Introducing Mystery Class
#8
Libreville, Gabon (0.383 N, 9.450
E)
Greetings from the 7th and 8th class from the International school of
Libreville, Gabon! Gabon is in Africa.
The
7th and 8th Class at the International School of Libreville
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Celebrating
Mardi Gras!
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Our School: One might say we have a varied class, but
even that is pushing it because there are only 6 of us. We have students
from Canada, Japan, Korea, South Africa, and the U.S. in our class. There
are only 42 kids in our school. It is such a puny school because nobody
comes to Gabon. (Mainly because nobody KNOWS about it.) The Gabonese don't
come to our school because they can't speak English. Our school is situated
in Libreville, which is the capitol of Gabon.
Our City: Libreville was created when a slave ship was
rescued and the slaves were set free. The word for free in French is "libre",
and the word for town in French is "ville". Libreville is very
small, and only has one main mall. It's called Mbolo, which means hello
in "Fang" (A language here). They have a movie theatre here
too, but its in French. It's called the Majestic. Libreville has a lot
of poor neighborhoods, but the president of the country has a huge palace.
He has been president for 35 years.
Leatherback
Sea Turtle on the Beach
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Laying
Eggs and Burying them in the Sand
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Libreville is right on the Atlantic Ocean and, during the weekends, families
like to go to the beach. During a certain season here, you can go to the
beach and see leatherback sea turtles laying their eggs. Leatherback sea
turtles have that name because they don't have a shell. They are huge!
They are bigger than a person lying down and can weigh 500 kilos. Later
on in the season, you can watch the baby sea turtles coming down the beach
and you can even pick them up! We like to help sea turtles, because they
are endangered. They migrate all over the world and they are caught in
fishing nets. We camped to watch them lay their eggs this year, then we
organized a walk-a-thon to raise money to help the sea turtles. We earned
over $1500 US dollars! We gave the money to the Gabonese organization
that helps sea turtles and other sea animals. They are called "Aventures
Sans Frontieres" (Adventures Without Borders, in English).
If you are interested in sea turtles, you could write to them at asf@inet.ga.
They are amazing people. They walked along the entire coast of Gabon to
tell Gabonese people not to kill adult sea turtles and not to eat their
eggs!
A
guide holds a baby Leatherback Sea Turtle
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There are many other kinds of animals here too. A lot of them live deep
in the forests. There, we can see elephants, monkeys, gorillas, and giant
pangolins (they are kind of like anteaters). Those animals like to stay
far away from villages because people hunt them for their meat. There
is a terrible disease called ebola that has killed a lot of the gorillas
and chimpanzees in Gabon, and some people too. This disease is far away
from Libreville in the eastern part of the country. If you look at Gabon
on the map, ebola is near a place called Mekambo, near the border of Congo.
There are also palm trees here. They're cool. People sell coconuts along
the street on the weekends, and you can buy them and drink the milk for
100 cfa (that is about a US quarter). Gabon is one of the OPEC members,
so they export crude oil, which is their main economy. They also export
timber in huge amounts.
69% of Gabon's land is covered with
forests
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There are many tourist attractions in Gabon such as rain forests, beaches,
and the Schweitzer's hospital in Lambaréné. Albert Schweitzer
was the famous doctor who came to Africa from Europe and built a hospital
on a river. Some people also like to go see the gorillas and the pygmy
villages. Plus, the equator goes straight through the country, so there
is a place where you can stand with one foot in the northern hemisphere
and one foot in the southern hemisphere. We live in the northern hemisphere,
but just barely. 69% of Gabon's land is covered with forests, and there
are also some savannas. There are no very high mountains but it's very
green because it rains so much. In the rainy season, the rain causes many
floods and big storms. Sometimes the lightning lights up the sky as if
it were daytime.
That is our country! It would be cool if you wrote to us and asked us
questions. Our address is: aisl@internetgabon.com.
So, were we easy to figure out?
Copyright 2003 Journey
North. All Rights Reserved.
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