The grass rustled in the breeze as I weaved my way through the bushes, carefully watching for snakes. The sun had gone down 45 minutes ago, but already the moonlight was bright enough to illuminate the narrow path before me. I walked up the small hill and the silhouette of the school came into focus […]
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One aspect of being an AgriCorps Fellow is to work as an extension agent with local farmers and with Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) extension agents in our surrounding areas. Because of my role as an extension agent, I have had the pleasure of working with one particularly spunky MOFA agent named Victor Mensah. […]
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I am an educator in two high school classrooms and four National Diploma of Agriculture (similar to an associate degree) classrooms at the Booker Washington Institute in Kakata, Liberia. One of the classes, I teach is a class of 32 small ruminant enthusiasts. Well more realistically, there is me, the small ruminant enthusiast and 32 […]
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I walk into the classroom and grab a piece of chalk. Some students have gathered, but most of the wooden desks remain empty. I turn to the dusty chalkboard and begin to write: 4-H MEETING. As I write the agenda on the board, I hear the school bell ring. A voice calls out, “4-H Meeting, […]
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The long and dusty truck ride is over. I arrive in Konkoney to the site of a mountain with a protruding rock-face. It was early and the air was still cool. I am with OCP Africa, a private company out of Morocco that tests farmers’ soil for free, then recommends/sells fertilizer based on the results. […]
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I had just finished up teaching at the school for the day, lesson notes in hand and sweat on my brow, as the scorch of the Ghanaian sun sizzled on the back my neck. With the sounds of my students finishing up their closing prayer, I made my way back home. Just as I was […]
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I grabbed the microphone and took in a deep breath. The day I had been working on for the past month was finally here. As I exhaled to begin speaking, all of the anxiety I had been feeling left my body as excitement and pride filled the space that the nerves once obtained. I looked […]
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Before I came to Liberia, so many people told me, “Oh, you are going to go there and gain such an appreciation for how good we have it here.” Or a variation of the sort. I’ve always carried that with me in the back of my mind accompanied by a snark, “you don’t quite get […]
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I sat in bed staring at the chipped blue paint on the walls. The afternoon sun streamed into the room in long rectangles, squeezing between the frosted glass slats of the window. Speckles of dust lazily drifting in the air were illuminated as the light reached in and further faded the remaining pigment on the […]
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It is a typical Wednesday in the Upper Manya Krobo district. I do not teach today; instead, I dedicate my time to MOFA (Ministry of Food and Agriculture – USDA equivalent) and the extension portion of my job: visiting local 4-H Clubs, visiting farms and consulting extension agents on various facets of tropical agriculture. I […]
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