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| LR-3 & Response-12 Swears-In as Official Peace Corps Volunteers, Fri., Aug. 03, 2012 With Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of the Republic of Liberia |
Friday, August 3, 2012
Swearing-In: We're Officially PCVs!
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Culture: Food, Money, Language, & Dancing!
In the past 2 months I’ve eaten more rice than I probably
normally eat in a year! Can you say carb-loading?! Rice is a staple here and we
eat it 1-2 times a day with soup, which is really a stew that goes on top of
the rice. Some of my favorite soups are: potato green, cassava leaf, pumpkin,
bitterball (like mini-eggplant), ground pea (peanut butter), and peppeh
(pepper). At Doe Palace, the training compound, we’re spoiled and have chicken
in every soup and while it’s good, I’m very much looking forward to getting to
site and becoming mostly vegetarian again.
I've also tried fufu a number of times, although it’s not my favorite. It’s basically made from ground and boiled cassava and is dough-like, slimy and sticky, and you swallow it with peppeh soup. Imagine: me eating fufu at the table across from my host pa on Liberian Independence Day (July 26th) and trying not to vomit or cry with each swallow (I have a sensitive gag reflex!). Let’s just say I “tried it small” and then politely stopped eating.
I’ve also eaten plenty of fried plantains and peanut butter and scrambled egg sandwiches. I’m so glad I’m not a picky eater! I’ve also tried the traditional kola nut, which is a great source of caffeine (and is incredibly bitter), and drink coconut milk straight from the coconut a couple times a week. It’s quite refreshing! Some food items have different names here too, i.e., avocadoes are called butter pears and mangos are plums. While the cravings for American sweet and salty snacks comes and goes, you can get popcorn, plantain chips, and biscuits (cookies) virtually anywhere, so I’m not missing food from home too much yet. We PCTs cooked an incredible Mexican dinner last night, and I literally ate more food in that one setting that I have in the past 2 months. Needless to say, I had trouble walking and breathing afterwards because I was so full. So I guess I’d say I miss Mexican food more than American food! I’m more aware of just how important food is to culture here: besides providing nourishment and affecting one’s mood, it also shapes many traditional activities. Luckily for us, food here is pretty cheap.
Now as far as money goes, $1.00 US = $75.00 Liberty / Liberian Dollars (LD). Here are some examples of pricing: $140 LD can get you a large beer (the size of a wine bottle) or a 1.5 hour taxi ride, which equates to about $1.86 US. I can buy a small loaf of bread for $20 LD and a pineapple for $50 or 100 LD, but a bottle of honey that fits in the palm of my hand costs $310 LD (~$4 US). Imported specialty items are the only items that are really pricey.
They don’t have coins here, and instead use bills that range in 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100 denominations. While PC gives us a monthly allowance, transport allowance for PC-related travel (i.e., banking), and a settling-in allowance for furniture, we really aren’t living off of much by US standards. Luckily we don’t have to pay directly for rent and don’t have utilities (we na geh current heyah=we don’t have current here), but we are still living how the people live, which I find rather simple yet comfortable.
Now for Liberian English (LE)…. While it’s based on Standard English (SE), obviously, it deviates in so many ways so I’ve been struggling small small. (By the way, “small small” or just “small” means a bit and is used here frequently.) I find that speaking LE is like trying to break the grammar and pronunciation rules that have been drilled into my brain since grade school. And for those of you who know me, I’m a grammar stickler.
Many words have different meanings here too, which aren’t too confusing once you hear it and practice it enough times. Saying “embarrass” means to be bothered, and it can be used to describe inanimate objects, i.e. “The rain is embarrassing me.” When requesting someone to move to make room for you to sit, you don’t ask them to move over or scoot; you ask them to “dress small”. “Carry” is used for having someone take you to a place. For example, “Momoh can carry me to the market, but I will not carry his mother to America with me!” Get it? “Brushing” means to cut the grass (with machete-like blades), and “I reaching” means that you’re arriving to your destination.
Fortunately, we’ll be teaching in SE because the students need to practice hearing, speaking, and writing properly. We will only need to speak LE to reinforce a confusing concept or while talking small with community members. Also, we’ve been learning a local language, and where I’ll be living, people speak Gola plenty, and I can kind of speak that well…at least the greetings and basic phrases! (I actually was speaking Gola small in my dream the other night. In a WalMart. Super strange.) Gola is spoken by the the Gola people, the smallest of the 16 ethnic groups in Liberia. Cool fast fact: President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s father was Gola!
Anyways, many of the Oma’s (old ma’s) in the town I’ll be living in, Gbarma (“Bama”), speak Gola so we can practice with them, the neighbor children, and our Principal, Boima. Here’s some Gola for ya:
-Miŋ yáá téé. = “Meh ya teh.” = I’m good.
-Keen muŋ yáá naŋ ñe-ñe? = “Keen mua ya na ñe-ñe?” = What’ve you been doing today?
-Bo náánáán bá fé! = “Banana buffet!” = No bad news!
-Káá lei féi daya! = “Ka-lee fay dai-ya!” = Thank God / Praise God! (You use this to answer any “how” question…how are you, how’s the family, how are the students, etc.)
Another big part of the culture is dancing. I just love the atmosphere here…you can go out and “act a fool” without anyone caring or judging you. I find myself imitating some of the African moves and mixing them in with some of mine, which are part mosh-pit raging, part salsa, part running-in-place. It’s quite the workout, such a great stress-reliever, and so much fun! They listen to some American music here, including a lot of Rihanna and Chris Brown, along with Celine Deon and Backstreet Boys ballads, which I find hilarious. But the majority of the music they listen to is African, particularly from Nigeria or Ghana. Some song titles include “Enter My Center”, “Chop My Money”, “Azonto”, “I Need an African Man”, and “Shake Your Bon-Bon”. They are all very upbeat and are played multiple times a night at each bar, night club, or house party.
Anyways, that’s a little insight to Liberian culture. Tomorrow we’re heading to Monrovia for our swearing-in ceremony, in which the Pres., Ma Ellen, will speak. We will take the PC oath and officially become Peace Corps Volunteers. This is what I’ve been waiting for! Then Saturday we’re off to site. My roommie Rachel and I will be busy getting our home furnished and set up and then we have some down time to visit some local farms and get to know our community. School starts on Aug. 22nd, and I’ll be teaching 8th grade general science and 10th and 11th grade biology. I’ll have between 120 and 150 students total. While I’m not looking forward to the days that test my patience and cultural sensitivity, I’m especially excited for those breakthrough “lightbulb” moments! Also, while I won’t have internet at site, I’ll try to go online when I come into Monrovia for banking. I hope my friends and family are doing well back home, and I hope to continue to receive your messages and letters; they really help keep me going. Until next time, nisiia!
I've also tried fufu a number of times, although it’s not my favorite. It’s basically made from ground and boiled cassava and is dough-like, slimy and sticky, and you swallow it with peppeh soup. Imagine: me eating fufu at the table across from my host pa on Liberian Independence Day (July 26th) and trying not to vomit or cry with each swallow (I have a sensitive gag reflex!). Let’s just say I “tried it small” and then politely stopped eating.
I’ve also eaten plenty of fried plantains and peanut butter and scrambled egg sandwiches. I’m so glad I’m not a picky eater! I’ve also tried the traditional kola nut, which is a great source of caffeine (and is incredibly bitter), and drink coconut milk straight from the coconut a couple times a week. It’s quite refreshing! Some food items have different names here too, i.e., avocadoes are called butter pears and mangos are plums. While the cravings for American sweet and salty snacks comes and goes, you can get popcorn, plantain chips, and biscuits (cookies) virtually anywhere, so I’m not missing food from home too much yet. We PCTs cooked an incredible Mexican dinner last night, and I literally ate more food in that one setting that I have in the past 2 months. Needless to say, I had trouble walking and breathing afterwards because I was so full. So I guess I’d say I miss Mexican food more than American food! I’m more aware of just how important food is to culture here: besides providing nourishment and affecting one’s mood, it also shapes many traditional activities. Luckily for us, food here is pretty cheap.
Now as far as money goes, $1.00 US = $75.00 Liberty / Liberian Dollars (LD). Here are some examples of pricing: $140 LD can get you a large beer (the size of a wine bottle) or a 1.5 hour taxi ride, which equates to about $1.86 US. I can buy a small loaf of bread for $20 LD and a pineapple for $50 or 100 LD, but a bottle of honey that fits in the palm of my hand costs $310 LD (~$4 US). Imported specialty items are the only items that are really pricey.
They don’t have coins here, and instead use bills that range in 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100 denominations. While PC gives us a monthly allowance, transport allowance for PC-related travel (i.e., banking), and a settling-in allowance for furniture, we really aren’t living off of much by US standards. Luckily we don’t have to pay directly for rent and don’t have utilities (we na geh current heyah=we don’t have current here), but we are still living how the people live, which I find rather simple yet comfortable.
Now for Liberian English (LE)…. While it’s based on Standard English (SE), obviously, it deviates in so many ways so I’ve been struggling small small. (By the way, “small small” or just “small” means a bit and is used here frequently.) I find that speaking LE is like trying to break the grammar and pronunciation rules that have been drilled into my brain since grade school. And for those of you who know me, I’m a grammar stickler.
Many words have different meanings here too, which aren’t too confusing once you hear it and practice it enough times. Saying “embarrass” means to be bothered, and it can be used to describe inanimate objects, i.e. “The rain is embarrassing me.” When requesting someone to move to make room for you to sit, you don’t ask them to move over or scoot; you ask them to “dress small”. “Carry” is used for having someone take you to a place. For example, “Momoh can carry me to the market, but I will not carry his mother to America with me!” Get it? “Brushing” means to cut the grass (with machete-like blades), and “I reaching” means that you’re arriving to your destination.
Fortunately, we’ll be teaching in SE because the students need to practice hearing, speaking, and writing properly. We will only need to speak LE to reinforce a confusing concept or while talking small with community members. Also, we’ve been learning a local language, and where I’ll be living, people speak Gola plenty, and I can kind of speak that well…at least the greetings and basic phrases! (I actually was speaking Gola small in my dream the other night. In a WalMart. Super strange.) Gola is spoken by the the Gola people, the smallest of the 16 ethnic groups in Liberia. Cool fast fact: President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s father was Gola!
Anyways, many of the Oma’s (old ma’s) in the town I’ll be living in, Gbarma (“Bama”), speak Gola so we can practice with them, the neighbor children, and our Principal, Boima. Here’s some Gola for ya:
-Miŋ yáá téé. = “Meh ya teh.” = I’m good.
-Keen muŋ yáá naŋ ñe-ñe? = “Keen mua ya na ñe-ñe?” = What’ve you been doing today?
-Bo náánáán bá fé! = “Banana buffet!” = No bad news!
-Káá lei féi daya! = “Ka-lee fay dai-ya!” = Thank God / Praise God! (You use this to answer any “how” question…how are you, how’s the family, how are the students, etc.)
Another big part of the culture is dancing. I just love the atmosphere here…you can go out and “act a fool” without anyone caring or judging you. I find myself imitating some of the African moves and mixing them in with some of mine, which are part mosh-pit raging, part salsa, part running-in-place. It’s quite the workout, such a great stress-reliever, and so much fun! They listen to some American music here, including a lot of Rihanna and Chris Brown, along with Celine Deon and Backstreet Boys ballads, which I find hilarious. But the majority of the music they listen to is African, particularly from Nigeria or Ghana. Some song titles include “Enter My Center”, “Chop My Money”, “Azonto”, “I Need an African Man”, and “Shake Your Bon-Bon”. They are all very upbeat and are played multiple times a night at each bar, night club, or house party.
Anyways, that’s a little insight to Liberian culture. Tomorrow we’re heading to Monrovia for our swearing-in ceremony, in which the Pres., Ma Ellen, will speak. We will take the PC oath and officially become Peace Corps Volunteers. This is what I’ve been waiting for! Then Saturday we’re off to site. My roommie Rachel and I will be busy getting our home furnished and set up and then we have some down time to visit some local farms and get to know our community. School starts on Aug. 22nd, and I’ll be teaching 8th grade general science and 10th and 11th grade biology. I’ll have between 120 and 150 students total. While I’m not looking forward to the days that test my patience and cultural sensitivity, I’m especially excited for those breakthrough “lightbulb” moments! Also, while I won’t have internet at site, I’ll try to go online when I come into Monrovia for banking. I hope my friends and family are doing well back home, and I hope to continue to receive your messages and letters; they really help keep me going. Until next time, nisiia!
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