My apologies for the absence in blog posts. It’s been almost two weeks since I arrived back in Buchanan, and I’ve found myself alternately extremely busy and extremely tired, though not in the sense that Americans living in America might understand it.
When I went home for Christmas, I found myself busy – always doing something. Going to Target, the supermarket, post office, PeiWei, every free moment of my day was filled with an activity.
Liberia is more relaxed. Right now I’m busy but only because I teach until 1 p.m., eat lunch, wait around for a couple hours until the sun has fallen behind my house, and then I start yard work. In the shade it’s incredibly cooler, and later in the afternoon there are fewer people which means less nosey people. I’ve cleared an area about 10’x20’ of weeds using my trusty hoe.
Expecting to sleep like a baby each night after two straight hours of hoeing (or hooking, as they like to call it), I’m frustratingly kept awake by the heat, dogs and mosquitoes which are still menacing me despite the disappearance of any and all rain.
Which means that the only things I get from my work are a dirt yard the dogs roll around in and the realization that I am horribly out of shape. Two hours of wielding my hoe and I can barely hold my chalk to the board the next morning at school.
At school I’m faced with 300 students who have had bigger muscles that me since childhood. Humbling, yes, especially when you consider that their body types resemble my brother’s, slim but sturdy, strong. Yet whereas my brother has spent countless hours at the rock climbing gym meticulously sculpting his torso and arms, Liberians have earned their bodies through nothing more than manual labor: cutting grass with the steady swing of a long blade, lifting water by a bucket attached to a rope that drops 20 feet into the dark depths of a well, carrying 25 kg of rice on their heads.
I’ve got some catching up to do, clearly.
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