John in Liberia

After spending the past 3 months with my host family, I've learned a lot when it comes to what life is like here. There have been many sources of culture shock when it comes to being in Liberia and one that has stood out to me is how the kids play and what they play with. My host brother's awesome house! Usually, I keep some trash in my room in a small bag where I maybe have scraps of paper, dirty Kleenex tissues, candy wrappers or soda cans. You might be thinking, “Wait John, why did you just start talking about garbage?” Well, that's because the afternoon after I threw my garbage on to the dirt pile, I saw my host brothers playing with a bunch of the things that I had thrown away. It mostly included metal or plastic objects that they could make use of in some fashion (ie. an Altoids container, broken watch, broken pen and soda can). My other brother's house! I immediately felt concerned because my brothers were digging around in a pile of trash, look...

This week all of the volunteers found out where we will be going for the next two years. After sharing our preferences for the kind of community we want (like big or small city, far or close to things, big or small class size, etc.) it was finally time for the big reveal!  The staff drew out a map of Liberia with all of the counties. Then we were blindfolded and brought to the location on the map where we will be serving in. After the anxious waiting we were able to take our blindfolds off and I opened my eyes to see that I would be in Grand Kru County in the Southeast! Here's a map below: Grand Kru County in the Southeast After we received a packet of information where it showed us a picture of our home, information about the shool and lots of details to get us excited and prepared for where we will be staying. From the information I received, my community will be a little smaller than 7,000 people, and I will be placed in a small middle school (7th-10th) grade where their...