but now we’re home.

Fri.

We headed out to visit 2 orphanages, led by Morris Lapp, CAM’s assistant orphanage director (I think that’s his title). It’s a good thing he was leading ’cause they would’ve been pretty hard for us to find. We brought gifts along to distribute to the children, more jump ropes, coloring books & crayons, soccer balls, tennis balls, etc.

 
Countryside near the first orphanage

Big pot of rice cooking at the outdoor kitchen at the orphanage

They sang several songs for us

Learning double-dutch

Ater leaving the first orphanage, we stopped in to see a 1450 ft. +/- tower that was built in WWI by the US for communications and navigation. Every 200 feet there is a platform. Several CAM staff have climbed the thing. The longest guide wires are 1 mile apart.

It was hard to see the top

The base of the tower

One of the large bolts at the base

From there we headed to a second orphanage. We traveled through an area that many of the Congo (American Liberians) lived, including former Liberian President Tolbert. The houses looked much like the old frame houses here in the states. It would interesting to see what that area looked like 30 years ago.

The second orphanage was a bit smaller. Their dorms looked neat. They had toilets but no running water in their outhouses. Some orphanages have only a hole in the floor of the outhouses.

Bunk beds in the dorm

Their kitchen area (There are chickens on the table in there. I guess they wanted to see the pots from the outside first.)

Singing us a song

We gave gifts again similar to the ones at the first orphanage. After we left, we took the scenic route home, and hit lots of mud puddles, to the delight of the 2 nephews I was riding between in the vehicle. Their only complaint was that they couldn’t be behind the wheel. We got caught in a traffic jam in town because of a parade. We saw lots of parades or “draying” (possibly coming from “drilling”) during the time we were there. Most often it was schools. We did get back in time to clean up and head out to Tower Hill for staff supper with CAM staff. The singles were in charge of the evening and we had a delicious fish meal. After supper we had a brief graduation celebration for Kelly, who finished high school recently.

 
Class of 2007!!

After supper we played volleyball in the warehouse. It was nice to get to know the staff team there better. 

Sat.

We had big plans of going on a day trip to Robertsport, a 3 hour drive away. We had even borrowed a CAM vehicle so we could enjoy the outdoors as we traveled. Unfortunately, when we woke up, there were various cases of headaches, “runny” stomachs, and other ailments so it was decided a day at home wouldn’t be a bad idea. It looked a bit rainy too which would’ve made the trip less desirable; however, that did clear up later.

We did go out to eat for lunch at a pizza parlor, another Lebanese-owned business. It was really good food and a nice opportunity to get out of the house a little. While we were eating, a long parade of business women went past the restaurant, which was right beside a main street in Monrovia. The ladies of each business division matching outfits.

In the afternoon all of us except for JoAnn and Beth went to Jemis Beach, not far from Tower Hill. The beach was empty so we had the place to ourselves. The water was pretty rough so none of us went out very far. On the other side of the strip of sand (on the left below) was a small fresh water lake. It was certainly more easy to swim in so we enjoyed that.

Lake on the left, ocean on the right

The faithful “22” vehicle that we were going to take to Robertsport

Jemis Beach

After a picnic supper we headed back out the bumpy, muddy road. We came across a vehicle that was thoroughly stuck in the mud. We towed them out, for which they were most grateful!

View from our vehicle. We had fun sloshing through it after we pulled them out.

Sun.

We went to church in the morning, came home to another delicious meal, packed up and headed to the airport. We got to the airport 2.5 hours before our flight since Garys wanted to be back for church that evening. It turned out that was none too much time. The process of getting in the airport, going through security along with all of our luggage, going to have our passports observed, getting our luggage again, getting our boarding passes, having our passports checked again, going through security again, waiting in the lounge where we could finally feel the A/C, having our passports checked again, being wanded down, loading up in a shuttle bus, getting on the plane and being seated was a lesson in patience!!!  What a way to go! It was definitely an interesting way to end trip!!

Monrovia Airport

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Wow! I sure didn’t think it would take me this long to get this finished!! Hopefully it wasn’t too long and drawn out! It sure was a great experience to see our family and to experience Liberia. Now when we read their letters we’ll know who or what they’re referring to. To Gary, Laura and kiddos, thanks doing a wonderful job of hosting us!! It was worth every penny of the cost, sting of the shots, beads of sweat, and ounces of patience required at the airport to spend some time with y’all over there!

 This trip got bumped from last summer to last Christmas to this summer. We were definitely glad we went during rainy season, while it was cooler! Thankfully, most days it was sunny so it had little affect on our activities.

Tues. & Wed.

I flew from Jacksonville, meeting Lois and a friend, Vivian Mast (who traveled with us to visit a cousin) at the Dulles airport. My flight had left JAX about 20 minutes late so by the time I got to my gate, they were already starting to board. Since it was a big, full flight, I still had plenty of time. We had a fairly uneventful flight to Brussels. For some reason we weren’t seated together but the kind gentleman seated beside me traded with Lois so we could sit together. I think the baby seated right next to him helped him to decide a center seat would be okay elsewhere!

We wondered around the Brussels airport, admiring all the fine chocolates for sale there. We found a chapel with three parts in it – an evangelical chapel, an orthodox chapel and a catholic chapel. Rather interesting seeing the difference in decor. In the evangelical chapel we found a guestbook, the last guest being Chester Weaver from TX, who had flown through there the day before on his way home from Liberia.

Our flight from Brussels to Monrovia, Liberia was about 2/3 full. We had a one-hour stop in Dakar, Senegal and more people got off. It was nice to have plenty of space and it seemed like the flight was much shorter than 8.5 hours. I got more sleep on that flight than I had through the previous, through-the-night flight. We arrived in Liberia about 1/2 hour early. We were some of the first ones to go through immigrations which went smoothly. The baggage claim was another story, being a small room with a conveyor belt that went around very quickly and lots of people standing tight around it pull off their luggage. All our luggage came through and we eventually made our way out. They waived us on through the luggage inspection area and our family was waiting right outside the door, which was closer than they normally let people stand, as we found out the next week when we went to pick up Robin and JoAnn’s family.

Gary had given us excellent instructions for making it through everything. Outside the airport were many “helpful” men who wanted to assist you with your luggage for a “small thing”. I guess there appeared to be plenty of us in proportion to the amount of luggage we brought as there were few “offers” of “help.” Mind you, just putting their hand on your suitcase as you rolled it to your vehicle could qualify as “help.” I remember our trip to Ghana several years ago was the same way. Many people showed up just to see who was coming in on the flight.

We piled in to their air-conditioned vehicles for the 45 minute drive to their house in the city. It was light enough to see the area as we traveled. We did make one pit-stop at Tower Hill, the CAM compound to use the “facilities.”

We arrived at the house, ate supper, unpacked all the goodies we took along, relaxed a little. We thought it felt pretty comfortable but they were ….

a little on the cool side.

It’s hard work having guests.

Thurs.

We decided not to plan a lot for the first couple of days we were there, saving the day-trips for the week that Robins family would be there too.

We met the newest members of the family. This is Stinker the monkey who delights in getting mad. She usually gets over it quite quickly and then moves on to other recreational activities including:

Playing with velcro on sandals

Pulling on skirts

Picking at imagined bugs, known to the rest of us as freckles.

You have to be careful not to get your head too close or she would pull the veil off your head. She also liked glasses.

Later in the morning we went to Fiamah market just a couple of blocks from their house. First we stopped in to see the several-week-old twins of Peewee and Kuku. Kuku told us that they had now been named: Pastor Gary and Mama Laura! What an honor for Gary and Laura but for the twins sake you kinda hope they drop the “pastuh” and “mama” titles.

Kuku and the babies

“Mama Laura”

Ruth Anne holding Ruth Anne. The little one is the daughter of one of the security men. Note how warmly she is bundled! The weather was probably somewhere in the 80s.

Fiamah Market

Changing out US dollars for Liberian. The rate was $1 to 62 LD.

Most of the tables under roof carried the same goods. On the left there are cans of tomato paste but in case you didn’t want a whole can you could buy a “snap” in the plastic. There were tiny packets of baking soda etc. just enough for one meal. I didn’t get a picture of the meat section. There were small smoked fish, including a coiled up eel and tiny dried shrimp.

These men were grinding up potato greens. I forgot to find out what it was used for.

The outdoor stands. The red oil on the left in the bottles is palm oil. It is made from palm nuts. Liberians use lots of oil in their food. They really love hot foods and habaneros are used to really heat things up. Chicken “cube” or boullion is also used in a lot of foods. When Laura asked for “small pepper” in our meals prepared by the native ladies, it still caused our noses to run.

Vicki making “gravy,” which was tomato-based with macaroni and chicken, to be eaten over rice.

The first truly Liberian meal we had: pumpkin soup (with fish), peanut soup with chicken and Vicki’s gravy, all served over rice to the accompaniment of tears (with the exception of Vicki’s “small pepper” version)! We loved the peanut soup and the pumpkin soup would’ve been a close second but the fish or “boney” as it is called, was a bit strong. Peanuts are called ground peas, which sounds like “grumpees”.

We played a game of hubbub later that evening.

And the evening and the morning were the first full day in Liberia. I can see this is going to take a while.