Air Conditioning and Liberian English

I am freezing and I can’t understand English.

You would think having an air conditioning in your office would be a good thing. But it’s a curse. I prefer natural air in general to air conditioners, but here there is very little choice in my shared office. There’re just so many reasons why it’s wrong:
- Waste of energy
- Sometimes right before it rains, it’s not even that hot
- I’m physically uncomfortable, have goosebumps, and am shivering. In Africa.

And then I walk outside and start sweating profusely because the temperature change is so drastic. The aircon really disturbs me. Right now, I don’t have a room mate at the intern house (. . . think Real World Monrovia :( . . .) and I refuse to sleep with the aircon on, for multiple reasons that closely echo the ones above. It’s really pretty great (though admittedly a little hot) – but you can hear the ocean through the open window! And, sometimes, there’s even a nice breeze right before it starts to rain. There will be 5 girls in the house once everyone arrives, and three rooms. Thus, one lucky person gets to be gloriously alone. I am hoping to scare people away from being my roommate by insisting on sleeping with the aircon off and the windows open while maintaining a somewhat vile personality. Insaa Allah that will do the trick.

Aside from being alternately shivering/freezing and oppressively hot, I can’t readily understand English. I’m getting better, but Liberian English is a whole different dialect than Gambia English. It is certainly English. That’s true. But me, I can not understand too many things. Sometimes, I’ll be sitting there and I think people are talking in a local language, and then I hear a sentence I understand and realize it’s English. It’s so much thicker than Gambian English! My problem is that I keep speaking Gambian English, so I sound non-American, but still, no one really has a clear idea of what I’m saying. As soon as I get a better grasp on it I will profide examples. My favorite thing so far is adding "oo" at the end of words or sentences to express emotion. "That's bad oo." It's fun. Another interesting thing about the Liberian language - when you ask, "How are you?" or "How is the morning?" - the common response is "Thank God." I didn't really think too much about it, but then a friend was telling me that it's left over from the war: the shortened form of Thank God I'm still alive.