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.