I was roaming from class to class as I usually do during our routine morning break time of the school day. The air was filled with the sound of trampling feet rushing to the lunch line, the bouncing of soccer balls, and the mumble of varied conversation throughout the classrooms. During today’s morning break, I […]
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The hot sun blared down with a merciless pulse of unwavering heat. Sixty-seven learners sat in their cramped rows that had morphed into a disorganized blob of desks. There were no lights above and a glare from the barred window shown on the chalkboard. The glare made it so that 75% of my 67 learners […]
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My feet kicked up dust as I shuffled across the dirt floor. Forty heads swiveled to look as they heard me approach the classroom. Their matching yellow shirts all moved in unison; the dusty, gray, cinder block walls providing a dreary backdrop for their uniforms, the clean color dazzlingly bright compared to the stark surroundings. […]
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My eyes shot open. It was early. The sun was just about to rise. Today was the day I had been impatiently waiting for—my 4-H Club would finally begin work on our farm. The PTA Chairman, Mr. Appiah, was kind enough to lend us an acre and a half of land. The chief and elders […]
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So many emotions were running through me. I was on a happy high. We just finished our last day of training and earlier that day, we completed a Walmart run to grab last minute odds and ends before our trips aboard and of course my $17 purchase didn’t seem like it would be enough. We […]
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As I walked outside, I heard the grass crunch under my shoes. The wind blew against my skin and I felt my hair lightly brush against my cheek that was warm from the now fading Texas sun. As I sat on the ground, to look out over the hill, I snapped a leaf of sage […]
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The red-orange sunrise illuminated the rolling hills of the McKnight ranch. As I squinted, I could distinguish herds of little black dots scattered about on the rolling hills of this west Texas rangeland. I could feel the humidity in the air, almost like a damp blanket covering my skin, as I slowly crept onto the […]
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Standing there in a group of Booker Washington Institute (BWI) FFA leaders and alumni, I looked off in the distance in the direction of our FFA students who were laughing, yelling, and running around while playing ultimate frisbee on the football field. It was after our FFA End of the Year Program and the sun […]
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I remember the first time I saw him, this tall, lanky student briskly across the Kumbungu High School campus. With over 2,000 students at the school in which I taught, I was unsure at first if our paths had crossed before. All students at my school were required to wear the school uniform. This meant […]
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“Welcome! Welcome to Liberia!” This is a greeting that I heard many times during my five-day stay in Liberia to visit my son, Nathan, and his wife Anna. This was inevitably followed by a Liberian handshake; which involves a normal handshake, followed by a thumb grip, and ending with our two hands clasping with fingers […]
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