Home Visits

What is a home? Where I come from we call it a house and it means everyone having their own bedroom, having separate rooms to eat, bath, sleep, live. It often means having a structure separate from other people's homes. In the slum of West Point it is called a room because that is what it is, one room. It is either made out of aluminum or concrete but sometimes only cardboard for walls. It is connected to other family's dwellings. There a common area outside of the rooms that is used as a bathroom and a cooking area, oh yea and its also the walkway/alley for people passing by.

As social workers deal with children's safety we do many home-visits. Often these take place over an hour or two, involve extensive paperwork, and require things like smoke detectors outside every bedroom and a posted escape route. Lately, however, I have been conducting home-visits West Point style. This means asking the guardian and student questions while there are anywhere from 3 to 30 other people standing around. There is no privacy which at first worried me as I would be asking some personal questions, but then I realized there is no privacy with a lot of things in their lives due to living in such close quarters. Some of the adults don't know their real age. Some of them have no idea how much money they make because it is a very hand to mouth society. Some guardians only completed a few years of school and many never went at all. Some of these girls live in a room with 8 other people. Some sleep on the floor, or cardboard, or maybe a mattress. 

I sat with Mary's dad, a fisherman, who was cutting fish preparing his bait for the next day's work. He says the rainy season is hard because they can't work everyday. The following day it poured rain all day, and I sadly thought of him being unable to use the bait I watched him prepare.

I talked with a grandmother who was probably in her sixties (she is unsure of her age) ask me if we could stop in the middle of talking so she could dance to a song she liked that was being played (we definitely did some dancing and yes, its on video). On numerous days I sang praise and worship songs while walking with one of our oldest girls, Regina, who always seemed to find us. I was thanked many, many times and told God Bless more times then I can count. 

When I asked one grandmother what she wanted for her granddaughter's future she said "I want her to become somebody, to become something better." These guardians are so thankful for the opportunity their girls are being given to go to school and have big dreams for them. These girls have big dreams for themselves too; they want to be journalists, teachers, nurses, accountants, and many want to be doctors. When I asked Sietta, age 9, what she wants to be when she finishes school she said "A doctor because my grandma is sick and I'd be helping her."

 

As Patience, age 14, was asked if their was anything she wanted to say to those helping her go to school she smiled really big and said "Oh yes! Thank you for all you've done for me. I have nothing to give them but God will give them blessings."- Patience -age 14

I always ask the girls what they do when they are not in school and most of the time their answers are along the lines of "I can be washing dishes or helping my mom cook." Many of them mind their younger siblings (often you see a 10 year old with a baby sibling tied in a lappa on their back). When I ask them what their favorite food is the majority say rice, in reality its the food they eat basically every day (with variety being in what they put on top of the rice- palm butter, cassava leaf, beans, etc.)

Being able to see a glimpse of these families' lives, in the places they live, has been such an awesome privilege. I have met many people that I will never forget; many I have seen again on repeated visits remembering me and smiling widely when I stop to say "hi." I am so glad do to this work with Macintosh as he leads me through the alleys and streets, never getting lost, and serving as a "translator" anytime accents get too thick for either person. Every day we spend in West Point ends the same way, with a dozen kids walking with us; I'd say they are pretty good days! 

West Point, Lebanese food, and teaching

West Point is the area that the majority of the MTM girls live as well as the country coordinator. It is  and is the worst slum in Liberia. Located on a peninsula just outside of the capitol city of Monrovia, it is home to about 75,000 people. There is no plumbing and only a few public toilet areas, otherwise people use the beach or just the ground they are standing on.  

Tuesday was the first really rainy day I have had here, but also the day I had arranged to walk around West Point with Macintosh. We didn't let the rain stop us... even though we got completely drenched! He showed me where some of the girls lived, and a few joined in on our walk. I met a few parents, and he checked in on a couple girls that haven't been around in a while. I was so thankful to have his guidance through the streets and around the shacks as I certainly would have been lost many times!   

The rain continued this week and Wednesday right when school was letting out it began to fall. One of the volunteers and I decided to walk through it anyways to get something to eat. We went into a place where a Lebanese man asked if we were Americans after greeting us. He brought us a towel and insisted we dry off a bit. We then each ordered a chicken shawarma but he was unhappy with that choice. He came back and questioned it saying "that's a Lebanese food, you have chicken sandwich." He continued on questioning why were wanted to order that until I told him we liked Lebanese food and then he finally gave up his quest to change our mind and shook his head as he walked away. As we paid my friend had a larger bill to cover to main portion and I had smaller bills to get the rest. We exchanged that we would settle it up later and this man was yet again unhappy with us. He said "no I will figure out the difference and you pay her now." He got out the calculator and made sure that I paid her back in front of him. Goodness, he was certainly the oddest restaurant manager I have ever met! 

On Friday I worked with the oldest girls. I began talking to them about stress, which was a very foreign word to them and hard to portray what I meant. We then moved into talking about relaxation, which went a bit better. I got them all up and went through some stretching which clearly they had never done before but were really enjoying and definitely feeling! I tried to lead them through progressive muscle relaxation and a breathing exercise. Well.... they didn't quite go over as well I had hoped. They didn't quite understand that their eyes were to be closed during the whole thing and not just when I told them to close them! We then talked about being healthy with food and drink choices, bathing, etc. That whole conversation went over very well! And somehow the day ended up with them wanting to learn Swahili so I taught them a song and they ate it up singing it many times at the top of their lungs. Of course this gave me a great big smile! :)

Birthday and Beach

We had some fun filled days with the girls to start off the week! On Sunday Macintosh was celebrating both of his children's birthdays and invited us to attend. This was also my first trip into the slum of West Point. As we went off the main road we began taking many turns and walked through some very narrow areas until we can to what seemed to be a communal area of the housing units that was not too big but filled with about 100 people! Most of these people were children and many of them girls from MTM.

There was dancing, oh, lots of dancing, at this party! There is a song/dance really popular here called Azonto and it was played at least five times during the afternoon. I asked one of the girls to teach me the dance and well, they can certainly dance better than me!

Monday was beach day! We took about 60 girls to Myrtle Beach (no, South Carolina does not have the only Myrtle Beach in the world). For some of these girls it was not the first time to a beach (as there is one on the edge of the community they live in) but it was their first time in the water as very few people ever go swimming. Each of the adults took two girls at a time into the ocean. Sometimes only my hand was held and other times I had one girl on my back and another clinging to my front! We had a volleyball and net and some other beach games but the focus was certainly on the water. This was such a different beach trip than I have ever been on but no question will be one of the most memorable.