The Charles Taylor Mansion

We’ve been staying at a hotel in Gbarnga, a town a few miles down the road from Cuttington, while we wait for the renovation of the EHELD guesthouse on campus to be complete.  Gbarnga, during the war and while Charles Taylor was in power, was a Taylor stronghold.  During the war Cuttington University was taken over by the rebels and used as a training camp.  Everyday on the way to and from our hotel we pass a large piece of land just to the east of the road with an eerie abandoned building perched on top of a hill in the distance.  This dark grey concrete skeleton, looming above the lush green landscape of palm trees, wildflowers, and thick brush is the unfinished mansion of Charles Taylor, Liberia’s infamous former dictator-president. 

Jose, an avid cyclist, arranged for us to bring mountain bikes with us to Liberia.  This gives us the luxury of being able to spend our weekends exploring the surrounding areas on bike and pursuing trails and small roads otherwise only accessible by foot or motorbike. On Sunday we decided to venture to the abandoned mansion via bike and get a closer look at the unfinished imagined splendor (never-to-be) by Taylor himself.  

There are a couple of roads that circle behind the mansion and we ended up taking a scenic route to get to the mansion.  About half way to the house from the main road, the road that we were following transformed from a well-cleared path to an overgrown corridor with grass and weeds taller than me.  Jose forged ahead and I followed close behind as we cut a new trail through the thick grass, all the while trying to steer as it swatted us in the face as we pushed through.  The whole time, I was clutching my handlebars a bit too tightly, holding my feet as far from the ground as possible, and trying to hide the fear in my voice.  Just the other day, we heard stories and saw photos taken by other expats staying at our hotel of giant snakes they had come across while clearing through the bush.  In my mind, behind every bush and in every ditch lay an angry snake, unhappy to be intruded on by our reckless tires, ready to strike my plump calf in revenge. 

Even without my fear of snakes, I felt an underlying tension about going to check out the mansion that belonged to Charles Taylor.  For those who don’t know much about him, Charles Taylor was a rebel leader that overthrew Samuel Doe in a coup in the Liberia’s first civil war.  He gained control of much of Liberia and eventually became president in 1997.  He won by a landslide, largely due to a fearful population that understood that if they did not elect him he would plunge the country back into civil war.  The campaign slogan he is most remembered for is: “He killed my ma, he killed my pa, but I will vote for him.”  His oppressive, brutal, and corrupt regime resulted in a second civil war erupting in 1999.  Taylor finally resigned from the presidency in 2003.  He is currently being held at The Hague and being tried for crimes against humanity and war crimes for his involvement in the conflict in neighboring Sierra Leone.

When we finally made it to the mansion, there was an ominous black cloud looming above.  Juju-believers would have read the message loud and clear and turned around.  I hesitated when Jose asked me if I wanted to go inside and check it out.  Morbid thoughts immediately flashed through my mind - thoughts that automatically come to mind when thinking about Charles Taylor and his legacy.  Not wanting to be a wimp though, I consented. 

Inside the house, the excessively large home was nothing more than a skeleton of concrete.  The rooms were empty and bare, with bright green moss and fungus growing on the floors and walls; weeds popped out of every corner, and a few flowers had sprouted between cracks.  A couple pieces of trash, wrappers and playing cards, were scattered near the entrance, presumably leftover from squatters.  We took a few pictures and videos and left.  I was still feeling creeped out – these ruins were fresh - not relics of generations past, but newly abandoned less than a decade ago.

Coming home we got caught in a heavy rainstorm, took a couple of wrong turns trying to get back to the main road, but eventually made it safely back to Cuttington’s campus.  I speculated a bit about what might happen to the mansion and surrounding land in years to come – maybe it will be turned into a memorial dedicated to those who suffered during the war, or perhaps it will be sold and developed.  For now, I think it will remain untouched until wounds heal and an unlikely destination for adventurous mountain bikers.

- Lauren

One down, three to go

The first week of this four-week-long program is over. Everyday was packed, but by the end it finally felt as if everyone had settled into a routine. During the week, the students have scheduled activities pretty much non-stop from 8am until 6pm. They start with classes in the morning (from 8am until noon), get a break for lunch, and then have three hours of applications or computer lab in the afternoon. Throughout the four weeks there are several scheduled speakers in the evenings as well as movie nights in which we turn their auditorium into a movie theater and show DVDs with a focus on agriculture and engineering. Jose, Sara and I are responsible for teaching three classes: life skills, computer lab, and an engineering applications lab.

A bit about the computer lab…

About three quarters of the students have never used a computer before. Several of the TA’s also have very limited experience with computers. At first I think we were a bit shocked at the widespread lack of computer exposure. Many of the students could barely use the mouse on the first day. Double clicking was a challenge. For those who do not have the luxury of owning their own personal computer, there is very little access to computers. At Cuttington, there is a computer café that resembles a computer graveyard more so than a lab – filled with old machines infected with viruses. Students are allowed to use the café computers for 30 minutes per day, probably enough time for someone who has never used a computer before to log on and not do much more than wait for a webpage to load with the abysmally internet slow connection. Cuttington has two brand new computer labs (with no internet), but access to them is limited and students have to pay an extra fee on top of their tuition if they want to take classes that use the computer labs. We are teaching the computer classes in these new labs.

That being said, I LOVE teaching the computer labs. The students, especially the beginners, are incredibly eager to learn. The classes are 3 hours long – so we try and give them a break about halfway through to stretch their legs and go to the bathroom if they need to. Most of them stay in the lab, glued to their computers. After the first couple of classes, the students thanked us profusely and excitedly exclaimed that this is their favorite class. When I teach something new, it’s hard to keep the students’ attention because they just want to try it again and again. For example, at the end of last class I showed them how to draw a plane in Google Sketchup. I wanted them to draw one rectangular plane and one circular plane to practice using the different tools. After demonstrating how to do it, I pause to give them a chance to copy, and then want to move on to show them how to extrude their planes into 3D shapes. I look over at the monitor next to me, and the student has drawn close to 50 planes and just keeps going. So when I try to move on to the next step, he looks up at me with a confused and bewildered look because of course, I had not yet showed them how to delete objects.

So far, we’ve had the beginners use Paint to practice their hand-eye coordination and get used to using the mouse, Open Office Writer (we’re using Open Office instead of the standard Microsoft Office suite because it is available for free) to practice typing and learning formatting, and Google Sketchup as an introduction to a computer drafting program. The more advanced students have been introduced to Open Office Calc (a spreadsheet program) and are further along in learning Google Sketchup.

Some of the TA’s the other afternoon asked Sara and I what the biggest differences were between American and Liberian students. I think that one of the most drastic differences is the access to technology. American students grow up with computers and use them for school as early as grade school. As a result, I think that we think and approach tasks in a more efficient manner because we are required to use computers to complete them. I hope that teaching these students basic computer skills will not only allow them to be proficient at typing and using a computer, but also to help them understand the magnitude of efficiency gained by using computers, and not just for school work, but in everyday life.

That’s all for now! We’re working on adding more pictures to the blog so stay tuned. - Lauren

An Introduction to Our Staff...

An Introduction to Our Staff...

Today was the first official day of our Summer Start program. And wow, are we exhausted!!! The past few days we have definitely been putting in a lot of hours, but it feels great! We will have to talk later about how our first day went because we first must mention what we have been up to over the last week.

Liberia has two universities-- Cuttington University and the University of Liberia. Cuttington University is a private university about 3 hours outside of the capital, Monrovia, while the University of Liberia is the public university located in and around Monrovia. The purpose of our summer program is to prepare incoming freshman and sophomore students to these universities for the coming school year, as well as excite them about their career possibilities. The focus is on engineering and agriculture students since engineering and agriculture are underpinnings to development. This intensive program lasts 4 weeks and will be reaching 80 students. It is being held at the campus of Cuttington University. Students will be learning mathematics, physics, botany, and English. Furthermore, the three of us will be teaching life skills, computer skills, and an application lab. In the computer skills lab, we will be teaching OpenOffice and Google Sketchup. In the application lab for the engineers, we will have them build a bridge from tongue depressors, make a catapult contraption using rubberbands or a mouse trap, and power a small generator buy building a mini wind or water turbine. This will be my first official experience at teaching; I hope it will show me whether or not I would like to continue to teach in the future.

SummerStart is a part of a greater United States Agency for International Development (USAID) program called Excellence in Higher Education for Liberian Development (EHELD). This program is a five-year program being coordinated by the Research Triangle Institute (RTI). Aspects of the program are being partnered with American universities, namely the University of Michigan, Rutgers University, and North Carolina State University. The University of Michigan is charged with improving the engineering program at the University of Liberia, while the other two American universities will be working with Cuttington University and their agriculture program. We came to be involved with this project through the University of Michigan College of Engineering.

Jose arrived in Monrovia last Sunday. While there, he spent most of the time finalizing details with the EHELD office and purchasing supplies. Lauren and I arrived that Wednesday and enjoyed our first dinner of pizza and Club Beer (the Liberian beer brand) on the beach. The following day, we left for Cuttington University!

We arrived to Bongatown that evening to our hotel. Bongatown is about 20 min outside of Cuttington. We are supposed to be staying on campus in a guest house; however, that guest house will not be finished until this Sunday. On the first day, we traveled with two other people: an EHELD employee named Yark, and an agriculture professor from Ghana named Armstrong. Yark was to stay in Bongatown for the next week and help us with the rest of the logistics for the program; Armstrong is a professor from Ghana that was hired on to the EHELD program to be the agriculture curriculum advisor to Cuttington.

The first day was spent at Cuttington University preparing for the SummerStart program. To begin the day, we met the Provost, and to our shock, he was surprised to realize that our program would be starting in only two days! Everyone we met with that morning seemed to feel as though the date on which our program would begin was not communicated to them--what a way to start our time at Cuttington!!! Luckily, things were worked out quite quickly and by the end of the day, everyone at Cuttington was ready to help. While the end of the first day turned out well, I really became nervous about the next day.

The next day was when we would meet the teaching assistants and the instructors. The goal of Saturday was to inform all of the staff about the program and the way it would function. The three of us developed expectations for instructors, teaching assistants, and students. We were nervous about how those expectations would go over with everyone--especially the instructors. But everyone was receptive. And even more so, everyone was contributing to each other to make it better! I was impressed with all of the instructors and the teaching assistants. We have 4 instructors for the physics, mathematics, English, and botany course along with two SummerStart directors (one from each respective university). On top of that, we have eight teaching assistants, all top senior students from each university.

We played a goofy name game as an ice breaker and then went into a "complex systems" team exercise where we tried to make everyone to think about how the development of Liberia is complex and every issue or sector of society pulls and contributes to every other issue or sector--especially with regards to those professions held by engineers and agriculturalists. During this exercise, it was great to see that we did not have to do very much to spur conversation, all of the groups' discussions took off. Everyone had much to say about Liberian development and need for cooperation amongst sectors and professions. Furthermore, everyone in my group believed this was a message that needs to be heard amongst this generation of students. At that point, it was quite clear that we have a wonderful staff to work with over the next month.

By the end of the day, we were feeling so excited for the SummerStart Program to begin!

Then finally, Sunday came…the day the students arrived. In the morning, we went to a church close to Cuttington that was actually co-founded by Yark. Then we began preparing the students for their arrival. Of the 80 students accepted, only 58 showed up the first day. For the University of Liberia, because they were waiting on entrance exam results, the accepted freshman students did not even know about their status until two days before the program began! Luckily, we had convinced the University of Liberia to hire a bus to bring their students to the Cuttington campus so 12 of the 20 freshmen showed up. Their were some students that showed up that were not on the list that we had to turn away.

All in all, the registration and the staff training went really well. It was such a relief to use since we were nervous the whole program could fall apart within the first few days. But it didn't, and the instructors seemed excited, the TA's seemed excited, and most importantly, so did the students!

-Sara Rimer

What Ice?

What Ice?

The first official day of the program started with a lot of different orientations for the students.  We had speakers from all the organizations involved.  We had orientations about the students’ classes over the next months, orientations about their computers, their applications lab, their cafeteria rights, and their dorms.  We then had assessments on every subject they will be covering.

Finally, in the evening we were able to listen to them instead of pumping information into them.  We had worked very hard to prepare what we thought would be about an hour and a half of ice breaking and community building exercises.  That is one of the pillars of the program: community.  We placed deep thought on how we would help them achieve that, how we can make them learn their names, think of each other as part of a common goal and be comfortable with engaging each other in teams and achieving common goals while at the same time learning how to deal with conflict.  We played the battle of the worms where students create a human worm and each team tries to capture the end of the other teams worm.  We then played the dancing name game where students say their name and perform their favorite dance move and the rest join them.

Although we had another game planned once we introduced dance into the mixture it was over.  Three small teams that had been doing the games together spontaneously combusted into an unending series of dancing and clapping games, rapping their names to music made by their hands and feet.  We had officially lost control of the games and we LOVED it!  Every team played on picking off of each other moving from rapping, to singing, to a human tug-of-war game, and even sang to a tune I knew as a child in Spanish.  I had actually thought about introducing the game but figured the song would not translate.  Wrong! Made me wonder if EVERYTHING—music, humans, wildlife, games—comes from Africa.  I can guarantee you that rhythm did! 

The night finalized with a human jumping pile of dance as we asked them to wrap it up.  It seemed like a fitting way and we could nothing but join into the dance.  As we did we saw a plum of vapor go up from the group, the heat of the mass combined with the humidity of the evening.  We went home with the very distinctive feeling that in Africa, among the new generation, there is no ice to break. 

Jose Alfaro

Meeting the Future

The situation after the war in Liberia was dire: infrastructure gone, rule of law in shambles, 14 years of worn down education system and a system afflicted by the brain drain of displaced citizens.  But under the ashes left by the conflict there is a country rich in natural resources and gifted with a perfect tropical climate of sun, breezes and waves.  To lift the burden left by the war that ended in 2004 Liberia will need to harness its gifts in a new way, one that looks to strategic and systematic thinking, that looks towards the sustainability of their nation, and that will consider the complexities of development.  We believe education is a sustainable investment towards that new way.

Liberia needs new roads, new energy systems, new ways of adding value to their natural resources and a rebirth of their agricultural systems.  New students need to be trained in the sciences, math, engineering and agriculture to help the country germinate out of the state it was left in.  Those students should be allowed to see how their disciplines cannot and should not live in a vacuum for Liberia to quickly move out of the post-war period.  Interdisciplinarity needs to be infused in these students so that their engineers will learn to work along side their agriculturalists, geologists and farmers to tackle the country as a system and not a simple area of the economy. 

Students also need to discover their passions and be allowed to become enthusiastic about the careers that they are tackling.  The new generation of Liberia needs to realize the opportunities ahead of them and the rewarding careers that they can use to harvest those opportunities.  Students need to be exposed to innovative curriculum—science that can help development, complexity and sustainability. 

Most importantly, students need to realize that a good professional succeeds, but a great professional lifts others with her as well.  One Liberian succeeding will accomplish very little, but if this new generation starts to rise together, their dreams are the only limits that will stop them. 

Maybe we can start with 80 young freshmen and sophomores, practice how to be a community, teach them the basics for them to succeed in their upcoming years and inject them with enthusiasm about what their careers can be.  Maybe while we are at it we can listen to them and hear from their lips where they think their country should go and how they think we can lift it there.  Maybe we can then challenge them to think bigger, go farther and dare to do more.  Maybe then we can see a little seed rise up in the Liberian soil. 

That is what we have come to do to Liberia with Summer Start.  Summer Start is a pilot program sponsored by the USAID through the Excellence in Higher Education for Liberian Development (EHELD) grant.  A team of instructors, teaching assistants and staff will start this new adventure tomorrow.  Over the next month you will hopefully hear from some of them.  We hope you follow our challenges and cheer our success. 

The whole of the staff met in person for the first time today after months of preparation work done from their respective institutions (almost 20 people coming from University of Liberia, Cuttington University, University of Michigan and Research Triangle Institute).  For those months, I personally felt like I was holding my breath afraid that at any moment one of us in the staff would drop the ball bad enough that we would not be able to recover and the program would not go on.  But true to what we are trying to teach the students, today it became obvious that in spite of our different backgrounds, expertise, geographic locations and approaches (as well as internet limitations) we all lifted each other up to prepare a program that will truly enrich the life of the students and add to the hopes of Liberia.  

After our staff meeting we toured around the community and took in the surroundings of the campus.  Africa, in its splendor laid out in front of us, is filled with vast patches of rubber plantations, small farms and gardens, wildflowers, creeks with foot bridges to small clusters of houses and a permanent breeze cooling off the sun.  We can see for miles from the top of the campus, we can breath in what literally feels like the future… tomorrow we will hopefully meet them!