Well hello!
I have been absent I know. Sorry I am not sorry… because I was just in freaking Africa! Heck Yes.
Let me explain. During the month of January my school has what's called Interim (or J-Term for other schools). It basically consists of one class on campus or deciding to go abroad somewhere and travel. I obviously chose the later and was headed off to Liberia, in West Africa.
I don't have time right now to tell the whole story but I will explain the gist of what we did there.
For the first two weeks, I and 8 other students took a Social Work class at the college we were staying at. This implied that there would be Liberian students as well. Seeing as the professors we traveled with taught the class, it was pretty simple. The class focused on Community Development in communities around Monrovia (the capital). We did a group project in which we went out as small groups and interviewed leaders and member of those communities and assessed each community. As a part of the class, each group gave a presentation on what community they had been given to assess. Then an exam, and BOOM. Done with the class and first two weeks.
The class was in the morning. During many of the afternoons, we traveled to different social welfare social work type agencies or organizations to see what former students of the class created or just visited and see what international social work looks like. We went to a child welfare house (orphaned or children with unstable parents), an HIV/AIDs/Teen Pregnancy resource center, community gardens and farms, and schools.
The last week consisted of traveling to the center of the country and to the border of Liberia and Sierra Leone. We hiked to a waterfall and were 30 feet from Sierra Leone!
Hopefully I will have time to share some stories, but for now I AM BACK!
