One of our priorities while we are here is to spend time in the school, CMA. And oh man!! It has been so fun and also extremely tiring. The kids are wonderful, and we have such a blast with them! CMA has 3 classes: ABCs (pre-k and kindergarten), 1st and 2nd grade, and 3rd and 4th grade. We have done our best to split our time amongst the classes, trying grade appropriate activities with each. The littles love to show us how they can sing their ABCs and count by twos and fives and of course they love to be read to. The older kids have loved learning card games like war and solitaire (understood with varying levels of success).
To give you a little more insight as to what school is like in Liberia, I’ll highlight some things that make school different from what we experience in the US. In the US, it is by law that you send your children to school. There is no such law here (or if there is, there is no enforcement). Public schools are overcrowded, and many families cannot afford private school. So, what do you do? You just don’t send your kid to school. Or you start them late. At CMA, the 3rd and 4th graders are 13 and 14 years old. At these ages, I was in 7th and 8th grade. Also at CMA, we have a 2nd grader who is 16. What’s tricky about this is that you are now teaching kids to read and write after they have passed the developmental stages where it is important to do these things. Interacting with a 16 year in 2nd grade is a hard thing to wrap your head around. You expect him to be really sharp – and maybe he is, but there are obvious signs he has not been learning as he has grown up.
The kids LOVE “the white people”. It has been reported back to us that kids are going home and saying to their parents “Mom, I want to go see the white people!”. They run to greet us and give big hugs and hold our hands, staring at our skin. I would love to say I don’t have favorites, but in all honesty, I totally do. His name is Jackson, he is 3 years old and WILD. He runs around and loves to be tickled and hold my hand, leaning up against me. Yesterday, he even fell asleep in my arms and it may have been one of the greatest moments ever. He has the best little laugh and is kind of a menace with the other kids, but oh man I love him! Divine, his older brother (7), is the same in that he just wants to be close, giving me big smiles all day and a hug or quick hand hold as he passes. Another little, Katherine (4), is a doll. I am not even sure what she wants half the time except to be close to me or my mom, holding my skirt or my hand, giving a hug, being held, leaning on my leg, or laying her head on my lap as I sit down to take a break. Sometimes she is a little stinker as she hits at the other kids who try to hug us, haha! We have also finally worked some giggles out of her but mostly she stares at us with her big brown eyes and expressionless face.