Well with nothing to expect, nothing that would predict my life for the next two months, I arrived at the camp. Compared to the neighbors, the CBW volunteers live in mansions. My mattress comes with a frame with slats I can count as as I lay there under the mostquito net praying for a cool breeze will be ushered from the TWO windows into the bedroom I share with only one other person. Next to me in what could be the slowest internet cafe people beg cyber style, having gathered email addresses from anybody wealtheir than them. Its hard to describe the camp in full. About a third of the 42000 have left, leaving empty shacks and market stalls. Protests in the spring closed down the schools, and the ones that have reopened have few students--their parents are trying to save money for Liberia when they have to restart their livers. Unemployment and illiteracy both range in the 80s%age wise. Sanitation here is by our standards atrocious. There are a few public toilets, most people go into the bush but children pop a squat anywhere. Showers drain into ditches built by the camp which also drain into the bush Trash and sand will these creating puddles of stagnant water--to clean them the sand is scooped up and placed back onto the street.

There is one clinic here run by A doctor and two assistants plus a local hostpital nearby. 30000 people. There are pharmacies within the camp, so those that have the money tend to treat themselves, often overusing antibiotics and malaria treatments until it becomes useless to them. The food here is decent for us, main staple being rice and fired chicken (def. not KFC). I miss vegetables so much that have decided to be a little less cautious just to eat the green.

The people here are pretty amazing. Most of the people I live with are teachers, most in the later twenties. Talkative and traveled. I hung out with a prostitute and her friend yeseterday--by far the most disturbing thing so far--both have a couple of children and don't seem to care about them (not the sole caretakers of their children); both of the girls are around my age. My neighbor across the street taught us how to make fufu and a fish/chicken stew--she has a beautiful independent baby. Another neighbor has three children back at home in Liberia, one of which was her dead sisters (the boy doesn't know this) and asked me to help her in any way possible to help her renew her nursing degree (she really was a nurse because she showed me her diploma and pictures of her in uniform). Everybody here wants to be your friend, everybody here needs fininacnial help, its's realistically the most pathetic thing I've ever seen. My heart breaks a little with every child I hold that is too skinny, with every baby I notice with a swollen belly, with every smile I see on all of their faces--the glimpse of hope they gain with every additional email address they gain. The people here are incredibly nice, over friendly to a point of desperation. We have begun to call our house the zoo--when we are outside the children play with us constantly and when we hideout inside they peer into our windows. We have also started charts, the six girls are competing for marriage proposals (I am winning with 4 so far, but I have been in the country the longest) the 2 boys have a proposition chart (aka after business hours, everyone wants an African princess, etc.). Any sense of privacy and cleanliness has diminished considerably: I take a shower from a bucket in a enclosed wall along with cockroaches the size of flattened Twinkies, toilets are comodes without plumbing that you just pour in some water post usage, sleeping privacy is hard since I really just not wear anything in the heat, but the cleaning/water man comes at 5 ish every morning. Which brings me to one of the perks at camp. Everybody here is beautiful. The men here are hard not to drool over: your choice from Usher, Abercrombie model, Kayne, muthaf#$%ing Samuel Jackson. All the way I would like coffee if I drank it--strong and dark (sorry Dad). The same goes for the women, plus such incredible hair! I haven't looked in a mirror for half a week now.
Some of us watched a soccer game the other day: midday heat, uber humid, playing on gravelly sand--oh my, I can't even imagine the endurance it would take.
The sun rises around 5:30 and sets around 6, but the people at the camp run much later. Every night there is some sort o f party going on.
What I do at camp: yesterday the 8 of us finished orientation, I have signed up to help for the sustainable poultry project--care for chickens and collect eggs (yeah!), HIV/AIDS talk (go around make people aware involves condom demonstration, which I am not sure how I will keep a straight face for), and finally for tutoring-I REALLY want to reach out to kids that aren't in school, keep it fresh in their mind. Honestly, it feels like there isn't a ton for the volunteers to do, a lot of the programs are shutting down. What I've gotten from the 4 other volunteers that were here before is that its fairly overstaffed and under funded. But I am going to do my best just to give people the attention that they are craving, ask them what they are going to do after they move to Liberia, and encourage them to go or send their kids to school.
I love you all, and would really like to hear from people--anyone can comment on the blog or just send me an email.