So, what are we doing in Liberia?

Hello from your favorite small doctor and science teacher!

In this post, we wanted to give some more context on what we will be doing for the next two years.

Last week we came back to the training center in Kakata to finish training and say goodbye to our host families. It was sad to say goodbye to our siblings and host parents, but we are excited to officially become volunteers and return to Ganta to start our work.

The past three weeks have consisted of Therese teaching at her model summer school and Bobby shadowing at his health clinic in Ganta. Alongside our Peace Corps training, we got acquainted with our neighbors and “porch kids,” set up our home, and have been testing out new meals in the kitchen.

If anyone wants to recommend recipes for good, fulfilling, and somewhat nutritious meals—we’d love to hear them! Common ingredients we can find are: rice, bulgar, eggs, canned meat, canned fish, canned vegetables, beans, ramen, spaghetti, tomato paste, salt, pepper, vita cubes (similar to bouillon), potatoes, onion, garlic, tiny peppers, and tomatoes.

Bobby spent the last 3 weeks shadowing at his clinic. The clinic is a primary care facility staffed by mostly nurses (no doctors at our clinic unfortunately, although down the road there is a larger hospital with doctors). The vast majority of patients come in with malaria and or UTIs. Some other common ailments include typhoid fever and pneumonia.

Bobby will be able to jump in and work in almost any part of the clinic, excluding the parts that require more elaborate medical training such as delivering babies and giving vaccines. As the clinic is already understaffed, this means one day Bobby might be weighting babies, taking temperatures, registering patients, or helping fill prescriptions (when the medicine isn’t stocked out—a major problem for almost all government clinics in Liberia.) Bobby will also take on additional projects around the clinic, ranging from helping the head of the clinic learn to use a computer to helping in the development of a new pregnancy delivery waiting room.

The main component of Bobby’s job though will be educating and supervising the community’s “catchment communities.” Liberia has implemented a “community health program.” The program works by empowering community leaders in rural areas to act as “small doctors.” A small doctor can be an individual who has never completed any medical training, and often not even finished middle school. They are selected by their community and educated by the Ministry of Health to treat basic ailments such as malaria, pneumonia, and diarrhea. Part of Bobby’s job will be to further educate and supervise these individuals, their communities, and the clinic staff who is tasked with overseeing them.

Meanwhile, Therese has been conducting vacation school for high school students at Francis Nya Maweah School. The school is a public high school in the Charles Francis community of Ganta. The 30 students attending the three-week school were selected by the administration after applying.

Therese worked with her three co-teachers to plan lessons covering biology, chemistry, and physics lab experiments. The favorites were oxygen gas production (combine yeast and hydrogen peroxide and show it by putting an extinguished piece of paper into the bottle and watch as it relights on fire), titrations, food tests, microscopes, and can crush (boiling water in a soda can, cooling it fast in water, and watching as the can crumples).

In the school’s closing ceremony, the students chose to present chemistry, biology or physics experiments to their families. The students also received certificates for completion, and Therese made paper plate awards for each student based on their behavior during school.

Model school aimed to help Therese learn to teach better and for her co-teachers to learn how to lesson plan and teach lab experiments. For the next two years, Therese will help implement different lab practicals into the curriculum, prepare students for the WASSCE exam (West African standardized exam for high school seniors to graduate and go to college), and train more teachers to introduce practicals/lab into the classroom.

In other fun news, Bobby got to ride a motorbike for the first time. Health volunteers will need to ride the bikes to reach their clinic’s rural catchment communities. Therese was very jealous as she is not allowed to ride on the bikes.

While Therese was at work during model school, Bobby took some of our porch kids to play some football at a nearby field. Bobby was very proud of his one goal and near goal from a header.

For the next two weeks we will be at Doe Palace completing some extra training while we wait for the swearing-in ceremony (Peace Corps wanted the new US Ambassador and the Liberian President to be able to attend).

Thinking of everyone at home. Things we’ve been missing include: salads, yogurt, activities (e.g. tennis, putt-putt, bowling, concerts, and honestly anything to fill free time), and hot pot :)

With love,

Therese and Bobby

*Faces in pictures were blurred for privacy*

The content of this website and blog is Therese Joffre’s and Bobby Housel’s alone and does not reflect the views of the U.S. Government, the Peace Corps, or the Liberian Government.