Settling In

Once again we have quite a bit of catching up to do. I actually find it much harder in many ways to keep this up to date when we stay put in one place than when we are traveling around. But anyways, I'll try to describe what our time here has been like so far.

Buduburam is considered more of a settlement than a camp. There are around 40,000 people here living in houses that they have built for themselves. There are a lot of things on camp that we didn't expect to see: bars, hair dressers, bike rental, internet cafes, big speakers blaring music. Although our guest house doesn't, several homes and shops do have electricity. But at the same time there is no running water, no sewage/drainage system, and no garbage bins or removal. It seems strange to those of us who come from places where we don't even have to think about these things, they're just assumed as a very basic part of life. And to us it doesn't seem to make sense that people have things that can be considered luxury but are missing other basics.

Speaking to Liberians though, you realize that even though many have been here for 14 years, they certainly don't consider or want to consider this their home and are constantly thinking about when they will be able to go back to Liberia. The services that are missing here are big, expensive, time-consuming projects that people do not seem willing to commit to. The "luxuries" on the other hand, are easy to come by and maybe help to make things not seem that bad.

The Liberians that I've talked to seem to agree that a major priority here should be educating children so that when people are able to return, they will have a solid foundation and more promising future. There are about 45 schools at Buduburam ranging from very small schools to the CBW school where we help which has between 500-600 kids. CBW charges the least tuition (I think it's about $1.50 per term), but there are still many kids who cannot afford that, so there are lots that don't go to school at all.

So our days here generally go something like this:
Everyone gets up pretty early here since it starts to get hot and noisy. We are lucky to have a cook (Alice) who comes to make breakfast for us, and then I set off to school a little before 8 with several other volunteers. I've been helping out and teaching mostly in one of the 1st grade classes. As things are right now, the school doesn't seem to be offering a very good learning environment--it's just way too crowded and noisy. But hopefully things will change for the better next week when the split school into two sessions so that only half the kids will be in the building at a time.

School gets out around 1, so we head back home for lunch. Tuesdays and Thurdays we do tutoring from 2-4. The rest of my time has been spent either at meetings, playing and reading with kids in front of our house, talking with people I meet, or helping out at the library that is scheduled to open soon. I'll let Michael write about his work himselft some other time, but things seem to be going well at the computer center and their first workshop is scheduled for tomorrow. Evenings have been a nice time to sit around and talk with the other volunteers, but everyone is usually in bed by 10.

I will try to write more again soon, when the internet cafe that's closer to us is open again. We're both feeling hungry, so we're going to make our way back to the house. Thank you Henni, Emily, Marni, Makalo, Bruce and Joan for your recent emails, we love hearing about how you're all doing.