Our Journey Home!

Hello everyone!  Today is Feb.28^th and we are going to be getting on our series of planes back to Seattle today!  The past week has been full of anticipation to be back to Liberia and to come back home but we did some pretty cool things along the way.

We left Moshi on a shuttle bus to go to Nairobi, Kenya on Feb. 16^th.  The ride was supposed to take about 5 hours but ended up taking 9 hours due to several delays including a collapsed bridge along the way which was being filled with large rocks and dirt so vehicles could pass!  We also saw an excellent view of Mount Kilimanjaro which has just has a fresh dusting of snow and looked spectacular.

We stayed at a great campsite in Nairobi which felt like a little oasis away from the hustle and bustle of the city centre.  On the 18^th we decided to do a bit of sightseeing around Nairobi and went and saw Karen Blixen’s house who was the woman from the movie ‘Out of Africa’ played by Meryl Streep.  We also went and visited the David Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage which helps baby elephants orphans get reintegrated back into the wild.  The trainers brought out many small baby elephants and fed them with bottles right in front of us, so close that we could touch them!  Then the elephants rolled around and played in a huge mud pit which was really cute to see.  Kevin and I also went to a restaurant called ‘Carnivore’ which is inside the Nairobi National Park.  This restaurant used to have game meats that you could eat but now due to new conservation laws, they no longer serve zebra etc but they do have a lot of other meats. The waiters bring around soup, sauces for the meats, salad and then bring around endless supplies of different meats to the table which they carve up right there onto your plate as long as the flag on the table is raised; when you eventually are full you surrender and put the flag down.  We ate the regular meats of beef, chicken, turkey, lamb, pork, sausage, as well as chicken gizzards, crocodile, camel, ostrich, and ox balls!  We were stuffed but the experience was a lot of fun.

Next we took the night train to Mombasa which is an old train from the colonial era and we can attest that it has not had much of a face lift since then!  Its old colonial glory may be faded but it was a great way to travel being able to have dinner (though not a very good one!), sleep, watch the scenery in the morning with breakfast all while taking a 15 hour journey.  Mombasa was quite busy and hectic, although the old part of town was pretty neat being similar to Stone Town in Zanzibar.  We spent one night there and then headed to Diani beach in a Tuk Tuk (one of those three-wheeled rickshaws you see in India).  Diani beach was quite nice and was a nice way to relax during our last week in Africa. 

Kevy and I are now in Liberia which has actually been quite nice.  I spoke to Lamine today who I worked with in Bong and it was great to chat again.  We also have enjoyed hanging out with friends in Monrovia and we even went to a party in this big house thrown by the grandson of the former president William Tubman.  We are now just preparing ourselves for our 33 hour journey back to Seattle where friends will be picking us up!  We woke up this morning so excited that we will see everyone so soon!  Our flights, however, will not be very enjoyable as we go from Liberia – Ghana – Brussels – New York – Seattle and then drive to Vancouver!  This will be a LONG day!  But we figure the anticipation should make it go by quickly. 

Anyways we look forward to catching up with you all soon...very soon in fact!  Hooray!

Lots of love,

2 Weeks till Home!

Hi everyone and Happy Valentine’s Day!  Kevin and I are now in Moshi, Tanzania, which is the main town at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro.  We arrived on Feb 9^th after a long, ten-hour bus ride from Dar es Salaam, though it was considerably more comfortable this time as compared to the 14.5 hour ride we had on the way down to Dar (we made sure to take the right company this time!)   We are staying at a backpacker’s hostel which is fairly good and clean and most importantly for us right now, cheap!  Also, Moshi is much less expensive for food than Dar and Zanzibar and also has more fresh salads and sandwiches which is a nice change. 

Most of our time in Moshi so far has been quite relaxing, as we have mainly explored the town, read and perused the internet in coffee shops (with great Kilimanjaro coffee!)  We also found a great internet connection so we have been able to skype for the first time so far in Africa, which has been really great!  The last two days have been particularly lazy for Kevin and me as our legs are quite stiff from climbing to the base camp of Kilimanjaro!

On Saturday we took a dalla dalla (local mini-van transport here) with our guide to a town called Marangu where we then took a cab to the main gate of Kilimanjaro National Park.  We started the hike by walking down many steps (similar to those at Wreck Beach or the Grouse Grind) to a waterfall, which was really nice though slightly underwhelming as it is the dry season.  We then started our hike on the main trail up to the base camp.  The majority of the hike was through a thick rainforest with beautiful vegetation as well as blue monkeys and white colombus monkeys along with several waterfalls.  We started at 1000m above sea level and hiked up to 2700m where the base camp is, which was approximately 8km up, so about 16km round trip.  As we got higher the vegetation became less dense with smaller trees, more grasses and bushes.  After about 3.5 hours we reached the base camp where we ate lunch for about 15 minutes and then we hiked a little further up to see Maundi crater and some great views of the surrounding areas, including the border to Kenya.  By the time we were at the top my legs felt like jelly!  Even though the “climb” is really more of a hike, it is still ascending a long way for 4 hours straight which was exhausting, though completely worth it.  After we left the crater we continued straight back down the mountain which took about 2 hours and that was actually kind of difficult too as it takes a lot of control and is hard on your knees going down big steps!  All in all it took us 6 hours and we were told that our time was really good so we were happy with that and really enjoyed the trek.  Plus it is super cool to have climbed at least some of Kilimanjaro!  Unfortunately for us it is far too expensive to climb the whole thing, and frankly after feeling how sore our legs were after just the first climb, I’m not sure we are entirely ready to attempt the summit!  That will have to be another trip!

Apart from our Kilimanjaro adventure, we don’t have much else to report.  We had mentioned before that we were going to go to Lushoto, but unfortunately we decided to scrap that as the transport would have been a hassle and we aren’t in much of a mood for precarious travel right now as well as the place we were planning to stay was actually much more expensive than we thought (once again the Lonely Planet was way off!)  So we came straight here but have really enjoyed it as Moshi is quite nice, cleaner than most cities here, the people are friendly and things are cheap.  We have two more nights here and then we will head up to Nairobi, Kenya for a couple of nights and after that we are not quite sure.  We have about a week and have not decided what we will do but hopefully we will travel somewhere else in southern Kenya and maybe see some more animals!  Then we start our journey back to Canada via Liberia on Feb 26^th and then leave Liberia on Feb 28^th, getting into Seattle on March 1^st!  We are really excited to come home and can’t wait to see all of our friends and family!

We hope you are all well and we look forward to catching up with everyone when we are back!

The Last Week on Zanzibar!

Hi everyone, it’s Tiffany again!  I hope everyone is doing well!  Kevin and I are nearly finished our month on Zanzibar as we leave tomorrow, which we have really enjoyed.

After we left Kendwa beach in the north of Zanzibar we came back to Stone Town for two nights where we spent most of the days wandering around the streets that wind endlessly with no real rhyme or reason.  Stone Town is kind of like an Arabic-inspired and somewhat dirtier version of Venice but Kevin and I love it and every time we come back here it feels a little like coming home.  One of the nights we went out for dinner at this very “homey” little place called Sambusa Two Tables, and I say “homey” because it is literally inside someone’s home.  You walk up the stairs of the house and come into their living room where the kids are watching TV and then sit down at one of the two tables in the enclosed balcony area where we were served with 5 courses of traditional Zanzibari cuisine.  The meal consisted of: vegetable soup with chapatti, lentil curry with doughnut type bread, delicious and fresh beef samosas, vegetable fritters with coconut sauce, and finally beef masala with vegetable saffron rice all of which was really tasty.  Most of all it was a really cool experience to not know what we were going to be eating and how many courses were coming all the while sitting in someone’s house.  We also found this great father-son leather shop where we both got a pair of sandals that friends of ours from Zanzibar swear by and Kevin got an awesome leather shoulder bag for school, which was a bit of a splurge but well worth it. 

Soon we left Stone Town and headed to Jambiani beach on the south-east side of the island for one week.  We had reservations at this one place but when we arrived we quickly realized that it was certainly not worth the $35 per night.  We walked around and found another place which was an actual hotel with nice big, clean rooms, comfortable beds, an ensuite bathroom, a/c, wireless internet, an infinity pool overlooking the ocean, great full breakfasts, and use of a bunch of sporting equipment all for $45 a night because we went and talked to the owner and told him our price range and he decided to give us a great deal!  We were super excited so we moved the next day and spent six nights there.  On our first night at dinner Kevy ordered sea urchin pasta, which had the texture of a creamy ground beef.  It was a little strange and I think I liked it more than Kevy did but interesting to try nonetheless.   We also met a really nice couple from New York and had some great dinners and spent most of the time relaxing and reading along with lounging in the pool.  One of the greatest things was there was a TV and it had the Food Network!  I relished in a great episode of the Barefoot Contessa along with several other shows and even got to watch some Jamie Oliver! 

Jambiani beach was not as nice as Kendwa as the tides go out very far every six hours and we would have to walk quite a ways to get to the water.  Also there was a ton of seaweed there, but the cool thing was that many of the women from the community harvest the seaweed so we could walk out and see them with their seaweed farms all along the beach.  Kevin and I also went kayaking one day which was a lot of fun.  We really enjoyed our three weeks of being at the beaches on Zanzibar although we are definitely ready to move on and start doing something else too.

Yesterday we got back to Stone Town and again spent the day meandering in the streets.  Last night we went out for dinner at this place called Monsoon Restaurant where we had to take off our shoes to go into this nice room where we sat on cushions on the floor to eat dinner.  We had a great Swahili meal and best of all there was live Zanzibari Taurab music, which consisted of three guys playing a cool drum, this lap harp type instrument and a fat and curved guitar type instrument!  Obviously I have no idea what these were all called but they looked really neat, sounded great and the guys sang and Kevin and I enjoyed every second of it! 

Today we will wander around some more and poke about in curio shops, which are everywhere haggling over the prices of some souvenirs I’m sure.  We leave to go back to Dar es Salaam tomorrow, where we will stay for three nights and then we plan to head up to a town called Lushoto in the Usambara Mountain Range which is apparently lush and beautiful and great for hiking.  After that we will go to Moshi, which is the town at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro where we plan to do some hiking (though not the whole mountain as it costs $1500 each usually!), and then we will make our way up to Kenya!

We have just less than three weeks now until we fly back to Liberia and then back to Canada from there and we are really excited to come home even though we are enjoying our time here. 

We hope everyone is doing well and we miss you all.  We will keep you up to date on our travels!

Go Steelers!  (That one’s for you Roo!! Haha)

Kendwa Rocks!

Hello Everyone,

Tiffany and I have been really enjoying ourselves on Zanzibar.  We have spent the last two weeks at a beach resort called Kendwa Rocks on Kendwa beach on the North West coast of the island.  This is said to be the best beach on Zanzibar and it has definitely been great for us.  One of the good things about this beach is that the tide does not change drastically like elsewhere on the island so it is always close by and warm!  The water here is unbelievably clear and always warm.  On a good day without much wind, you can see through all the way down about 20 feet to the bottom.  As you can see from the pictures I have posted below, the water is very teal.

During our time here, we have met many great people and had some cool experiences.  Unfortunately both of us were sick for a few days last week so we have also spent a few days in bed.  Unfortunately we leave Kendwa on Thursday and make our way back to Stone Town for a few days and then we are heading to the south east part of the island to spend some time on another beach there.  I know, it sounds rough.  There we hope to do a tour of the Jozani Forest which hosts the endangered Red Colobus Monkeys.  But apart from being sick, we have had a few good parties and have also gone snorkeling twice.  Last week we went snorkeling with a group of Swedes that we met on our first day here.  They were really great and invited us along.  We left around 11 am and got back around 4.  It was only the 6 of us and the guide who took us through the reefs on the edge of an island and hours dhow ride off the main island.  At this reef the coral was beautiful and full of life however there weren’t many fish.  We really enjoyed it and it only cost us 17 dollars each!  Yesterday we went to Mnemba Island which is Zanzibar’s biggest snorkeling and diving area.  This time we went with about 30 people and the boat ride took about 2 ½ hours each way.  But it was worth it as we got to spend quite a lot of time in the water and got to explore alone which was great.  There the water was deeper on the edge of the reef and you could look out into the expansive blue abyss which for me was a little creepy.  This reef was also cool as it hosted a much larger population of fish.  There were lots of schools of little fish that you could swim right through and they didn’t move at all.  There were also larger fish just off the reef like tuna.  They served us lunch on the boat which was the best meal I’ve had here and then brought us back.  For the full day and lunch, the trip cost us only 30 dollars each!  It was well worth it.

Other than that, I don’t have much to report.  We are going to a new restaurant tonight for dinner with a couple that we met from Edmonton.  This restaurant looks really nice and is owned by a Canadian couple from Toronto.  It looks really nice, just like a restaurant back home and a little pricey but we are celebrating because just today I found out that I have been accepted into the marketing management program at BCIT! 

We hope everyone is well and enjoying the cold weather.  We have just over a month left before we begin our trip home!  Time is flying.

O yeah, one of the other pictures posted below is me with a python around my neck.  This was at the Kendwa Rocks Full Moon party.  I have a big fear of snakes so this was a great accomplishment for me!  The first thing my mum asked me when I told her was how much had I drank by that point.  However, I had only had a couple beers and knew exactly what I was doing.  So there.

We will update you again in a few weeks.  The pics below are from Kendwa.  Tiffany is standing next to our Banda (we have the upstairs part only but its definitely enough).  One is from a dinner with our Swedish friends before the Full Moon Party. 

Thank You!

Kevin here.  I hope everyone is enjoying their 2011.  I assume most new year's resolutions have been broken by now.  My 2011 resolution was to be less pessimistic but obviously that hasn’t gone well. 

I entitled this entry ‘Thank You!’ because I wanted to thank all those who have been reading over the past four and a bit months listening to us complain about Liberia and reading about how we lay on the floor all day to keep cool; I’m sure you were all just completely enthralled!  But thank you for sticking it out this far and now for a bit of a reward.  Our last week has been a bit more exciting and some parts read sort of like an amateur thriller novel.

I believe the last you heard from us, we had just gotten back from our safari with our friends Jason and Elizabeth from New York.  Sadly, they left us to go to Nairobi on the 5^th, but that was the day our excitement began.  That night was our last in Arusha.  We spent the day searching for an ATM that actually worked with our cards and finding a bus to take us to Dar Es Salaam.  That night, as it was our last, we decided to eat in the hostel rooftop restaurant as we hadn’t had dinner there yet.  The hostel is right in the city and the rooftop restaurant had a great view of the streets below.  Earlier on in the day, as we were walking back to the hostel, we passed several pickup trucks full of police men in full body armour, gas masks and semi automatics.  We wondered why there were so many but then we noticed thousands of people crammed into a small park listening to someone speak.  We didn’t stop to watch and kept walking to the hostel.  We got up to dinner around 6 and sat down with a cold beer.  We noticed many people in the bar looking out into the city.  We then noticed more and more police driving around below us and many of the people down on the street running away from the area just down the street from our hostel.  Wondering what was going on but not really caring, we ordered dinner.  That’s when we started to hear gun shots being fired into the air just down the street.  We forgot about dinner and watch intently the commotion down on the street.  It looked much like any sort of riot with people running away, women and children quickly ducking into shops etc and police all over.  That’s when bombs started to go off.  These bombs were tear gas bombs shot by the police to contain the protesters.  There were several shot off around the city and being in an open air rooftop restaurant, we all began to feel the effects of the tear gas.  We finished our dinner while trying to cover our faces with our napkins.  We later found out that the whole thing started because one of the two political factions in Arusha was unhappy with the mayor and wanted their own candidate installed (or something like that).  It was all very exciting and kind of ironic in that we had just spent four months in a much more ‘dangerous’ country with no incident.  We then come to Arusha in Tanzania and have to deal with machine gun fire and tear gas!

The next morning we quickly hurried from our hostel to a taxi amid infidel fighting and crossfire (just kidding!  Everything was calm by then).  He took us to the bus station where we got onto a crappy bus with awful seating at 6:45 am.  The bus was supposed to depart at 7:00 but didn’t leave the station until it was full to the brim at about 7:40am.  We were severely overcharged which pissed us off and then had to pay more for baggage when we got there.  The bus ride to Dar was supposed to take us 10 hours.  It took over 14 hours!  We got into the bus station at close to 9pm!  For me, it might have been the worst day of my life.  Tiffany had a chicken sitting next to her which kept pecking at her thigh, and I had a man behind me who didn’t want to pay for a seat for his 10 year old son so he just sat on his lap with his knees in my back the whole way, and his face crammed between our two heads hacking and chewing his food like a horse.  This bus was supposed to be an express bus meaning that it doesn’t make stops along the way to pick people up.  This ‘express’ bus didn’t play by anybody’s rules making stops every half hour or so when they saw someone on the side of the road who looked like they could use a ride.  By the end of it all, people were lining the isle way and sitting at the front on the floor.  However, we got into Dar and got to our hotel with no problem.  Luckily for us, they had overbooked so they paid the difference for us to stay in a 3 star hotel that night!

We spent a few days in Dar walking around drinking tea and eating Subway sandwiches!  We are now on Zanzibar, staying in Stone Town and we love it!  Stone Town is kind of like a grubby, poor man’s Venice but with serious charm.  All the buildings are tall and close together creating very narrow alleyways filled with curio shops and locals sitting and chatting.  Stone Town has a very Arabic and Indian feel to it making it even more exotic.  Tiffany and I have both realized that we very much enjoy Indian and Arabic culture which is very welcoming, exotic and fun.  We have enjoyed haggling with shop owners over bracelets, clothing and other nick nacks.  We also met a guy from Vancouver named Josh and he actually lives 5 blocks from our place in Kits!  We had a great evening talking with him and another man named Andreas who is traveling by himself all across East Africa.  The interesting thing about Andreas is that he is 85 years old!  He told Tiffany that his wife also likes to travel but she likes to go with her girlfriends to more vacation type spots!  She is 81. 

Last night Tiffany and I went to the Forodhani Park for the night market dinner.  Every night there and probably about 25 booths set up in the park that offer all types of fresh seafood like squid, lobster, crab, octopus, and several types of fish like marlin, tuna, mahi mahi, barracuda, king fish, etc.  They also make excellent samosas and flat breads like chipatis, cane sugar juice and pizzas.  It was all excellent and after dinner we stopped for spiced ginger tea in an alleyway which was being served out of an old tea pot with coals attached on the bottom to keep it warm.  We sat and talked with a few guys for a while and by then it was about 9 so we wanted to get home.  We started walking and suddenly as we turned a corner, a man bumped into me and dropped something he was holding in his hand.  I could tell right away that he had bumped into me and dropped whatever he was holding on purpose.  I wasn’t going to fall for his scam so we kept walking without saying anything.  He started yelling after us so I turned and told him to bugger off.  We kept walking and he started to follow us.  He caught up and said that I had broken his ashtray.  I told him I knew what he was doing and he wasn’t going to get anything from us.  He persisted and both Tiffany and I told him he needed to leave right away.  He wouldn’t leave and eventually he stopped me by putting his hand on my shoulder and told me I wasn’t going anywhere else until this was settled.  This guy was obviously on some drugs or something and looked very shady.  Tiffany and I were getting really quite nervous.  Luckily there was a group of people who came around a corner right then and thinking quickly I called out to them and asked them to help us.  There were three big guys in the group and I told them what this guy was trying to do.  They understood and restrained the guy and told us to run.  So Tiffany and I ran, not wanting this guy to know where we were staying and quickly made our way to our guest house.  We told the guys at the reception what had happened and they knew exactly who the guy was.  Apparently there are maybe 4 or 5 guys in Stone Town that try to pull this kind of stuff all the time.  But we made it home safely and haven’t seen this guy since (he probably wouldn’t even recognize us cause he was messed up).  Tonight we are going to an Indian restaurant that boasts the best Indian food in the city so we are very excited.

Stone Town and Zanzibar are really great.  We have loved walking the alleyways, curio shops, tea shops, and markets.  The markets are filled with exotic and fresh spices which smell fantastic.  We have enjoyed sitting in the restaurants overlooking the ocean sipping on a beer or smoking some shisha.  And for the most part, all the people are very friendly and very welcoming.  Haggling and bargaining is exciting and all a part of the experience.  If you haven’t been here before, you have to come. 

Anyways, I hope that was a little more exciting for you than our posts from Liberia.  Hopefully we will post some pictures soon on Tiffany’s Facebook account as we have wireless almost all day (stolen from the cafe outside our guest house!).  I have also posted 2 pictures with this blog post so just scroll down for those.  I know you will all want to start your Kevin and Tiffany’s Return! Countdown soon, as we return on March 1^st.  We miss you all, but not as much as when we were in Liberia!    

P.S. The 1st photo posted is me at the night market last night.  There was so much great seafood!  The second is of Tiffy smoking shisha at the Sunset Bar at Hotel Africa.

Safari!

Hello everyone!  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!  We apologize for not writing for such a long time but we have been busy doing a ton of stuff so this will most likely be a longer post to tell you all about it!

We left Liberia and felt quite ready to go.  We had a great time on Robertsport, which is a wonderful beach in Liberia, over Christmas.  We lay on the golden sand beach and swam in the beautiful warm water all day and in the evenings we hung out with our friend Liz as well as some Lebanese friends we met there.  We spent Christmas evening eating delicious grilled goat meat, drinking beers and Black Label Whisky for Kevy and having sheesha all courtesy of these Lebanese guys while they sang Lebanese songs with a guitar and danced a little bit.  It was not how we envisioned spending Christmas but it was a lot of fun. 

So on December 28 we arrived into Nairobi, Kenya at 5:30am and strangely I ran into a friend, Sarah, from my program at SFU in the airport and she had been on the same flight since we stopped in Accra where she was connecting through...small world!  We stayed one night in Nairobi, with our one day there focused on finding a shuttle to take us to Arusha, Tanzania, which we eventually found after walking around the whole city centre!  We woke up early the next day for the 5 hour bus ride to Tanzania which Kevy thought was one of the most beautiful areas he had seen during the drive.  It was cool to see the Masai villages and the wonderful landscape. 

We arrived into Arusha and went to the hostel we had booked, Masai Camp, but they were quite rude and did not have the room we had reserved so we stayed one night there and then moved to a better backpacker’s hostel in Arusha, which has been much nicer and where we are currently staying.  On our first day in Arusha we met a couple from New York who are on their one year-long honeymoon, traveling from London to Cape Town on their motorbike.  They are really nice and we have been hanging out with them ever since.  They were looking for people to go on a safari with so we decided to go along and left on December 31^st for a 4 day safari!

I had been to the same parks before but this safari was more successful in the animals we saw and being with these friends was a blast.  The first day was in Lake Manyara where we were slightly charged by a large male elephant, saw a bunch more elephants, baboons, giraffes, hippos, zebra, and many others.  That night was New Years and we stayed up and drank 4 bottles of red wine and some port between the 4 of us while playing cards and charades.  We had a really good time and being on safari was a great way to bring in the New Year!

The next day we drove to the Serengeti where we did an afternoon game drive and saw a pride of lions on a big rock lounging about, more lions with 4 lion cubs which was super cute, and a bunch of other things.  We camped the whole time although the food was not very good.  The night in the Serengeti was pretty funny because the four of us were going over to the bathrooms and we had a headlamp since it was dark and we saw these green glowing eyes staring right at us from not far away and it turned out to be a hyena!!  We all ran away scared at first but then burst out laughing.  The next day we did an early morning drive in the Serengeti which was awesome.  We saw a leopard in a tree which is very hard to find, a herd of over 100 elephants all around us with little baby elephants, tons more zebra, wildebeest, buffalo, hippos, baboons etc.  It was a great day and Kev loved the massive plains of the Serengeti. 

We drove back that afternoon to the Ngorongoro Crater and camped that night at the ridge of the Crater.  That night Kev and I woke up having to go to the bathroom and heard something outside and after an hour of listening and feeling the hot breath of some animal right outside our tent and feeling it pulling the grass out from under where we were laying, we realized it was a herd of zebra literally right outside our tent!  It was crazy! 

The next day we descended into the crater, which is about 260 square km so it isn’t very big and therefore animals are very easy to see there.  Also, most of the crater is open plains without many trees so there aren’t many places for animals to hide and get shade.  When we first got into the crater we rushed to where a bunch of vehicles were and saw a cheetah stalking some gazelles with hyenas hanging around waiting for the kill.  It was so cool to see, especially since the cheetah was really close to us and it is very rare to ever see cheetah at all, let alone that close and stalking prey.  We stayed with the cheetah for about an hour but eventually we left since it did not look like he was going to actually go after the gazelles.  We also saw 3 black rhinos that day, which are also very rare to see and are only found in the crater now.  One of the craziest things that happened was a 5 year old male lion walked right up to our vehicle and sat down right outside my window and literally stared me right in the face at eye-level!  It was so insane!  If the window wasn’t up, I could have reached out and touched him.  It was a little creepy looking straight in the eyes of a huge male lion 30 cm away from my face!  After that we came upon 3 more lions (2 males and 1 female) and they also came right up to our vehicles and lay in the shade the jeeps provided.  It was super cool to have them lounging about right at our tires!  Needless to say we got some really great pictures and video and our new camera has exceeded expectations.  The day was really great and we saw a ton of animals.

We got back into Arusha and today (Jan. 5) Elizabeth and Jason left to go up to Kenya so we had a nice Indian dinner last night together.  We really enjoyed having a week traveling with other people as Kevy and I have been by ourselves for most of the last 4 months.  Now we have one more night in Arusha before we head down to Dar es Salaam for two nights and then we will go to Zanzibar for about a month!  We are really excited to get to the beautiful white sand beaches of Zanzibar and to get to swim and snorkel etc.  We will update again once we get to Zanzibar, though our internet use may be less frequent than it was before. 

We hope everyone had a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!  We would love to hear how the holidays were for everyone so send us updates and we will keep you all posted on what we are doing.

We have also posted some safari pictures up on my (Tiffany) facebook account for your viewing pleasure!

Lots of love,

Hi everyone its Tiffany!  Sorry we have not written in a while, but not much was happening but finally we have something to write about in the blog post!  The last two days have been more exciting than usual for us as I had a work monitoring trip into the field to do with our organization along with WFP, and several government ministries and Liz, our Country Director came up bringing a vehicle, so Kev came into the field with us!

We started out bright and early on Saturday morning and headed out into the field on the crazy dirt roads I was hoping Kev was going to get to experience before we left.  The drive to the first community we visited, Botota, took nearly 2.5 hours on awful back country roads that have potholes the size of vehicles.  On the drive our battery tipped over several times leaving us with no power in our vehicle so we had to wait until we rolled to a stop to fix it and we fell partially through a bridge over a river.  Finally we arrived in Botota, which is a small community with a rice swamp about 5 hectares large.  Many of the women were out in the swamp harvesting the rice, which was great for everyone to see and we walked out on the bunds (raised dirt pathways through the swamp) to get a good view of the rice and what was going on.  We then held a community meeting to discuss the continuation of the project with the beneficiaries and tried to deal with some of the issues that have been occurring with the project to date.  It was fairly positive in Botota and afterwards we were served cassava greens with fish and some bush meat over rice which is quite spicy but we like it. 

We then headed deeper into the jungle to the next community, Bellemu, situated literally in the middle of the jungle.  We had to take tiny roads through the dense jungle to get there over rickety log bridges and when we got there, there was no one in the community so it was like coming across a jungle ghost town comprised of mud huts with thatched roofs.  Kevin describes it as in ‘Lost’ like stumbling on the “Others” community in the middle of the jungle except with huts and not houses.  A few people turned up and we made our way down this tiny bush path to see where the swamp was.  They have a swamp about 4 hectares large, which was also good to see.  We tried to have a community meeting but due to the fact that it wasn’t their swamp work day, the community was for the most part working on their personal farms scattered throughout the bush.  Most of the trip went this way, where the communities weren’t really prepared for the visit and because it was on a weekend, many of the people were busy doing other work.  It was a little frustrating but the main purpose of the trip was to take a GPS system that the ministry of land, mines and energy technicians would walk around the whole swamp with to accurately measure the swamp.

Finally, we headed out of there and visited Samay, which I have been to a few times now, but it is an excellent community (our project poster-child community) that has a swamp 25 hectares large with a dam we built.  Again most of the community was not there but we managed to have a successful meeting with the chairman and some leaders.  While there, kids followed us everywhere and we got to walk through a lot of the community which was much larger than the others we had visited.  By the time we left we had already had a 10 hour day in the field with another hour and a half drive back...so it was a tiring day! 

Today we got up early again and headed out to a few more communities.  The roads were better to these communities but our truck did break down for a little while during the trip, but was fine in the end.  Today was more difficult as it was Sunday and most people were at church and a lot of the preparation work for the visit was not done so people were arguing and blaming each other for this and that.  The long talks that often turned into arguments can be exhausting and by the end of the day we were ready for the monitoring to be finished.  We saw three communities today, though we spent the majority of the time in one community due to our broken down truck and bickering! 

Ultimately, it was really nice for Kev to get to see the places I have been able to visit and to get to see the work we have been doing.  It was also great for making our time pass by really quickly!  We only have three more days up here in Gbarnga!

We have a dinner tomorrow night with the family who lives across from us (there are 24 people who live in the little house!!! Not to mention animals!)  Then we will have a nice dinner at the Bangladeshi restaurant in town as the owner says he wants to cook us a nice meal before we leave and finally our last dinner will most likely be with Lamine, my co-worker , at his house so we figure time is going to fly now.

We leave to Monrovia on Thursday morning where we will spend one night and then Liz, Kevin and I will go to Robertsport (the nicest beach in Liberia with nice tent bungalows on the beach) for the 24^th and 25^th before we come back to Monrovia for one night and then fly to Kenya!  We are very excited for our upcoming trip and also for Robertsport over Christmas, though I still prefer snow to a beach on Christmas any day!

Anyways this is very long now, but we will write again before we leave Liberia.  We hope everyone has a very merry Christmas.  We wish we were there with our friends and family for the holidays!

Below, Kevy wrote a list of the humorous differences between life in Canada and Liberia so enjoy!

Lots of love,

What’s the Difference Between Me and You?  Several Differences between Liberia and Canada

1. In Canada, to be profitable, gas stations (or filling stations in Liberia) are not reliant on the success of the mayonnaise industry.  In Liberia, a filling station cannot operate without empty mayonnaise jars which are used to measure the amount of gas being put into your vehicle (taken from a large barrel).  In effect, you could ask your gas station attendant “to fill ‘er up with 3 of the heavy duty jars “.

2.  In Canada, our mayonnaise companies do not produce such massive jars of thick mayonnaise to have to include on the label “Heavy Duty”.  In Liberia, they do.

3. In Canada, Cold Water means only one thing: cold water.  In Liberia, Cold Water is money you pay to the corrupt police officer who sets up an independent road block when they’re short on cash.

4. In Canada, police officers are looked upon with trust and respect.  In Liberia, they are the most fearful people in the community and are avoided with the utmost care.

5. In Canada, drinks are served with a coaster and a glass.  In Liberia, you get the coaster and the glass, but in addition you get a roll of toilet paper to wipe the rim of the bottle beforehand.  (Done because all bottles are returned and reused after going through an shady sanitization process)

6. In Canada, we have papayas, avocados, peanuts, squash, and eggplant.  In Liberia they have the same things but instead they are called pumpkin, pawpaw, butter pears, groundnuts, pumpkin, and bitter balls.

7. In Canada, we have four seasons.  In Liberia as in most equatorial countries they have two seasons; the “5 minute power washing” rainy season, and the “I think I’m seeing mirages” dry season.  The “5 minute power washing” rainy season is also commonly referred to as the “Is the rain on my tin roof actually drowning out the sound of the generator in the next room?” season.

8. In Canada, potholes are a minor annoyance.  In Liberia, your vehicle may be swallowed by a pothole, of which you must drive out of. 

9. In Canada, a child’s small bladder may be the cause of a lengthened car trip.  In Liberia, it’s all about the potholes!  (The massive number of potholes can lengthen a trip by hours!)

10.  In Canada, when giving directions, you use either street names or house addresses.  In Liberia, there are no street addresses just situations like the one for Visions in Action whose official address in Monrovia is “On the 2^nd Street behind the YWCA in Congo Town”.  For us in Gbarnga, our address is “Where the young white people live”.

11. In Canada, “saucy” is a term used to either describe a very sauce heavy dish or a flirtatious female as in “Boy, she’s a saucy minx”.  In Liberia, it’s not the women who are saucy, but the high speed motorbike drivers as in “Boy he is going very fast! He is very saucy!”  Other examples of Liberian English: Vexed means pissed off, carry means travel as in “I will carry you to Monrovia”, talk small means speak for a short time and slippers are flip flops or sandals.

12. In Canada, speedometers are used far more frequently than your vehicle’s horn.  In Liberia, I believe speedometers are disconnected to “conserve fuel”.  However horns are used more than your gas petal and for many reasons.  To make your presence known to pedestrians on the side of the road, you usually give a good long, maybe 3 second, blast.  If coming around a corner, you usually honk for about 5 seconds with a series of repeated blasts.  If there is a pretty girl on the side of the road, two honks will suffice.  And if you just want to lay on it, there really is no set length or pattern, you just honk.