Malaria is one of the biggest health challenges here in Liberia. It’s the leading cause of death in Liberia and young children and pregnant women are at an even higher risk than the rest of the population. (Some statistics are in this post that I shared last year.) But malaria is preventable! So we’re working…
Tag: Peace Corps Training
Welcoming New Volunteers to Liberia!
I kicked off June with a week of welcoming a new group of volunteers to Liberia: Peace Corps brought LR-8, the newest cohort of education volunteers! I got the opportunity to to help out with the first week of their pre-service training (PST) in Kakata. The staff and resource volunteers (current Peace Corps Volunteers helping…
The Season for Plums… and Workshops!
In the last couple of months, in between teaching, celebrating my birthday and enjoying plum (mango) season, I’ve also had the chance to attend a few different trainings that I wanted to share! Workshop #1: Literacy and Phonics Training At the end of March, I had the chance to attend a workshop put on by…
Update from Liberia: Happy Holidays!
It’s been a month and a half since my last post from Liberia so it’s time for an update! Here’s what’s been going on this holiday season… In Liberia, they have Thanksgiving but they celebrate it the first week of November instead of the last week. Here though, the holiday has nothing to do with…
Peace Corps Swearing In Ceremony & First Days at Site
It’s been over a month since I last posted from Liberia! Here’s what’s been going on… Early in the morning on August 18th, we boarded a bus to head into Monrovia to go to our swearing in ceremony, held at the city hall. After 11 weeks of training, we were finally becoming official Peace Corps volunteers!…
Model School & Site Announcement
After a few weeks of lessons at the training center about teaching strategies and classroom management, we had our first chance to try them out in the classroom! For 3 weeks, we taught in the Peace Corps Model School, where middle and high schoolers from around the community voluntarily come to take extra classes, held…
First Weekend with my Liberian Host Family
The first couple days with my host family, I had training during the day, so I was only home for breakfast and in the evening. In the mornings, my ma would fix my breakfast – one day it was scrambled eggs with onions on bread and another was spaghetti (in Liberia, spaghetti is a breakfast…
Adoption Ceremony – Meeting my Liberian Family
When we returned from the site visit in Grand Cape Mount County, we just barely had time to eat a quick lunch, re-pack our bags (of our two suitcases, one will go in storage for the rest of PST) and change into something presentable for the Adoption Ceremony! This was when we would meet the…
Site Visit in Grand Cape Mount County
The first few days at the training center felt almost like being at summer camp because we had days full of activities and slept in bunk beds in the dorms. We got our first taste of what life will really be like in Liberia when we left to visit currently serving volunteers. I was in…
First Days in Liberia – the Start of PST
After landing in Liberia, our group, LR-7, piled into a couple of buses and headed to the training center in Margibi county. The Peace Corps training center is a compound with dorms, a dining hall, classrooms, a small medical building, a volleyball net and several palava huts. This is where we spent our first few…