Chapter 14: An Afternoon in Bomi

Chapter 14: An Afternoon in Bomi

Saturday
July 20, 2019

Tubmanburg in Bomi county is where our travels took us this Saturday. (In Liberia, a county is similar to a state in America.) Specifically, our destination was the Tubmanburg Town Hall where we were to give a presentation. Like the trip to Firestone last weekend, a drive to Tubmanburg means we leave the clogged city streets and make our way into the rural, green areas of Liberia. For much of the drive through the countryside we drove on pretty decent highways which meant we made great time, making up for the stop and go traffic of the urban areas. All Liberian road trips with Jay at the wheel are entertaining and

exciting, his balls to the walls driving style makes them so. Today we enjoyed the added benefit of loud music because we brought along with us a big, battery-powered, Bluetooth connectable speaker. Our very own soundtrack! Jay belting out songs and banging the steering wheel while zipping past cars that are too slow and motorcycles that are in the way is a joy.

No small feat, prior to our arrival Jay organized all the details of this mini-event: where it would be held, who would attend, who would set it up, and how to feed all the attendees. The latter point of food is important. As I’ve learned, the expectation for events in Liberia is that you feed those you’ve invited. To make our function happen he had to arrange breakfast and lunch.

Somewhere around 11:30, after passing through the town’s roadside market, we arrived to the center of Tubmanburg. Here was the town hall, school, and courthouse, all arranged around an open area. Into the townhall we went to find a group of thirty or so quietly awaiting our arrival. The group was sitting in rows of plastic chairs, arranged six-wide. Nearly all of them were females. They ranged in age from tweens to a few that could have been young grandmothers. The hall was similar to what I’ve seen in other rural Liberian towns, one big room with a low ceiling, decorative grills in the glassless windows, plain walls and floor, no fans or A/C, and we’d find out if electricity was available. There were two outlets at one end of the hall.

As we set up for the presentation, everyone in the audience sat in their seats very quietly, sometimes whispering to one another. There was no electricity, we were informed, but they could have it on in ten or fifteen minutes. We decided to start. Jay opened and right away it was clear this group was going to be quiet and unresponsive. What’s more, I could hear from their quiet words that their dialect was thickly accented and

they were shy. (Could be a tough crowd.) Jay jumped in with live energy, got them all to answer personal questions about themselves like who they were and what they wanted to do when they were older. He followed his Q and A with a game of Stand/Sit that woke them up even more.

Then it was my turn. Knowing we still weren’t 100% sure about the availability of electricity (and the projector and slides and videos) I had time to spare. This is why I brought tennis balls. The group was divided in two, I explained the rules, and — three, two, one — the race was on. Just like Jay’s Stand/Sit game, everyone enjoyed the ball game. They laughed, cheered, and threw their hands in their air in excitement. By now we decided to start without electricity.

For the next forty minutes or so I walked them through the three barriers to study the old-fashioned way, no projector, no slides, no videos, no flashy graphics. Just me standing in front of a room full of people with a small laptop screen as a display, assorted items on the table for props, gesticulations galore, and a wide array of facial expressions to make my points. I quickly figured out what registered best with the crowd (overacting) and did more of that. Reciting symptoms aloud as a group was also helpful. They enjoyed putting their hands into the shape of a book and acting along with me the different barriers you can run into when studying. I could see who in the audience was tracking best by their head nods of agreement and laughs. These were the youngest in the crowd, it turns out. I used them often for discussions. Jay helped me wrap up the final part of my presentation, live examples of what happens when you read or hear words you don’t understand (the dub drill). Jay then took over fully, reviewing the study barriers flier we passed out, and ended by tying together their role as students to them being responsible for their future via education. It was another great talk by Jay, tailored to the

crowd and punchy. The final step was getting a group shot. We then piled into the truck and headed out for the two-hour return trip.

The highlight of the trip home was a stop at a roadside food stand. Jay knew exactly what he wanted and we drove away with two treats for the road, one savory, one sweet. I found the sweet exceptionally good. They were balls of bread deep-fried in palm oil and coated with a hint of pepper. There was just enough sweet in the bread to perfectly offset the touch of oily spice on the outside. Pepper kale! Very good!