doing a very good job in what must be an incredibly difficult position. Furthermore, having some continuity in what is still an extremely fragile country seems like it would be a positive thing. On the flip side, this seems like a bad thing because she did promise to serve only one term, and the fact that she has gone back on her word is somewhat suggestive of a hunger for power (although I'd like to believe that she is more altruistically inspired to continue helping her country get back on its feet). In any case, the elections will occur next year, and it seems like that will be the first true test of Liberia's stability.

Anyway. These tests of Liberia's peace – the withdrawal of the UN soldiers and the next elections – will all happen well after I'm gone. But they are quickly approaching, and it's interesting (if fuitile) to speculate on what will happen when they do.

Well, almost a full week after I left central PA, I have finally made it back to my site.

In all honesty, I probably could have made it back here a few days earlier. But for several reasons – some totally within my control and others beyond it – I ended up staying up in Monrovia a few extra days.

I don't envision myself traveling back to Monrovia again before I go home for good, and I have to say, the thought of that doesn't make me particularly sad. Monrovia is oppressively hot, humid, busy, confusing, and yet (somewhat paradoxically) also very boring. Its main appeals are Western food, Western amenities, and a few beaches that are not completely contaminated with human feces, but these things unfortunately also come with Western price tags. It's not really possible to do Monrovia (safely and comfortably) on the cheap the way it is in Nairobi – as far as I can tell, there are no Westernized-yet-tucked-away $5-a-night hostels, such as there were in Nairobi; no reliable and/or comprehensible public transport; no mamas selling beans and rice on the side of the road. The UN presence has jacked up prices on nearly everything to an astounding degree (UN folks generally receive excellent pay and benefits, from what I've heard, and I believe at least some of them also still receive hazard pay in Liberia), and so everything from food to transport to lodging is outrageously expensive.

There obviously must be places to eat Liberian food and sleep in developing-country-quality hostels at Liberian prices, since there are of course many not-rich Liberians who live in Monrovia, but I don't know where those places are. Furthermore, I'm not sure I'd be comfortable staying in such a place. There are plenty of white people in Monrovia, but the city is still not nearly as diverse as Nairobi, and there are none (or nearly none) of the Western backpacker-tourist class that populate the cheap (though still very comfortable) hostels and hotels in Nairobi. As a white girl in a cheap hostel here, I'd stick out even more than usual (and “usual” is quite a lot), and I'm not convinced that it would be in any way safe (particularly since the vast majority of white folks in Monrovia are affiliated with the UN or other aid agencies, and so are quite wealthy by Liberian and my own Peace Corps volunteer standards; thus, the perception of white people as rich is even more exaggerated than it is elsewhere).

In any case, I'm very glad to be back at my site. I'm even glad to be eating Liberian food again; despite the lack of variety and surplus of oil, bones, and strange animal parts, it is still nice to be eating food that is actually made of food and not preservatives and chemicals and whatever else they pack into most packaged “foods” in the US these days. Having some time away and then coming back has also made me realize that I'm doing OK, as far as community integration goes. There are a lot of people I'm genuinely happy to come back to – students, neighbors, co-workers, friends, friends' co-workers, and so on. And they seem genuinely happy to see me (although, “Welcome back!” is often followed by “What did you bring me from America?” -- but I'll choose to ignore that part and believe that they're happy to see me – the actual me, not mascot-white-lady-representation-of-America me).

My guilt at spending extra time in Monrovia (which brought the total amount of school I missed because of my trip home to nearly three weeks) was assuaged by the fact that apparently the students did not show up for class at all the entire first week, and have been trickling slowly in since last week. My classes today were surprisingly respectful and manageable, which I'd like to think was a sign that I've gained a little bit of ground in the battle of classroom behavior. Of course, I think it's more likely that it was due to the fact that classes were still only 50-75% full. It could also be a result of my having exaggerated classroom management problems in my head to the point where I was almost expecting the students to tear apart the desks and start beating each other over the heads at the slightest provocation, making nearly any kind of behavior seem angelic in comparison. In any case, although there was a not-altogether-small part of me that was dreading the return to site, I'm genuinely happy to be back, and to be able to jump right into things.

Well, I leave Pennsylvania tomorrow (er . . . technically today, I guess), and to be perfectly honest, I'm about as unexcited about the prospect of going back to Liberia as I can be [WARNING: WHINING AHEAD].

Here's the deal: I got back from California yesterday, and am still feeling the effects of the time difference. I've been stressed about interviews, stressed about imposing on family, friends, and acquaintances for housing during my travels, stressed about traveling, and stressed about spending American money on a Liberian salary. When I get stressed, I eat a lot of junk. When I eat a lot of junk, I gain weight. And when I gain weight, all of the people I know in Liberia feel the need to make me aware that they've noticed. So, overall, I'm tired, I feel physically pretty crummy, and I'm irritable and negative about all of the bullshit that I know I'll have to deal with when I get back.

On a positive note, it really was great to see everyone. And it was nice to be reminded how much support I have, both from family and friends, back in the US -- even if it feels awfully far away sometimes. It was also kind of cool to get to see several different parts of the US -- the Northeast, Southeast, and West Coast (albeit for a very short periods of time); it reminded me of what a beautiful, diverse country I live in. So for those reasons, I'm very grateful that I had the chance to come home for a bit.

About my last entry: it may seem odd that I feel the need to write about what an unpleasant, petty person I can be. But part of the reason that I write that kind of entry, which probably contains more information about myself and my flaws than you really want to know, is because I need to remind myself why I wanted to do this.

Sometimes I wish I were more religious, that I felt some kind of a higher force pushing me to stay committed and do my very best work, that I had an easier answer to why the fuck I want to live somewhere with no shower when I don't have to. Of course, I'm not religious, and even if I were, religion isn't necessarily an "easy answer." So I have to find my own personal and secular reasons for choosing this experience. (Although those reasons often come down to "it's better than anything else I can think of," and "shit, I forgot . . . did I have reasons?")

Interviews are over and done with. I’m flying back home now from the final one, and in two days I’ll be beginning the long and unpleasant journey back to my site in Liberia.

Looking back, it was pretty ridiculous of me to be so upset by all of the medical school rejections. I actually did pretty well – all of the schools at which I was offered interviews were darn good schools. So even if I don’t get in at this point, I’m feeling a lot better about the prospect of reapplying.

Of course, it goes without saying that I very much hope that I do get in somewhere. Aside from the expense and hassle of reapplying, I also can’t help but feel as though the whole application process brings out the worst in me. I have an ugly streak of insecure arrogance that I’m ashamed to admit has been exacerbated during this ordeal. As I mentioned in a very early entry, one reason (among many) that I was attracted to Peace Corps was that I have a tendency to base my self-worth on extrinsic factors, such as grades and scores. I wanted to do something that was intrinsically beneficial, something that would move me away from the mindless competitiveness of high school and college. I hoped that Peace Corps – an environment with no grades, no scores, and altogether almost no outside evaluation of competency – would help me to sort out my priorities, and to become more confident in myself and less reliant upon others’ evaluations of me.

But the fact that, in the end, I ended up deciding to apply to medical school suggests that, to an extent, I failed in my goal of being less dependent on external measures of worth. True, I have very solid reasons that I want to get an MD, reasons that have nothing to do with ego: a strong interest in the biological and social sciences; a desire for stability but also flexibility in my career – the flexibility to work in the clinical and academic worlds, and to work in the US or abroad; a realization that I will be a much happier and more fulfilled person if I work in a field that directly benefits others. But at the same time, I’m very much aware that the status and money that are a part of the medical profession are also important to me. And there is an embarrassing, immature part of me that wants to say to all the people who made me feel stupid and inadequate (intentionally or unintentionally) during high school, college, and my year at Georgia Tech: “Suck my metaphorical dick, assholes. I got interviews at good medical schools. Fuck all y’all.” (Which is particularly ridiculous because the only person I can definitely say has consistently made me feel stupid and inadequate throughout the years is myself).

Of course, there’s a very good chance I still won’t get in anywhere. But even if I don’t, there’s a part of me that feels very relieved that at least I got as far as I did. At the same time, there’s a different part of me that feels pretty crappy that my reason for feeling better is still so empty and status-oriented.

I've been in the US for about 2 weeks now, and have completed 2 out of 3 interviews.

It's both really nice and really weird to be back. It's nice because it is awesome being with people that I love and enjoy spending time with. It's also nice because, well, things are just easier here – potable water comes straight out of the tap, the indoor temperature can be controlled with the press of a few buttons, and nobody makes me feel uncomfortable and guilty by demanding money or calling me a racist when I refuse to give out my phone number.

It's weird to be in the US for a lot of reasons, some of which I can't quite identify. The fact that I'm here primarily for interviews certainly plays a role in the weirdness – it goes without saying that interviews are stressful. (Having said that, I should say that I've been very impressed with the ways in which schools genuinely try to make the interview process as painless as possible. And for the most part, the questions that interviewers have asked have been easy to answer – questions about Peace Corps, about why I want to be a doctor, and so forth).

In addition, I think that, under any circumstances, it is always a little bit strange to return to a place to which you have a connection, but haven't visited for some time. Coming home to central PA always feels that way for me. It's my home, and in that sense it is familiar and comfortable. But it can also feel small and restrictive, and even though I lived here for 22 years, I somehow feel like I don't quite fit in anymore (if I ever did). As an example of this, the very way that I talk apparently is un-Pennsylvanian. I've had several people (interviewers and fellow interviewees) ask me “Where are you from?” and then act surprised when I reply “Pennsylvania;” some people seem to think I have a Midwestern accent. This is a silly thing to be bothered by, especially because I don't particularly want to speak with a strong central Pennsylvanian accent, but it makes me think: Am I trying to be somebody that I'm not? Is this just one more indication that I can't really call this place “home” anymore? Am I and was I ever really a “true Pennsylvanian,” and if not, do I give a shit?

I guess it's kind of absurd to think about these things, especially since I have never had a desire to spend the rest of my life in PA or felt a particularly strong connection to my “Pennsylvanian roots” (I feel ridiculous even typing that). But I think there is something about spending a lot of time in a totally different culture, and trying to understand how and why others think and act the way they do, that makes me think more about my own background and upbringing. In much of Africa, the tribe that one belongs to has a very strong influence on one's values and beliefs; regional and national identities are of secondary importance. As Americans, I think we have a much stronger national identity, and relatively weaker cultural identities, possibly because (in theory at least) inclusiveness is highly valued here (in contrast with Liberia, where it is actually unconstitutional for white people to be citizens). Paradoxically, because we value individuality, I think that we encourage the formation of unique personal identities to a greater extent than in communal cultures, and to a certain extent this comes at the cost of the development of a group-based identity.

I've been thinking about these issues a lot as well because, being in the US again, I now am trying to integrate my experiences from the past few months back into my “American self.” I feel as though being outside of the US teaches me a great deal about not only Liberia, but about America and about myself as an American. But I struggle somewhat with trying to maintain what I've learned abroad without falling back into old habits of thought and action that I had before. At the same time, I know that I haven't really changed THAT much, and I don't want to become that weird white girl who can't fit into her own American culture because she somehow thinks that her experiences have made her more “worldly” and “wise” than others who have not had the same experiences, or who allows her experiences abroad to completely define her personality (which are not uncommon pitfalls for returned Peace Corps volunteers).

Anyway, my point was that I feel like the questions of who I am, where I came from, and why I am the way I am have been at the forefront of my mind during this visit home. It's been great to be back, like I said, but I can't help but wonder as I visit family and friends – how have I changed since I've been gone? How have they changed? And how can I continue to grow and move forwards while still maintaining the connections that I have to the people and places that are important to me?

36 straight hours of travel later – including many, many security checks and thorough friskings – a 3-hour delay in Brussels – a 9-hour flight in a center seat between an older couple, one member of whom spent the entire trip attempting to cough up a lung – many odd looks for being the only person in the snowy Brussels, Chicago, and Philly airports in flip-flops and a light sweater – a mad dash through the Chicago airport, with only 1 hour to clear customs, recheck my bag, re-enter security, and find my connecting flight – a 4-hour drive through the snow to arrive at 2 AM (thanks again, Dad!!!) -- I'm home!

My bag is not home, but I know that it made it to the US, as we had a brief but joyful meeting in Chicago, and I have faith that we will soon find ourselves happily reunited.

Anyway, now that I'm back home, I'm starting to get REALLY nervous about these interviews. I'm thoroughly clean now, but the hair and clothing still need work, and I still have a lot of preparation to do, including arranging all of my travel within the US.

I'm hoping that, by the time of the first interview, the feeling that I'm a weirdo will have somewhat passed. I definitely felt conspicuous and eccentric in my summer clothing in the airports. Maybe I'm too sensitive, but I dread the conversations in which I have to explain where I've been to people I don't really know (such as the one I will soon be having with the hairdresser, wherein I will try to excuse my unruly moptop). “Peace Corps, cool!” people always say with false enthusiasm, but many times I can see something behind it that says “This girl must be very strange.” I know it's silly for me to worry about such things, but part of me can't quite help it.

Step 1 of the Journey to America: Complete. Here I am in Monrovia – showered (albeit in a cold shower, but a shower nonetheless – my first since August) and enjoying the noiseless, generator-less electricity. There is even a fan in my hotel room, and a sweet Incredible Hulk bedsheet. Luxury indeed.

As it turns out, I was wrong about several aspects of the ride in the NGO car. While it was indeed a functioning vehicle, it was stuffed to the brim with people. There was quite a bit of luggage and livestock (one sad-looking goat), although these were tied to the top of the vehicle and not in it with us. I lucked out and got the front seat, which was spacious and uncrowded and as comfortable as a seat in a Land Cruiser can be. (. . . Actually, “lucked out” is not entirely correct, as I'm relatively sure that I was the only person in that car who was actually authorized to be getting a ride. But who can blame the driver for picking up extra people along the way? It would be a waste to travel all that long distance at less than full capacity).

The trip took about 11 hours in all, but would have been much shorter if the other car with which we were traveling had not blown four tires (not all at once), requiring us to stop several times to assist their driver. Still, I have to say – for the most part, I actually enjoyed the journey. For one thing, it allowed me to see a part of Liberia I haven't really seen before, or saw but didn't really appreciate (I traveled this same road once before, in August, on the way from Monrovia to my site). The roadside billboards I found especially interesting; I felt as though they gave an interesting insight into the problems that are at the forefront in Liberia. There were many signs encouraging parents to send children to school instead of keeping them at home to work, and many about preventing corruption in the schools. Just as common were the billboards promoting the prevention of diarrhea through hand-washing “after pupu” (graphic illustrations included). There were quite a few about rape (“Rape is a crime”) and domestic violence. Then there were the anti-HIV/AIDS billboards, encouraging sexual fidelity, condom use, and awareness of HIV status. And just outside of Monrovia, my personal favorite appeared – a large billboard that proclaimed “DON'T SLEEP IN THE SAME ROOM as chickens.”

It was also interesting for me to compare the experience of traveling in Liberia to that of traveling in Kenya. Maybe I'm looking back through rose-colored glasses, but I quite liked traveling in Kenya (despite the horrendous roads) – I loved the vendors selling snacks (pineapple slices, sesame seed candy, peanuts, biscuits, roasted corn, and so on) through the windows of the vehicles, the sense of terrified exhilaration that resulted from traveling way, way too fast for the conditions of the roads and the vehicles, and the unpredictability of every journey. The terror and exhilaration were definitely still present here (nothing gets your adrenaline pumping like dodging herds of goats at 80 kilometers per hour). The vendors were present too, though not in great numbers, and not with the variety of wares that were sold on the streets in Kenya.

The biggest difference, really, between travel in Kenya and travel here is that, as with just about everything else, public transport in Kenya is simply much more organized. If you want to travel across Kenya, you have several options – you can take a bus (which you can even make reservations for in advance), or choose from among several different levels of matatu (the standard 14-seater van or the luxury 8- or 6-seater vehicle), or take the train (which only breaks down two out of three trips). Even the seemingly chaotic transport hubs in most cities are actually relatively well-organized. So even though one still might sit for three or four hours waiting for a car to fill, or take a car halfway to one's destination only to find that the driver of said car has decided not to go any further -- in general, the system works, particularly for travel between major cities.

Here, there is not really a good system for travel at all. The public vehicles – mostly old Toyota station wagons -- simply are not designed to travel long distances over rough roads, and break-downs are extremely common. For this reason, I would suspect that part of the problem with the system is that the profit margin is very slim. The types of vehicles that are affordable to a local business owner, and can be easily repaired using locally available materials, are prone to costly damages when driven over long distances. And even though transportation is a necessary service, people are on such tight budgets that it is not possible to raise the prices significantly. So while an increased organization of car owners and drivers could help to alleviate the transport situation, it really cannot be fixed until the roads are improved. (Fortunately, this process is under way; Bangladesh and China, in particular, have sunken a lot of money into improving Liberian infrastructure, and small sections of road are beautifully paved).

Anyway. I'm happy to have made it this far. I probably won't write again until I go home, and then I suspect that I won't write very much when I'm in the US. After all, this blog is supposed to be about life in Africa – “The Whitest Girl Visiting Friends And Family In The US And Also Attending Some Medical School Interviews” just doesn't have the same appeal.

EDIT, 5 January 2010, 10:13 AM:

Just took a cab in Monrovia. Public transport within the city is incredibly disorganized, compared to transport in Nairobi. While Nairobi was a far step below the system in America (no timetables, no posted routes), there were at least set routes within the city that different vehicles traveled regularly. Here, yellow cabs patrol the city, picking up anybody who needs to go anywhere. Definitely not an efficient system.

Also, I saw another billboard in Monrovia, rising above the trash that is piled along the streets. It read “Don’t Throw Dirt In The Street.”

Today was busy, in that last-minute-preparations kind of a way. I finally managed to confirm that I can get a ride to Monrovia with an NGO, which makes me feel much better about the journey – it will still be a long ride on a very bad road, but at least it will be in a functioning vehicle, which will not be overstuffed with people, luggage, and/or livestock.

At this moment, I'm actually sad to be leaving, which is silly, because I'll be coming back very soon. And for the most part, I've been itching to get out of town recently. I haven't left my site at all since I got here at the end of August, and I've been pretty bored these past few weeks with no school to fill the days. In addition, one of my neighbor's relatives died recently, and there have been mourners coming at all hours for the past week. I haven't slept the whole night through in six days or so, as 2-5 AM seems to be peak wailing time. So, in light of all of these things, I've very much been looking forward to going home.

Still, the process of packing up now just reminds me that I'll be packing up to leave for good in a few short months. And even though the work here can at times be frustrating, tedious, and lonely, there is still something about living here that is . . . very satisfying, I guess. I can't quite put my finger on it. It's something that is difficult to explain to people in the US and impossible to explain to people here. In fact, when I try to explain to Liberians that, no, really, I'm much happier here than I was in the US . . . that I feel incredibly lucky to have been born an American but that America is far from perfect . . . that when you have everything you could need (really need, not want) that it is not only easy but natural to forget how fortunate you are to have it . . . that wealth is by no means an ultimate protection against unhappiness . . . that we Americans do have very real problems but also have a neurotic tendency create problems in their absence . . . when I try to explain these things, Liberians look at me as though I am crazy.

And I guess it is crazy. It's easy for me to romanticize life in Africa, because I have the ultimate safety net – when I want to, I can always leave. Inevitably, my conversations with Liberians about how America is not the perfect haven they imagine it to be end with me feeling guilty and spoiled. Sure, I like living here, but I like living here under the condition that I stay in my little bubble – with free, quality medical care only a phone call away, with the assumption that, in the case of any danger, someone will come to rescue me, and with the knowledge that my time here is limited. As much as I pretend to be living the real Liberian life, I'm not, nor would I want to be.

Anyway. I'd better get back to packing. My car leaves at 6:30 AM tomorrow morning, and I certainly don't want to miss it.

I've written quite a bit in December – this entry will put me solidly at three entries per week – by virtue of the fact that I simply haven't had all that much in the way of structured work (emphasis on structured – the unstructured task of grading, though I am making headway, is still a significant time-consumer).

I want to write a little bit about tribalism here. One of the reasons that I was excited to come to Liberia was to see how it compared with Kenya – West vs. East Africa, a country with strong American ties vs. a former British colony, a country that is emerging from a long period of tribalism-driven civil war vs. a country that, at the end of my time there, saw its own latent problems with tribalism flare and threaten the stability of the country. In light of how I left Kenya (evacuated after the December 2007 elections, which prompted a wave of violence when the incumbent president appeared to rig the election in a very close contest that was mainly split along tribal lines), I thought it would be very interesting to see the flip side of the coin – a country that is struggling to rebuild itself after fourteen years of civil war, in which tribalism was the single greatest motivating factor.

Once again, my own experiences are confounded by the fact that I am in a larger town this time around, instead of a small, mostly ethnically homogeneous village. In general, both here and in Kenya, tribal prejudices are likely most severe in the rural areas, where education levels overall are lower and there is little overlap between groups. Peace Corps told us in our very brief training (and I think I repeated this in a very early entry) that, in essence, people in Liberia are “tired of” tribalistic concerns. In the war, everyone suffered, and to that end it served as a unifying factor among ethnic groups. Yet tribalism is still clearly a major concern – one of President Ellen Sirleaf Johnson's most difficult tasks has been maintaining adequate governmental representation by all ethnic groups.

I will say, though, that I rarely or never hear people disparaging rival tribes here (or even talking about the different tribes in general), whereas in Kenya that was nearly a daily occurrence. To be fair, I was, for most of my time there, in Molo district, in solidly Kalenjin country but very close to an area that was still subject to violent land disputes between the Kalenjin and Kikuyu tribes. So by virtue of my placement there, the extent to which I perceived ethnic tensions may have been exaggerated, as compared to the degree to which tribal concerns persisted throughout the country as a whole. (As an example of how tribalism affected everyday life – although my first boarding school attracted girls from other districts, and we had representatives of the Maasai, Luhya, and Luo tribes, there was not a single Kikuyu girl or teacher at the school, despite the fact that there were large Kikuyu-dominated areas relatively nearby). Yet the fact that the elections were so very tribally divided, and resulted in such swift and senseless violence, suggests that tribal tensions were indeed lurking just below the surface throughout the country.

One tangential, but still relevant, issue that I find fascinating is the divisiveness of language in tribal disputes. As I mentioned before, here and in Kenya (and throughout Africa in general), there are many unique ethic groups, and, in general, each has its own language. In fact, language is one of the major ways in which it is possible to distinguish between the tribes. Just after the elections in Kenya, when the violence was at its peak, people were erecting roadblocks along the roads (this was the major reason that Peace Corps sent a helicopter to fetch me, not because I was in any imminent danger – I simply couldn't leave). They would arrest traveling matatus (the main form of transportation), and would force the occupants to speak their mother tongue in order to determine whether or not they were members of an friendly or opposing tribe.

Here, I have noticed that, while I do hear older persons speaking in the local dialect, I rarely hear the younger generation speaking Khran. In fact, when I questioned some of the neighborhood children about this, they told me that they don't speak the dialect at all. Whether this is a symbol of the unification of the country and a movement toward a national identity as opposed to a primarily tribal one, or a byproduct of increased mobility with the end of the war, leading to the necessity of wider usage of a common language, or the result of something else entirely – that I can't say. But the fact that members of the younger generation (at least in the more urban areas) are not learning mother tongue certainly seems like a significant fact in it of itself.

Christmas in Liberia, as it turns out, bizarrely combines elements from American Christmas (namely, a widespread disregard for the religious origins of the holiday in favor of its commercial aspects) and Halloween (in particular, children begging and wearing masks and face paint). Town was absolutely packed with kids running around with new toys, playing games and asking for money. In fact, it was so crowded that someone made the surprising but wise decision to dispatch police to direct the normally chaotic, unregulated road traffic (comprised of UN and aid vehicles – generally Land Rovers or similarly sturdy trucks in decent condition – local vehicles – overloaded station wagons and minibuses that one expects to collapse at any moment – and many, many motorbikes).

Santa Claus is not very well-known here, but he has an incredibly creepy stand-in: Old Man Beggar. The Old Man Beggar I saw was a child wearing a skeleton mask and a ski jacket (in the 90-degree weather) that had been stuffed to give him a (not very jolly) belly, dancing down the street followed by several other children and asking anyone and everyone for money.

I actually had quite a pleasant, though decidedly low-key, Christmas. I went to the Catholic Christmas Eve service with my landlord, had chicken foot and fish head soup at the principal's house on Christmas Day (though I, coward that I am, avoided both of those particular elements), walked around town to see the holiday goings-on, and hung out with the hyperactive, face paint- and glitter-covered neighborhood children until I couldn't stand the demands for money anymore. And I read. A lot.

I have to say, one thing that I really enjoy about Peace Corps is having the time to read. There are generally a lot of great books floating around among volunteers, books that I wouldn't necessarily have known to look for in the US, but am generally pleasantly surprised to discover. Since being here, some of the most engaging books I've read have included Emma's War, a true story about an aid worker in Sudan who ends up marrying a Sudanese warlord, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, about the way in which supposedly “neutral” aid is manipulated to oppress other countries and further the USA's agenda abroad, Graham Greene's Journey Without Maps, about traveling across Liberia by foot in the 1930s, and most recently, The Pilgrimage, a mystical though nonfiction work by Brazil's Paulo Coelho (who also wrote The Alchemist) and The Devil in the White City, about the H.H. Holmes murders during the Chicago World's Fair.

I haven't read as much science fiction as I did in Kenya, where I read quite a bit. I think science fiction particularly appeals to me for several reasons: 1. I'm a dork, and 2. A recurring theme in a lot of science fiction is that of dealing with others who are different. Think of every alien story you have seen, heard, or read – even though they are “about” aliens, they are really about human nature; the core question is “How will we, as human beings, react in the face of entities who are different from us?” Will we react with fear and violence, or unintended cruelty under the guise of scientific investigation? Or will we react in a completely different way? (Side note: the movie District 9 is a fantastic example of what I'm talking about, in a context that is especially relevant to work in Africa). I think, if you have been reading this blog, that you can probably imagine why that particular theme appeals to me. Though if my own cross-cultural experiences can be said to broadly reflect on the ways in which people act in the face of something new and different (like a nerdy white lady), then what I think will happen when we finally make contact with extraterrestrials is this: we'll mock them mercilessly and laugh them off the face of the planet.

Anyway. I allowed myself a few days' respite from grading, but I'm starting to worry that I won't finish before I go. So I should probably stop rambling about Christmas, literature, and science fiction, and suck it up and get back to work.

It's looking like I'm going to be spending Christmas by myself again, and I think I'm actually perfectly OK with that. A big group of volunteers is hanging out on the beach this holiday season, but since I'm using all of my vacation and more for my trip back to the US, I can't join them. Anyway, I really need to get all of these exams taken care of before January, which I can't do if I'm running around the country. Beyond that, although I think it could be fun, large volunteer gatherings (particularly when I don't know most of the volunteers) have their stresses as well.

As a whole, I think that spending holidays alone while out of the country is somehow a lot less unpleasant than spending them alone in the US. I'm not going to lie – there is a nagging little part of me that thinks I must be a huge loser if I'm spending Christmas alone under any circumstances. This is especially true because it brings out my worst insecurities about being here – I still feel as though I'm a failure, to some extent, because I don't really have any Liberian friends here (or at least any over the age of fourteen). But I guess I feel like less of a loser knowing that there are a lot of other expatriots around who are also far away from their homes and families, and are also having to spend the holidays either alone or with relative strangers.

So in that sense, holidays alone in Atlanta were definitely much more unpleasant. In part that is because, in Atlanta, I seemed to be the only person I knew who had to struggle to find someone else to spend a holiday with. For that reason, the smaller family holidays (Fourth of July, Easter, Memorial Day, birthdays), which never seemed like a big deal when I was near my family, and which certainly weren't worth special trips all the way back up to the Northeast, became sources of stress and unhappiness.

Another difference between holidays at home and holidays abroad is that, in Peace Corps, I find myself with a lot of other people like me – in their 20s or 30s, single, and transitioning from something to something else, although the “somethings” are not always clear. But what seems like a natural and acceptable period of change here feels more like an awkward in-between stage at home. Many of my friends in the US have or are starting families of their own, and family holidays remind me painfully that I'm getting to an age at which I should be doing the same thing – only, as things stand now, I don't see that happening anywhere in the near future.

Most of the time, I feel as though the fact that I often seem to be by myself when others are not is reflective of the fact that I've chosen to do things that have moved me around a lot, and taken me far away from family and the friends that I've made. Although I would definitely make the same decisions again (I wouldn't hesitate to up and move to Kenya, Atlanta, or Liberia), one of the prices to pay for the rewarding experiences I've had is having to spend a lot of time by myself, including during holidays. Which is one of the reasons I wanted to do these things in the first place – I figure that, in my lifetime, I'll spend more time with myself than with any other person, and so I should at least make an effort to make “myself” a person that I like (and one of the ways I can do that is by living in new and different places).

Still, it's hard not to feel as though those are just excuses, that the real reason I am alone for the holidays, when everyone else is with someone, is that I'm defective, a loser, a social outcast. But I try to silence those thoughts when I have them. From a purely practical standpoint, I made no effort to join up with other volunteers over the holidays, for the reasons I've given, and I will be spending time with friends and family in the US in very short order. So for the most part, I'm content to see Christmas as just another day, and to look past it to my upcoming trip home.

Writing about the corporal punishment issue here versus in Kenya reminded me of something that I've been meaning to write about for awhile – the similarities and differences between the school systems in the two countries, and how they compare to the system in the US.

Overall, although there are a lot of issues with the Kenyan educational system, I would say that it is vastly superior to the system here. I guess that is not surprising, as Kenya in general is way ahead on the development scale, wheras in Liberia I would characterize things as barely a step above total chaos (OK, maybe that's an exaggeration, but not much of one). This is true not only in the realm of education, but in the political and judicial systems as well, and pretty much any other system that you can think of – for the most part, things are functioning, but not effectively.

In my eyes, one of the major problems with the Kenyan educational system (aside from the corruption and sexual and monetary exploitation of students, which take place here as well) is its extreme rigidity. In part, I think that the rigidity stems from the British colonial influence; somehow, the Kenyan system seems to have combined traditional African values with the worst, most inflexible parts of Western education to create schools in which students are held to unrealistically high standards that cannot possibly be achieved. The girls at my first boarding school were awakened at 5:30 AM every morning, Saturdays and Sundays included, and expected to spend the entire day – from 6:30 AM until 9:30 PM – in their classrooms. Classes ran from 6:45 AM until 6:45 PM on the weekdays, with short breaks for lunch, sports, and of course the requisite twice-daily tea breaks; the rest of the evening was set aside for homework and studying, which students were expected to do in complete silence.

Not surprisingly, the huge amounts of time set aside for studying did not correspond to a good academic performance for most of the students. And the students were punished harshly for poor outcomes – they were publicly humiliated in front of their classmates, called fat and lazy, or beaten. I think, in part, that this excessive harshness came from a twisted interpretation of the value of hard work. “Work harder!” was always the advice given to students who were failing. While the application of hard work to achieve educational and professional goals is certainly a value that Americans hold highly as well, it is useless in the absence of a realistic plan for achieving those goals. Students were given huge, overwhelming courseloads, expected to learn all subjects – including college-level chemistry, physics, and mathematics – in their third language, which many of them had not really mastered, and were never taught mechanisms for effective studying. “Work harder” was not a helpful piece of advice for such students, who were totally unequipped to handle the intense academic environment. A vicious cycle resulted – students performed poorly because the teachers did not teach critical thinking and study skills, students were punished for poor performance, and then students performed even more poorly because the strict punishments demoralized the students and failed to address the base issues underlying students' poor performance.

Here in Liberia, I feel as though some of the problems are almost the exact opposite of the Kenyan system. The overcrowded classrooms and undertrained and underpaid teachers combine to produce an environment in which students are not being held responsible for their own education – as opposed to the Kenyan system, in which far too much responsibility is placed on the shoulders of the students. I was very happy at first to hear parents and teachers alike sympathizing with the students; in the teacher training workshop run by the principal of the school just after I arrived in Liberia, he urged teachers to find the source of students' poor performances, by counseling them individually and maintaining good communication with the parents. Yet, far too often, in practice what results is not any actual attempt to find and rectify the source of poor student performance, but instead an excusing of student failures without any attempt to help them overcome those failures. Thus, students are given passing grades even when they have not even remotely mastered the material, resulting in what I see every day – eighth graders who read and do math at a first-grade level. Blaming the students for their failures without making a real effort to help them is not good in terms of promoting real learning, but neither is absolving students of all responsibility and allowing them to pass without actually achieving anything academically.

I can't help but feel that the major advantage of the Kenyan system over the Liberian one is this: The very best students in Kenya can generally find a way to succeed. A standardized national exam is given in 8th and 12th grades; the results of the 8th-grade exam allow one to enter into a national, regional, or district-level school (national being the highest-quality and district being the lowest). A good performance on the 12th-grade exam allows one to gain entrance at the university. So, although things are complicated by the fact that the better schools cost more, putting the poorest students at a disadvantage (true not only in Kenya, but in Liberia and the US as well), there are opportunities available for the best and the brightest in Kenya. Here in Liberia, I can't help but feel as though everyone is equally fucked when it comes to academics. The good and the bad students alike are piled into the same huge classroom, making it impossible for a teacher to teach at a pace that is appropriate for all students. So even though I think the Kenyan system is not well-suited to your average student (the 12th-grade exam, administered to all students, covers topics ranging from advanced caculus to the interpretation of Shakespeare to basic organic chemistry), it is superior to the system here, in which even the best students do not have as many opportunities for success.

The other major issue here is that education simply does not seem to be as highly valued as it is in Kenya. The idea of universal education is certainly appealing, but many people seem content to let it rest as an idea and not an actual means to an end (i.e., actually learning stuff). As long as students appear to be going to school, and appear to be getting an education, the quality of the education is not of great importance. It's hard to say exactly why this is – maybe I am just witnessing the first step toward the rebuilding the educational system, and the quality will improve over time. Or maybe the lack of emphasis on quality is reflective of a general cultural attitude in which appearance is valued over substance. Or maybe it comes from something else entirely, which I completely fail to understand.

This entry is already way too long, but in reading back over what I've written, I feel the need to mention one thing: As I've said before, there is a huge amount of variation within both Kenya and Liberia. My experience at girls' boarding schools was very, very different from the experiences of many other Peace Corps Kenya volunteers. The size of the town or village, the region of the country, and the cultural norms of the dominant ethnic group have a profound influence on the functionality of each individual school, and my own experience in no way allows me to accurately reflect on the educational system of the country as a whole (even though that is pretty much just what I tried to do). My work in Liberia has likewise been limited to one single large town, and the problems I face here are certainly not the same as those faced by teachers in the smaller towns and villages. So keep that in mind as you are reading through this; take everything I've written with a grain of salt.

I can't believe it's almost Christmas. In part, that is because it is still 85-95 degrees outside every day (and nearly that hot inside also, with no A/C or fan). Also, there are none of the cues that signal Christmastime in the US – no tinsel, no ugly fake Santas, no Christmas carols playing 24/7. The only thing that seems to have changed with the onset of the Christmas season is that people have a new reason to ask for money (which they do by saying “Where is my Christmas?”); also, there are more people selling small toys on the roadside. For some reason, little inflatable dolls on sticks seem to be very popular – brightly colored Chinese-style fish, Spiderman dolls, and inflatable wands decorated with famous soccer players are appearing everywhere.

School is officially over for the year. Exams were, again, miserable, but this time at least I had help proctoring from two of the male teachers. Apparently, the key to getting 150 teenaged students to do what you want them to do is to carry a big stick, which you whip around threateningly and slap on the desks to make a very intimidating noise, all the while shouting at the top of your lungs. I can't say that it would have been my chosen method of trying to create order, but it worked just fine. As a side note – although threatening students with switches seems to be an accepted method of motivation, actually beating the students appears to be frowned upon. This is in contrast to the situation in Kenya, where – despite the illegality of it – the public was enormously in favor of corporal punishment in the schools. The extent to which it was actually carried out varied – in my first school, I only witnessed the girls receiving a slap on the palm, wheras at my second school, the teachers would routinely call girls into the teacher's lounge, force them to lay on the floor, and beat them over the back and shoulders until they cried. In other schools, teachers would circumvent the legality issue by calling parents into the schools to beat the kids themselves.

In other news, life outside of school continues, in its leisurely though unpredictable and often confusing fashion. Yesterday, the neighbor's kids captured a live snake and put it in a bucket of water, which they showed to me. When I asked what they were going to do with it, they said they were going to “sell it to the Chinese.” Speaking of -- the Chinese soliders have been driving all over town lately, carrying shovels, and offering to pay people rice in exchange for bushes, which they dig up and apparently re-plant on their compound. Our county's soccer team beat the neighboring county the other day and there was much rejoicing in the form of people riding around on motorbikes, honking and shouting and wearing the Grand Gedeh (pronounced “Jee-deh”) county flag. A new phone-charging station opened near my house, which would be much more convenient if they actually charged phones in a timely manner (in a country in which most people have cell phones but no electricity, phone charging is an important business; the town is dotted with small booths containing gas-powered generators, where people – including myself – leave their phones to charge for a fee of 30 cents or so. But at this charging station, they leave the generator off when the phones are “not plenty,” as they say, meaning that a phone can sit there all day without actually charging).

So that's la vie quotidienne here in Liberia. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with myself until I go home in January, aside from grade papers, which is always a good time. I'm excited to go home but already dreading the journey back to the States – the trip from here to Monrovia (a vomit-inducing ride over unpaved roads, which I've been told can take anywhere from 8 hours to 2 days), then two 8-hour plane rides, then a 2-hour plane ride, and then, finally, a 4-hour drive back to my hometown. But the rewards at the end – unlimited hot showers and haircuts, food that I actually enjoy eating, and being able to blend into the crowd again – are well worth the effort.

This week was relatively uneventful. School began as usual on Monday and kind of petered out, so that by the end of the week, only a handful of students were showing up. This is because the latter part of the week was designated as “review for exams,” which most of the teachers and students interpreted as “don't bother to show up to review for exams.”

Since I don't have much to say about school this week, I'm going to write about something I've been meaning to touch on for awhile: the language here.

. . . Ack. I have to pause for a minute. One of the mothers next door is shrieking and beating one of her kids and he is yelling and crying, and it's very distracting.

OK, they stopped. God, it's so unpleasant to hear that. I know that I wrote a little bit about the domestic violence situation here, but it's something I'm going to have to revisit at some point. Not today, though.

Anyway, the language.

The language situation here is really interesting. As in Kenya, there are many different local dialects (the region I am in is dominated by the Krahn – or maybe Khran? -- people, who have their own language), but this place differs from Kenya in that the majority of people usually speak English. However, it's a version of English that's so different from American English that I often can't even tell whether people are speaking English or the local dialect. In Kenya, that was not true – while many people spoke only dialect or dialect and some Swahili, those that did speak English generally spoke a very British English with an accent that was not too difficult to understand.

Here, the difficulty in comprehension is not just a matter of an accent, although many people have a very heavy accent (by my Northeastern American standards, obviously; “accent” is a completely relative term). There are significant differences in word choice and order that make it hard to understand as well. For example, people sometimes greet you by saying “How de body?” or simply “Fine?” And they often leave out connecting verbs or articles, use only present-tense verbs, and replace “I” with “me” or “he” with “him,” as when the kids proudly state “Me do maths today!” or demand “Give me football!” Then there are some things that are called by completely different, though still obviously English-origin, names. Asking for “avocado” in the market is useless; we've learned to ask for “butter pear,” or, to be more accurate, “buttah pay-ah.” “Papaya” is the British “pawpaw,” and mangoes are “golden plums.” “Colored pencils” or “crayons” are simply “colorings.”

In light of this, when I first came here, I felt even more lost in terms of language than I did in Kenya. Having a conversation with someone who is speaking the same language as you and being totally unable to mutually comprehend each other is a really bizarre experience. I felt as though I was living in a foreign language country, piecing together meaning from context and individual words picked out from the conversation. At the end of the day I even felt that kind of mental exhaustion that comes from sustained linguistic efforts, the same exhaustion I felt when I studied abroad as an undergrad in France.

On the other hand, overall, I understand a lot more than I did in Kenya. While the Swahili training we had there was interesting and allowed me to sometimes get the gist of what people were talking about as I eavesdropped on conversations, it was also totally useless at the village level, where people spoke almost exclusively Kipsigis (the dialect of the sub-tribe in my region, part of the larger, Nilotic-origin Kalenjin languages). So while I had no problems with language at my school, where everyone spoke English (to an extent – which brings me to an issue that I'll have to come back to another time, which is how requiring bi- or tri-lingualism from every student potentially interferes with the learning process), as soon as I left the school grounds my understanding of what was going on around me essentially dropped to zero.

It still surprises me to hear people speaking English in the community and to realize that they are not doing it for my benefit. It's also kind of funny to hear and understand people talking about but not to me as I go by, as when children excitedly shout to their friends “White woman passing!! White woman JOGGING!!!!” Furthermore, it's still surprising to me when I hear coarser language; I almost never heard people using English curse words in Kenya, and if they used local or Swahili ones, I didn't understand them. But here, a day doesn't go by when I don't hear someone throw out a “fuck” or a “shit,” often directed angrily at another person.

The extent to which even young kids use this kind of language still shocks me a little bit, though I suppose it shouldn't, knowing that child supervision is frequently relegated to other, often only slightly older, children. As an example: yesterday, I and a fellow volunteer were hanging out with the kids outside, and they started playing a totally safe and enjoyable game in which they attempted to poke each other in the butt with sticks (we're not talking about a gentle prodding, either; we're talking a full-out crack-directed stabbing). One child, maybe 5 or 6 years old, turned around at one point and yelled “Don't touch my asshole!” A few minutes earlier, an older child (around 12) had been playing with his younger brother (around 1 or 2) in a way that disturbed me. “What are you doing?!?” I asked him. He looked up with a big grin and said “Me suck his titty!” This, in fact, was an accurate description of what he had been doing.

Anyway, there is more that I want to write about language, particularly about the ways in which I and other volunteers modify our own speech patterns to be understood, and the mixed feelings I have about doing this. And I'll have to write more about the kids' rough play at some point as well. But, once again, I've written far too much for one entry, and will have to leave the rest for another day.

I've been thinking about ethics a lot lately.

My own personal sense of right and wrong constantly seems to be under attack, in small and unexpected ways. I feel like I'm always being forced to make small ethical decisions that I would never have to make in the US. As an example, simply buying food poses an ethical dilemma; namely, how to respond to the fact that I'm inevitably charged more than I should be. Paying higher prices because I'm a white American goes against my idea of fair play, but at the same time, I can indeed afford to pay more than most Liberians. So how hard do I try to bargain before I cross the line from defending my own right to pay equal amounts to taking advantage of someone who is struggling just to get by?

But beyond my own personal experiences, I've been thinking more about where ethics come from and how values learned at an individual level can affect the society as a whole.

Let's take the example of lying. I'm increasingly aware that truthfulness is a luxury that most Liberians cannot afford. Kids and adults alike lie freely and skilfully to get what they want. It's unfortunately all too understandable why this occurs, however. The educational and other societal systems are so broken-down that lying and cheating are generally easily undertaken and highly beneficial activities. As an example: I just learned today that the exams at my school are all written out by hand on the board. This occurs in classrooms so crowded that sometimes I can hardly write for fear of elbowing a student in the face. I have no doubt that these exams will amount to nothing less than an orgy of copying. But what can be done? With too many students, too little money to print exams, and too few teachers to effectively monitor them, I can't see any effective way to stop it.

I can't help but wonder if this failure to ingrain certain values at the individual level plays a major role in the corruption that pervades throughout the society. If that is the case, it's hard to see a way out of the situation. Morals and values cannot be effectively ingrained in a society where people are using all of their time and energy simply trying to eke out a living. If the system is not fixed, then money and resources will continue to be diverted away from true development work and into the pockets of individuals. Without these resources, children will continue to grow up in an environment in which ethics are not well-developed. These people will then feed into the government and begin an entirely new cycle of self-promoting activities that detract from the country's development as a whole. So how can it be stopped?

Having said that, I know that this is an overly simplistic way to look at things. I am aware that my thoughts on the matter assume that my own ingrained values are correct and should be applied universally, which is not necessarily the case. Beyond that, I do not mean to imply that people here are, by American standards, morally retarded. That is not true at all. For one thing, there is, of course, a great deal of individual variation; many of my students are honest and hardworking. Furthermore, as a whole, there are certain values that are highly developed here. For example, there is a much stronger pressure for people to look out for their family members and neighbors than there is in the US. When the kids are sharing something amongst themselves, and they have an extra few peanuts or piece of banana or what have you, they will invariably give the extra to the littlest one.

I feel like there is quite a bit more I could say on the (admittedly very broad) subject of ethics. But this entry, like most of my entries, is already much too long, and writing about morality is tiring. So I'll leave things there for now.

This week can best be summed up as follows: Pretty lousy in the sum of its individual parts, but somehow pretty good as a whole.

As it turns out, part of why I was so miserable on Monday (which I may have known but was trying to ignore) was that I was starting to get sick. Tuesday afternoon through Wednesday morning I felt like hell. I now have a better appreciation for the term “explosive diarrhea;” turns out not only is it explosive in the sense that it expels itself rapidly, but it also causes you to feel as though your intestines are going to explode. So that's good to know.

Fortunately, in the sense that it meant my sickness didn't cause me to miss out on any real work, all classes were canceled this week because of a school-wide soccer tournament. Unfortunately, in the sense that the students had a lame excuse not to do any work for a whole week, all classes were canceled this week because of a school-wide soccer tournament.

I'm not going to lie – a part of me was relieved to have a whole week of not wrestling with the students. But wrestling with students is what I came here to do, so a larger part of me was more frustrated than anything to be sitting around with nothing to do (or sHitting around, as it were. HA!!!! Poop joke!).

Boredom is a powerful motivator, however, for good or for ill (usually the latter). In this case, it worked for good; it motivated me to try again to make some contacts at the hospital. I've gone several times now but encountered problems: 1. a lack of organization that makes it difficult for me to figure out who exactly to talk to in order to get what I want, and 2. a somewhat unclear idea of what exactly “what I want” is. “Volunteering at the hospital” sounds like a great idea in theory, but it's not exactly like the US, where hospitals are generally used to dealing with untrained volunteers and have some kind of idea what to do with them. So we're stuck in a bit of a catch-22: I don't know I want to do because I don't know what they need, and they don't know what to do with me because I don't know what I want to do.

But things seemed to move forward this week. I met a nurse who works in the eye clinic and she seemed happy to let me hang out with her and watch her treat patients. So that's a start. I also went to the Red Cross office and found out more about what they're doing there, and asked them to invite me along when they have health club meetings, which they have in several of the local schools (including the one in which I'm working). So the week wasn't a complete bust; all in all, things are looking up, despite this week's sickness, frustration, and total lack of any productive activity.

The past couple of days I've had a growing sense of frustration combined with feelings of incompetence.

It took me awhile to put my finger on it. In part it's my failures in dealing with the students, many of whom still don't understand my English, don't give a fuck about what I'm trying to teach them, and make every effort to cheat, lie, and generally sneak their way out of any actual work or learning. But I could deal with that as part of the difficult-but-rewarding challenges of being here, something to be worked at and overcome, or at least learned from.

A bigger part of the crumminess I'm feeling, I've realized, is the fact that I don't have a lot of interaction with people during the day. I have 3-5 classes a day, which is a good number, and in between I sit in the teacher's lounge or the library and try to work on lesson plans or grading. But it's a very solitary exercise; I almost never see other teachers in the teacher's lounge, and even though there are generally others in the library, I'm not working with them. So I feel like, although I don't have the problem of many Peace Corps volunteers of not having a well-defined job, the job that I do have actually isn't doing much to insert me into the community, or provide me with the social interaction that I need to stay sane.

I can't help but compare myself to fellow volunteers, who by my own observations and from what I've heard are doing a great job of making Liberian friends. We all came here at the same time, I tell myself. So what is wrong with me that I am now struggling to find people to spend time with, and things to do to fill the time, while others don't seem to have these problems?

Fortunately, if this lack of social interaction is truly the root of my frustration, it can be fixed. I can talk with the principal about having more classes in the morning and not having class in the afternoon, which would free me up to do other things that will help me to meet other people, such as help out at the midwifery school or volunteer at the hospital. Or I could talk with my housemate about spending more time helping out students at her place of work, the library. At least, if nothing else, those things would provide a change of scenery. I think it would also help with the paradoxical issue of having too much to do (with 80 to 100 students in a class, I can always fill the time with grading) and yet not enough (grading sucks and I would rather spend the time doing something more interesting and worthwhile).

But in the meantime, I feel pretty shitty. And it's crossing over to other aspects of life, ones that I felt pretty good about even just a week ago. The puzzle of how to motivate the students to work harder and learn better, which seemed like an interesting and intellectually stimulating challenge, today seems like an overwhelming task that I lack the skills and cultural understanding to successfully undertake. The 60-minute round-trip walk to school, which I sometimes make twice a day, seemed like a good source of exercise; today, I felt like I had to drag myself step by painful step. And I could write a whole separate entry about the issue of body image – the transition from average (albeit nerdy and poorly-dressed) American girl to dirty, sweaty, greasy, sunburned, bespectacled, mop-haired hippie.

Anyway. There are bound to be ups and downs in any job, and like I said, I have some ideas for how to pull myself out out of this mini-rut I'm in before it gets any bigger.

The high school graduation ceremony was yesterday. They have it in October instead of at the end of the school year in June because they need to wait for the results from the national exam before they know for certain who passed and can actually graduate.

They decked out the high school gymnasium for the event, moving all of the chairs and benches from the classrooms into the room or just outside on a patio that they covered with palm fronds to keep off the sun. Some balloons and a blue and white lapa cloth printed with the totally non-graduation-related item of a hand sporting a giant shiny diamond completed the decorations (side note: a lot of the cloth here is printed with really random objects – toothpaste, chickens, pipes, scissors, and so on).

In the morning, they had the religious ceremony. I showed up nearly an hour late, which turned out to be right on time (sometimes, the African way of approaching time – or rather ignoring it – is really welcome). Though I was not particularly looking forward to this part of the experience, it was actually very enjoyable. The singing was wonderful, despite being not completely on key and despite the fact that they allowed two random people in the school choir to use microphones, meaning that one alto part and one bass part were about twenty times louder than the rest of the choir put together.

In the afternoon was the graduation ceremony itself. The gymnasium was nearly empty for the morning service; not so for the afternoon. The chairs, inside and outside, were all full, students hung over the railing on the balcony overlooking the gym, and parents and friends who couldn't find a place inside peered through the open windows in the back of the auditorium. The ceremony was in some ways much like a graduation in the US – the salutatorian and valedictorian spoke, as did a guest speaker (though in this case the guest speaker was a member of the ministry of education, and instead of providing inspiring words to the students, used his speech time to blatantly promote the government and his own personal politics). In other ways, it was very different.

The best part of the ceremony for me, by far, was when a local singer took the stage and performed one of her songs. This in itself was entertaining, but even more so because, in the middle of her song, a female student stood up in the audience, walked right up to the dancing woman, and stuffed money down the performer's shirt. After that, nearly every student in the auditorium, male and female, followed suit. They filled the woman's bra so full of money that they had to bring out a separate box to put it in. And the whole time, the woman never blinked; she just kept dancing and singing as though nothing at all were happening. The whole thing was all the more surreal given that the woman was singing a song about Jesus.

Maybe it's just me, but none of the graduation ceremonies I've ever been to in the States have involved putting money in a woman's bra. I have also never been to a graduation ceremony in the US where members of an Indian police force was present, complete with bulletproof vests and rifles, which was the case here. Nor have I been to a graduation where the graduates all show up in a long motorcade of motorcycles, sometimes with three or four people on a bike.

Anyway, the ceremony itself was neat, and it was really cool to see how excited the family members were. Everyone was dressed absolutely to the nines, and after the ceremony everyone poured out into the yard to dance and sing and throw baby powder on each other (this seemed to be the substitute for silly string).

Unfortunately, there's a very bittersweet aspect to the graduation. A lot of students did not pass the exam to graduate. And of the ones who did, many will not be able to afford the time or money to go to college, or be able to pass the separate entrance exams. And even for the ones who do make it there, most will be attending college in a university system that is almost as broken-down and dysfunctional as the high school and elementary school systems. So as happy as it was to see these students succeeding, and to see the community and family support for them, there was still a sombre undertone to the whole event.

Please excuse my last post; I couldn't resist making a brief, pretentious foray into more descriptive writing. I think I got it out of my system now, though.

Anyway.

* * *

The kids.

I said I would write about them at some point, so here goes.

The kids are great. They keep things interesting, for sure. But they also are the source of a near-constant stream of annoyances and minor ethical dilemmas.

Most of these result from the fact that there are just so many of them (in addition to the 17 from next door, there are always plenty more from the neighboring houses hanging around), and they are so bored, and they have so little supervision. Really, given those factors, it's not surprising that problems result.

The big issue is that they are always asking for stuff. No, actually, asking is not the right word; demanding is more accurate. And there's no way to escape from it – they come right up to the glassless windows and stand there, shouting our names (or rough approximations thereof) and requesting bread, bananas, stickers, pencils, pens, or whatever else they happen to see lying around as they peer around the curtains. It's irritating, and exhausting in its constancy, to say the least.

But at the same time, it's hard to know what to do. I don't doubt that the kids are genuinely hungry – they're all so darn skinny. They wear clothes so tattered they can hardly be called “clothes” anymore; usually the boys are shirtless, with a pair of shorts that may or may not have a giant hole in what one would generally consider the critical region of shorts. Sometimes they're just naked. How crappy is it to turn away a kid like that, when I can certainly afford to give out a few pieces of bread, or a banana?

At the same time, giving in to the demands may do more harm than good in the long run. I worry about the message I am sending to the kids – and to the parents and others in the community – when I do give them food, or school books, or whatever. Am I ingraining in them an understanding they can walk up to any foreign person, demand resources, and be given them without qualifications? How will fostering that kind of an attitude contribute to development in any way? I'm no expert, but it certainly seems like that kind of mentality is fatal when it comes to the promotion of real, sustainable development. Why work toward acquiring resources when you are shown over and over again that you can have them for free if you just ask?

There's also the fact that, although I can afford to give out a couple of cookies every once in awhile, I can't give 25 kids a substantial amount of food every day. So where do I draw the line? How do I do things as fairly as possible? I've explained a couple of times to a couple of kids that I don't have enough for everyone, that I can't give them anything because it's not fair to the rest. But there's the nagging part of my brain that says, is it really more fair to give out nothing to everyone than it is to give out something to a few? Things aren't fair in the first place; it's sure as hell not fair that I can buy all of the food I need, and they are helpless and hungry.

I've tried to start asking them, “What did you do today that I should give you bread? Did you go to school? Did you study hard? Did you read and write today? OK, well, if you worked hard today, then I can give you this bread.” But I have a hard time believing that asking those things is actually any different from just giving them the bread without any strings attached. And sometimes we give them food or stickers or pages out of a coloring book if they do little things for us – take our trash out, help us get water, and so on. Still, doing this makes me feel a bit too much like the rich colonial-era white person with the African servant boys, which is not a feeling I enjoy at all.

The other major issue, besides them asking for stuff, is that they go through our garbage and pull out any food item, no matter how rotten or moldy, to eat. It's heartbreaking. It's to the point where sometimes I try to sneak out the back and run to the pit where we bury trash, to toss moldy things away before the kids can get them. But if they see me heading that way, they will literally sprint to intercept me before I can get there. And some days it's just too much work to try to avoid them. I'm happy to give them food that we're not going to eat if it's OK, but I don't want to be responsible for a bunch of kids getting really sick from bacteria- and mold-infested food.

Anyway. Like I said, they're sweet kids, and they say and do funny things. Sometimes they serenade us with songs, and lately they've been making up songs about us (“________ and ________, they are cooking fine rice!!” “_________, she is coming home from jogging!!”). And they genuinely try to look out for us, by warning us not to leave towels out on the porch to dry where they might get stolen, for example. Of course, that makes it all the more crappy that, no matter what I do, we all lose somehow. If I give them the things that they demand, we all feel good in the short term, but I'm teaching an unfortunate lesson in dependency. If I refuse to give them anything, they are disappointed, and I feel mean and petty. So what do I do?