It's a Schmahl World

Visiting the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas

On our free morning in San Antonio with no Fiesta Week activities, we decided to visit the Alamo. First established as a mission in 1718, the Alamo was one of many settlements established by Spanish missionaries in an effort to convert the indigenous population. In San Antonio alone, there are five missions still standing (read…

Vacationing in Liberia: Libassa Ecolodge and Wildlife Sanctuary

While we were in Liberia for almost two weeks we were busy almost every day, from doing engineering activities with Kim’s students to shopping in the enormous Waterside Market in Monrovia. For our last full day in Liberia we decided to relax by visiting the Libassa Ecolodge, about an hour away from Monrovia and not…

A Little Motivation from my Students

Teaching is hard work! I recently posted about starting my 2nd year of teaching here in Liberia and some of my challenges. From classroom management issues to figuring out what’s most important to teach, there are days that are really frustrating. But I recently had a conversation with some of my 12th grade students that…

Reflections on Teaching: Starting Year 2

With one year of teaching under my belt, I’ve started my second school year here in Liberia! We’ve finished the first of 6 marking periods and about this time last year I wrote my first post about my experience so far teaching in Liberia. So it feels like a good time to write an update,…

Making Belgian Chocolates in Brussels, Belgium

During our week long trip in Belgium, we knew we had to enjoy some famous Belgian chocolates! After a little searching online we found a Belgian chocolate making workshop for 35 euros each. We signed up before our trip to reserve our spots in the class. At 11 am on the day of the workshop,…

Visiting Kim’s Classroom: Marshmallow Structures

For our second day helping Kim teach at her school, our lesson was all about structures. For anyone who missed the estimation activity last class, Mom and I reintroduced our selves. We explained how we are both engineers and a little bit about all the different types of engineering. Since we are engineers, we wanted…

Visiting Kim in Liberia: A Morning in Kakata

Since Kim lives relatively close to the larger city of Kakata, we decided to take a morning to visit and see the Peace Corps training center and to meet her Liberian host family who she lived with during her initial training in Liberia. Instead of trying to hail a cab on the side of the…

Visiting Kim’s Classroom: Estimation Activity

At our first day in Kim’s school, we were surprised when we arrived to find that it was a “working day.” That means that instead of classes, the students work to clean up the school’s campus. They hadn’t started cleaning yet, so we decided to still do our prepared activity with the students who were…

Life in Liberia: Market Day!

Here in Liberia, grocery shopping is not as easy as jumping in the car and heading to the Kroger around the corner! Unless you’re in a big city with a supermarket, buying food and other things takes a little more work! I’m fortunate to live in a big enough community that I am able to…

Update from Liberia: What I Did This Summer

The school year here in Liberia is similar to that of the US, it begins in September and goes through June, closing for July and August. There’s only two seasons in Liberia, rainy season and dry season, so they don’t call it summer break, but that’s what it felt like to me! So I wanted…