Updates and Whatnot

Heyoh!

I’m sorry we haven’t made an entry for about a week, but for basically the first time, we’ve been slightly busy!  On Sunday, Tiffany and I made our way down to Monrovia where we stayed until Wednesday afternoon.  Our ride down was courtesy of Morgan and his “God’s Favour” taxi.  All taxis here have paintings and slogans on them, mostly pertaining to God or Obama, who, to many locals here, are the same person (seriously every store is named either something about God or Obama).  God’s Favour had a very nice painting of an attacking panther on it which I thought very indicative of the speed and vigour the 1985 Toyota Corolla contained.  Morgan was a nice enough guy and his car was clean but it did not have seatbelts (common theme for taxis), which is a little unsettling when you are swerving all over the road to avoid potholes.  But, being the man I am, I didn’t sweat it, I just sat there coolly jamming to the tunes on the radio (actually, I was praying our taxi’s slogan wasn’t just for show).  But enough about me.  Once we made it into Monrovia, we spent the afternoon at the guesthouse and met one of the other volunteers who was down from Voinjama, a small town in the very north east of the country.  Her name is Jackie and she’s from New Brunswick!  The third Canadian we’ve met.  That night we went for an unbelievable dinner at the Royal Hotel.  Because we’d been living on beans and rice for almost three weeks, we decided we needed some real food and went to an ex-pat restaurant for dinner where we definitely made the most of it.  Tiffany and I were so hungry for something western, we ordered a ton of food, including but not limited to, the Hungry Cowboy Burger which included a slab (almost an inch thick!) of fried Mozzarella, thick slices of back bacon, an egg, and onion rings, (Kim I was thinking of youJ) a ham and pineapple pizza (we got through two slices and took the rest home for the next day), a Greek salad, and hummus with pita.  All washed down by two massive Club Beers, the local brew.  Needless to say, we were very satisfied and quite sleepy.

                That night we also met our new favourite Liberian, Alpha.  Alpha is a charter taxi driver and was recommended to us by the workers in the Monrovia office.  Many Liberians, when they speak, like to make little squeals at the end of their sentences.  They also like to put ‘oh’ on the end of everything, like we do with ‘eh’, ie. Morningoh or sorryoh.  Funnily enough, Heyoh! isn’t very common.  Too bad.  Anyways, the only thing similar to this squeal that I can think of is the sound Michael Jackson makes when he puts his hand on his crotch (the one Dave does so well).  Well Alpha is very friendly and happy and liked to include these sounds frequently in his speech.  We became fast friends when he showed us his Canadian sticker and said that it came before his New Zealand or London stickers.  We enjoyed talking with him and we used him several times during our trip.  His rate is also good as he only charges $5 for a trip basically anywhere in Monrovia (good when you are going far, not so good when you aren’t going far). 

                So our time in Monrovia was fine.  It was nice to spend some time in the city and to get some more groceries from not a wheelbarrow and eat normal meals.  I am also on the hunt for the fifth season of ‘Six Feet Under’ from all the movie vendors on the street; however I have been so far unsuccessful.  $5 can get you pretty much any movie or series you could ever want.  One of them in the Monrovia house was called ‘Matt Damon vs. Leo DiCaprio’ and included about 8 movies from each actor.

Anyways, we’re back in Banga with stomachs full of pizza, burgers and other good food and ready to take on the next couple months.  We are keeping up on our reading and calisthenics routine as well (I feel 75 using that word).  Tiffany and I are working our way through classics on our Kobos; she’s currently reading Great Expectations and I am reading Treasure Island.  Oh yeah, we also got a bit of furniture while in Monrovia so we have a shelf and a desk that we are using as our dining table.  Pictures will be up on Flickr as soon as the internet stops being hating us.  Also, we should be getting the broken truck fixed soon because Visions finally got some money, so we should have a vehicle in the next few weeks which means Tiffany (and I) will be visiting the field more often.

Please keep us updated on any news from home.  We love emails and facebook messages!

My first day in the field!

September 16, 2010

Hi everyone, it is Tiffany again and I wanted to update you all on my first day out in the field, which was on Tuesday. 

We were supposed to be heading out at about 8:30am; however, going by Liberia time we ended up leaving at nearly 11am.  It was exciting as it was my first ride in a World Food Programme Land Cruiser and I went with Lamine, who I work with, Monica, the Commissioner for Agriculture, Akoi, the WFP program monitor, and Charles Fissibue (I like his last name), the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN) program monitor.  It all felt very official, but they were all really nice, and its a good thing because it was a long, squishy and uncomfortable ride.

Our plan for the day was to visit 6 communities who want WFP to provide food to their communities, which Visions in Action would implement if they were selected.  The driver took us on a less well travelled road so that I could see some of the rice swamps and communities that VIA is working in now.  At first this seemed like a great idea as I really wanted to see; however the road was atrocious and I soon changed my mind about the intelligence of this plan during rainy season.  The driver would go extremely fast any parts he could and then would slam on his breaks and the whole car would jolt as we approached the endless and enormous potholes. In fact some were not potholes, because that implies there are parts of the road that are not one big hole, which is not the case.  Rather the road is basically sunken from the rain and several times when going uphill we would get stuck in pits of mud and it would take quite a while to get out.  I felt like I was (a) on the Indian Jones ride in Disney Land where it throws you all around in the car, on repeat and (b) like a was the helpless child during a game of bumpy ride, smooth ride, pothole that would never end.   At first it was thrilling and then became redundant and uncomfortable, but the scenery was beautiful.  The country is basically all a lush green rainforest with little villages dotted here and there, with palm, rubber, avocado, mango, orange, papaya, coconut, cocoa and many other trees everywhere. 

Finally we got to the UNDP office where we were meeting a few other men who drove to show us to the communities (after about 2.5 hours of driving).  We finally made it to the side road off the main road to the village, which was still about another half hour away.  Soon we came to a bridge (really just a couple of big logs with a few rickety planks lying over top.  The other jeep made it over, and when one of the guys asked whether we should go I knew I should be worried.   Still we started across but soon our jeep slipped and yes, the back half of the jeep fell through the bridge!  Everyone kept saying “this is Africa” to me every time we got stuck or something happened, like it was no big deal.  We all stumbled out of the jeep to survey the damage, but with the winch of the other jeep we got out fairly easily.  I was thinking about Davey the whole time because (a) he loves Land Cruisers and (b) pulling the car out of some crazy situation with a winch brought me right back to my childhood!  Anyways we finally got out and got to a community, which was a series of little huts with a rice swamp nearby.  We assembled under a thatch roofed hut and had a town meeting where we went through some questions with the people in order to figure out whether they would suit the program.  After we had to take a long way around to get right back to where we started so we wouldn’t have to go over the bridge and then visited two more communities.  After three communities, we called it a day and started the long journey back.  On the way back we went through torrential rains where all you could see was water splashing up all around the vehicle like we were driving through a lake.  The whole day was crazy but cool to get to see the country more and to visit the communities.  Finally it felt like I was doing something here, though the days since have been quite slow.

Nonetheless, Kevin and I are going to Monrovia this weekend to deal with passport stuff and restock supplies, which will be a nice change of pace.   We hope everyone is doing well and we miss you all!

Lots of love,

Hey, Hey, Hey!

(For some reason I can’t stop thinking of Bill Cosby’s Fat Albert, hence today’s greeting.)

INFO ON PICS AT THE BOTTOM.

Tiffany and I are now into our third week in Liberia and things seem to be smoothing out a bit.  Granted we still don’t have furniture, and I sweat from just sitting and typing, but things are getting better.  I think the main reason they are getting better is because we have been making some pretty delicious meals.  I don’t know how someone like Andrew or Peter would be able to survive here because when you don’t have an address and saying you live on the road with big potholes, large coconut trees and many African neighbours doesn’t quite narrow it down enough, there is no possibility of getting delivery.  So without any other options, Tiffany and I have been inventive with what we have found at the market and have been able to produce some very tasty vegetarian curries, rice dishes and chillies.  With it being hard to find any vegetables other than okra, unbelievably spicy peppers, a few small eggplants, and a few tomatoes, you really do need to be inventive.  But each night we look forward to making dinner together and trying something new.  Eating during the day is another story as it usually consists of a few small bananas and maybe some crackers with peanut butter.  However, we did find a market the other day that is quite close to our shell of a house only about a 20 minute walk away.  Here we found pineapple, bread, garlic, more fruit, AND, my favourite part, digestive cookies!  These we found being sold by a small child out of a wheelbarrow on the side of the street.  To say the least, from the pineapple to the digestive cookies, that day was a major success.

But apart from our ventures in town, I have to say that there is very little to do around here.  Actually, there is nothing to do.  The only thing that we have heard out that sounds exciting is a series of waterfalls that are about 20 kilometres from our house.  We look forward to visiting these and being able to swim, but we don’t want to rush into it, being that it’s the only thing around here to do and we have another 5 and a bit months to go!

But we have been trying to entertain ourselves in other ways.  With the help of my two young neighbours, we cleaned up a lot of the garbage on the property as there is no real system of disposing of anything, hence the garbage pit in our backyard.  The boys were eager to help especially after I told them I would pay them each $10 Liberian dollars each to help (equivalent of about 14 cents American).  Ever since then, whenever they seem me doing anything in the yard, they come over and ask if they can help.  I might have set a dangerous precedent.  Also, thanks to Erin from Conferences who gave me a yeast genetics frisbee to bring, I brought it out after the garbage clean up to show to the boys.  They enjoyed playing with it and so did the other 15 kids we had race over in a matter of minutes; unfortunately most of them did not understand how to throw it but they had fun none the less.  Currently the frisbee sits on the roof of our house and we’re waiting for the rain to bring it back down.

                Another endeavour of mine was attempting to cut the grass in our yard.  Over the last few days, I had been watching the locals cut their grass with a tool that looks like a golf club but with the flat blade on the end instead of a club head; kind of like a scythe mixed with a machete.  When watching my neighbours, it seemed quite easy and I thought it might be a good way to spend the afternoon, as we have a large yard.  The next morning, one of the guards at our property began cutting our yard and so I went out and asked him to save me a section of the yard so I could try it out.  He put on a big grin and told me that it was very hard and tiring.  I told him I was up for it and so he complied.  Later that day, I took the scythe and started slicing away the grass.  Promptly, I had three children run into the yard to watch and laugh at me.  I didn’t think I was doing a poor job, but they would not stop laughing at making fun of me!  I would like to think they were laughing because they had never have seen a white person doing manual labour before.  But I’m pretty sure it was probably because I was doing a terrible job of it.  It really was very hard, and after only about a half hour, I had very little to show except for a hand covered in blisters, a shirt drenched in sweat (these Africans never seem to sweat!), and an ego reduced to something very similar to many of the buildings in town, rubble.

                So yeah, things are getting better and we are getting more comfortable with the area.  The White Man/Woman chants haven’t slowed and the heat is becoming more and more unbearable, but we are getting by.  Currently, Tiffany is off visiting her first community rice swamp (unfortunately there was no room for me in the rented vehicle), and so I’m sure she will be able to tell you all about it in the next post.

Also a little FYI regarding pictures; because it takes so long to upload them on here, Tiffany and I have set up a Flickr account.  Unfortunately I don’t know how to get to our page by searching on Flickr, but the url to the page is http://www.flickr.com/photos/kandtdoafrica/ .  There are only four pictures up so far but we will continue to put more up.

K, now I am really sweating like Fat Albert after exercising, so I’m gonna get some water.  Cya.

Heart of Gbanga!

Hello everyone, its Tiffany for a change!  Things are starting to get a little better here now that we have starting adjusting to our new life.  Although I am not sure we will ever fully adapt to our bathroom that constantly smells like an outhouse, or the cockroaches, HUGE spiders (literally one the size of my full hand in our bathroom the other night!), or mice in the kitchen.   We still have no furniture with the exception of our bed; however, on the bright side, we got one element on our stove working (though only when the generator is on at night), and I think we may be able to make the remaining three propane burners work soon so we can cook without electricity.  We have been reading a lot and have been into town a few times now.

The walk into Gbanga takes us about 30 minutes each way and unfortunately due to the rainy season, we have been doused with torrential rains each time we have walked.  All along the way little kids run out along the road from their huts singing “white man, white man, white woman, white woman!” with the adults joining in every so often.  The first part of the walk is along a red dirt road, full of muddy potholes with woman vendors in little wood stalls selling groundnuts (peanuts), bananas, plantains, eggs, hot peppers, onions etc.  Then we get to the main paved road that is loaded with people on dirt bikes and taxis honking their horns endlessly as we try to make our way among the people on the side of the road (again being pointed and stared at calling us white man and white woman).  When Kevin and I sit on our porch or really do anything it feels like we are an attraction at the zoo where everyone stops to watch to see what we might do next.  We thought our neighbours were our entertainment, but really I think it is the other way around!  Today we went into the main market in Gbanga which is hidden behind other stalls, and once you get inside it is a maze of vendors in wooden stalls under corrugated tin roofing with muddy, narrow paths in between.  It smells like dried fish, body odour (no one wears deodorant), overripe produce and feels extremely humid.  Doesn’t it sound like a place you want to buy your food for dinner!  It is actually pretty cool but I think we are still getting the white person price and as much as we try to barter, Liberians don’t seem very willing to budge.  Nonetheless, we got one envirosac full of plantains, eggplant, tomatoes, onions, potatoes, and bananas, which cost us just under $3US.  Unfortunately, we just missed pineapple season along with several other fruits and avocados (butter pear here), although the seasons are short here so it should hopefully come back soon. 

Our meals have mainly consisted of bananas for breakfast, some type of sandwich (cucumber and tomato) or crackers for lunch, and rice and beans with tomato sauce or something similar for dinner.  Our options are fairly limited, although we are starting to get creative with what to do with rice!  I am very glad I brought some spices from home to change things up a bit!  The other night we went into town for dinner out at a Liberian restaurant (I use that term loosely as there is only one item on the menu) where we had pepper soup, which is bright red and super spicy with unknown chunks of meat in it served with rice.  I don’t know if it was the random and potential bush meat, the spiciness of the soup, or the realization that it was not made with safe drinking water, but Kevin’s stomach made sounds that night I didn’t know were possible!  Haha so we may not eat there again!

The job itself is going fairly well, although so far it isn’t really what I had expected.  So far I have just been doing administrative tasks and will be responsible for the finances here.  I am hoping to get into the field to see some of the sites where dams and rice swamps are being built but right now we have no working vehicle and no money to fix it, so it might be a while.  Money is extremely tight with the company so it feels like things are often at a standstill to get accomplished.  Nonetheless, I am hoping it will get better and the job will get a bit more interesting.

Well this is getting very long!  We will keep everyone updated and hope all is well with you! We miss our friends and family very much and look forward to hearing from you!

PS. We tried to put some pictures up of the house we are living in but it didn’t work because our connection is too slow but we will keep trying!

Love,

Banga!

Hello All,

Tiffany and I are now in Bong County.  The four hour drive from Monrovia was interesting.  We first had to drive through Red Light – a section on the highway which had a massive number of people and stalls all lining the sides of the road, selling everything from coconuts to wheelbarrows.  It took us about 45 minutes to drive maybe 1 km. There were people navigating in between cars, motorbikes weaving through the people and traffic, and so much more.  We were a bit concerned as we had our stuff packed into the bed of the truck which was easily accessible to the people walking by.  But we got through OK and with all of our stuff.  Also on the way we saw a huge amount of rainforest, several small villages, Sector 2 (whatever that is, it sounds badass!), and a massive amount of land that was cleared by Firestone (Tire Company).  Firestone has a significant impact on Liberia’s economy as they have Rubber Tree plantations across the country.  We drove past several of them and it was very cool to see great expanses of forest all neatly lined up and ready for harvesting.  To be honest, I didn’t know that rubber was tapped from trees like maple syrup; you could even see the small buckets hanging on the trees.  Until then, I had never given rubber a second thought as to how it was made or where, even though we use it every day in Canada.

                Just as we were getting into Gbarnga, pronounced Banga, we had to cross one last check point.  We had been through several of them during the drive and had no problem.  However, we got stuck at the last one.  It seemed as though these guys pulled people over at random, because we were the only ones who got stopped (I wonder why???).  They wanted to see our passports, but Christy the girl taking us up there did not want to show them and she didn’t have hers.  Christy and Tiffany’s boss (Bossman as they’re called here) came and helped us get across the check point after waiting for about half an hour.  We have to go back there today to register ourselves as residents of the region.  I am hoping this goes OK.

                Once we arrived at our compound, things continued to become more interesting.  The compound is surrounded by a partially finished bamboo fence which I am hoping to help complete it in the next few weeks or so.  Our house, while normal looking from the outside, is only a shell of a house from the inside.  We walked into the living room and found a few plastic patio chairs and nothing else.  We walked into the kitchen and found nothing but a broken fridge, a broken stove and a sink built into a concrete counter.  The fridge, I have since fixed and the stove we are waiting on.  We have been doing our cooking on a coal stove outside which is hard to get going when you have no fuel to light it.  Our bedroom luckily has a bed and a small nightstand which we have been using as a dining table.  Getting furniture for the place has so far been unsuccessful, but we are working on it.  We, me in particular, have been having troubles adjusting to this type of living.  We knew there was going to be no running water and no 24 hour electricity, but neither of us expected this.  I have killed quite a few cockroaches in the last 2 days.  On top of it all, I have been having vivid nightmares most nights and have not had a full night’s sleep since we left Vancouver.  Tiffany thinks they are developing from our malaria medication so we have started to take it much earlier in the day.

                But not everything is tough.  The people working here with the company are very nice, helpful and friendly.  Our neighbour`s children have provided us with good entertainment on quiet days while sitting on our porch outside.  I have been trying to keep house by cleaning, but have also done a fair amount of reading.  Tiffany is getting more involved with her work, but has been delayed in seeing the dams and rice patties because the gas stations in Banga have run out of fuel!  However she has been getting down to it and is looking forward to getting more into the job!