Rainy Season in Monrovia

It is exciting to see the progress taking place on the streets of Monrovia. With new roads, new shops, and new buildings going up at a pace unimaginable five years ago,  the energy is palpable. To a point.

Rainy season is in full swing in Liberia. The idea of a “rainy season” is difficult to really understand unless you live in a place that has one. Even then, rainy season in Monrovia, one of the rainiest capitals in the world, can change the landscape of the city. Major thoroughfares become mini-lakes, water rushes around market stalls and sweeps up discarded bags and candy wrappers, and the walk from West Point to the paved streets of the Waterside Market becomes a muddy and time consuming trek.

For the girls in More than Me’s program, rainy season means one more hurdle to get over just to reach the classroom. But they do it. Rainy season may change the route of traffic in Monrovia, but it doesn’t change the frenzied pace. Our girls still march to school, uniforms as clean as possible, ready to learn.

One of our volunteers, Marleen, recently sent an update testifying to the motivation and drive of More than Me’s girls. She writes,

No matter the rain, the girls still come to our program. Yesterday the girls were all journalists, and I played the editor of a newspaper. After we read a local newspaper, the girls had to write and draw their own stories and we’ve put them all together in their newspaper, ‘News about me’. We made it with the girls so that the volunteers who will come to meet the girls Tuesday can read about them and get to know them. The girls loved the fact that they were creating a newspaper to be read by ‘the American people’!

It is exciting to see the changes happening around Monrovia, but some of the biggest changes are happening in the classroom. The rain might slow down construction or change traffic patterns, but it hasn’t affected the momentum of our girls. They come to school, they are excited, and they are learning. Their progress isn’t always as immediately visible as watching a building go up, but it is just as important.

"One day I went for a walk with Liberian friends in a slum called West Point. I met an 8-year-old girl named Regina, who slept on a cement floor in a room infested with rats. Regina's dad had been killed in the civil war and Regina and her mom were struggling simply to survive." - Katie Meyler

More than Me was formed organically as a means to continue helping these children and many more get to school! Often when talking to children in countries where there is not free education for all, children tell me that their biggest dream is just to go to school. I do not think that is too much to ask. So their dream has become our mission.