When talking about advocacy, I get serious. In fact, I’ve been getting a little too serious in general these past few days. It doesn’t help that last week I got sick and had a feverish feeling that part of my body had become the LURD fighters and was invading another part. Yeah. I’ve been reading […]
Read more "Obviously, I agree"Last week I attended the first phase of DEN-L’s DELTA training. The program is based off of Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed and a series of training workbooks by Sally Timmel and Anne Hope called Training for Transformation. The authors came out of apartheid in South Africa and began their DELTA trainings in the […]
Read more "DELTA Training:"Well, not really. But a chimp nonetheless. And she was for sale. I was tempted, disregarding the ethical problems of trading in endangered species. They were going to have a meeting to decide how much to charge for the animal. Chimps seem to be household pets here, as well as monkeys. I think they’re even […]
Read more "Bonobo!"A foray into peacebuilding. Which is sadly not my expertise. The meeting reminded me of my organizing days, except there was more attendance and enthusiasm. But the discussion winded around a celebration of the now peaceful relationship between the two groups. The disagreement was over history and land. The two groups fought bitterly during the […]
Read more "The Meeting"The roads in Liberia, or at least Bong and Lofa county are…abysmal? Not the right word, but by western standards, yeah, they’re pretty awful. Again ingenious humans strike again. Not only do drivers mysteriously know where the worst pot holes are and cleverly avoid them, there’s one lane. One lane that weaves from side to […]
Read more "On the road again…"Last Friday, at 11:53am, B was talking with the Frenchmen about going to Lofa. My ears perked up. Lofa? I have heard talk of this heavenly place. The people who have come before me, Matt and one of my many on again off again AIUSA supervisors recommended it. After the Frenchmen declined, I chimed in, […]
Read more "Leaving Gbarnga"Homesickness strikes. For those of you who have not been e mailing me and must assume that I want to speak with you (because of course I want to speak with you), please e mail me. I’m having dreams of the states and it makes me feel bad not knowing how everyone is doing. I’ve […]
Read more "Partying Liberian Style: Part 1"The language barrier is frustrating but getting better. Most of Liberian English is just dropping the last letter of every word and then running the words together in the sentence. But as I mentioned, there are also vowel changes. Sometimes I have no idea what words people are saying. Internet is pronounced entenet, mister is […]
Read more "On to language and development"My parents are becoming a bit concerned. Mom, Dad, don’t worry… I have phone numbers for about a dozen DEN-L staff. Now, I’m not going to sugar coat this, all of them are male and several may have an unnecessary interest in me. However, I’ve learned from organizing and over the years how to push […]
Read more "So I was going to write a post about ritualistic killing in Liberia but…"Saturday is a work day for most of DEN-L staff. Like organizers in the US, DEN-L staff, trainers and trainees work 6 day weeks (Saturday is “optional”). For my part, I did a little more reading, found a little bit more out about the war days and the rebuilding efforts. A quote from the first […]
Read more "Weekending"
Ally Krupar 