Happy Tubman Day!!

November 29, 2010

Hello everyone, this is Tiffany again!  I hope everyone is enjoying the cold winter in Vancouver as at times I wish I was! I have been listening to Christmas music in our house (in fact I am right now!) which feels a little bitter sweet since I won’t be at home for Christmas, which has made me feel a little homesick recently.  But Kevy and I are busy planning the next leg of our trip in Tanzania which has given us a great deal to look forward to!

One thing that has been pretty cool lately is we bought a soccer ball for the kids who live around us and tons of kids have been out every afternoon in our yard (where the kids built a big soccer pitch) playing soccer.  The other day even the little girls were our playing California kickball!  Usually the boys are the ones playing (ages 7-18ish) and then many other kids watch.  It is great to see how inclusive they are and how much they are using the ball and how much fun they are having!

We had a great day today as it was Tubman Day here in Liberia (the former-President Tubman’s birthday) so it was a national holiday and most people took the day off from their work.  Yesterday Kev and I were at our favourite little drink shop, Paulina’s, and were talking to Paulina who told us that a lot of people go up to Kpatawe waterfalls (we have been wanting to go up there for a while now) and she showed us pictures of her whole family in the waterfalls, which was rather funny because they were wearing jeans and full clothing but lying in the water.  We decided that today would be a great time to finally visit the falls so Lamine arranged for his friend (who is a principal at the largest high school in Bong County) and his two sons to take us up today as he has a car.  We left Gbarnga and headed up the dirt road to the falls, which was very dusty and bumpy, especially in the low car but after a while we finally made it up to the entrance.  There was a gate set up and young men acting as “ticket sellers” to enter to the falls (probably because it was a holiday) who were reluctant to let us through without paying a  ton of money because we were white and therefore must be able to afford more!  Luckily we got by only paying $4 to get through (although even this was a little ridiculous!). 

The falls are located in a beautiful small mountain in the jungle and are quite large.  There was a pool at the bottom and then we climbed up a path along the side near the top (the falls are more wide than high) and made our way along the slippery rocks to sit under the falls and get pummelled by the water!  It was a lot of fun and it was really nice to be in cool water when it is so warm out. 

We brought up several bottles of beer and some bread and hard boiled eggs to make sandwiches with; unfortunately, one of the guys with us slipped on the rocks on the way up and two of the beer bottles broke, but we still had enough to go around.  Soon after we got there and were in the water, large crowds of young people (18-25ish) started climbing up the falls too.  We had a great time hanging out, drinking our beers and people watching, especially since many of them were getting a little drunk so it was quite funny.  Unfortunately, the eldest son of the man who drove us was walking down from the falls with a bottle of beer and slipped on the rocks, shattering the bottle which took a huge chunk out of his shoulder (about 3 inches long, 1 inch wide and 1 inch deep!)  It was really bad and was bleeding all over as I was trying to put tissue on it to stop the bleeding.  Luckily another girl there had some tensor bandages so we got him all bandaged up and then headed back into town (about one hour) to go to Phebe Hospital to get it stitched up. 

The drive back into town was hilarious as tons of young people were driving up in trucks and motor bikes and Lamine and his friend literally did not stop talking the whole ride about how crazy and dangerous the young drivers were and how “improper” it was to drive on this side of the road or that.  We got to the checkpoint on the way out and it was downright chaos.  Many vehicles and bikes were lined up at the gate waiting for the gate to go up so they could rush it; meanwhile we were on the other side needing to get through the walls of vehicles.  Everyone was yelling and waving their arms wildly in the air.  Kevin was laughing so hard and another driver saw him and burst out laughing too.  The whole situation was absurd but we finally inched our way through, although the car did get nicked by a vehicle sneaking through and we hit another backing up yet no one stopped to do anything about it! It is hilarious that “negotiating” here is incredibly dramatic with yelling back and forth, flailing arms and high-pitched squeals of disbelief.  Both Kevin and I laughed so much sitting in the car!  As we continued to drive Lamine said “These drivers are very saucy!” haha.  Kevin and I had such a hard time keeping our laughter contained the whole ride back. 

Finally, we made it to Phebe Hospital, which we always pass and have wanted to see but luckily have not had reason to before.  It is the main hospital in Bong County and was fairly good with many interesting posters around that without intending to be are quite humorous.  Our friend was able to get his shoulder stitched up and we ultimately got home just fine.  All in all, it was a really nice day, aside from the injury.

Other than that, things have as usual been quite quiet with work.  I am supposed to go into the field this week for a USAID monitoring trip so hopefully that happens as sometimes these things seem to fall through.  The project I am working on is going into a new phase beginning in January so hopefully this month will be a little busier with assessments of new communities and planning. 

Anyways we hope everyone is doing well back in Canada and we miss you all very much.  Send updates of things going on at home as we love getting messages!

Love you all,

Our Weekend in Monrovia

November 21, 2010

Hi everyone!  Kevin and I are just back into Gbarnga after an excellent weekend in Monrovia.  We are now into our last month up here in Bong before we head back to Monrovia for Christmas and then off to Kenya and Tanzania for two months before we come home!

Before I get to our trip down to Monrovia, I also want to tell you all a little about this wonderful afternoon we had last Wednesday when Lamine, the man I work with here, invited us over for lunch and to see his house.  We took bikes up the dirt road to his house, which was a small but quite nice cement home with yellow wooden shutters sitting atop a hilltop that overlooked the lush green countryside.  He had quite a large area of land, which he planted with many trees so it has shade and a nice breeze and felt much cooler up there than down at our house.  Lamine’s mother had died last week so he had his whole extended family from all over the country (there are already 10 people who live in his small house) and friends/community members all there preparing for the funeral that was yesterday.  Whenever someone dies, it is quite the event here and the family is expected to feed everyone who comes all day long for however long they stay, so the women were busy cooking huge amounts of food.  The ladies came over and gave us a big plate each of cassava greens with rice and fish, which was actually fairly decent and we sat and chatted with Lamine and his family and watched all these men dig the 6 foot grave on the property.  One of our guards, Joe had a pick axe and was breaking into the earth, which was super red; all the while he was wearing a pair of lavender faux silk women’s pyjama shorts with big flowers all over them!  It was quite funny and also very typical for around here!  We got to meet so many new people and it was really nice to feel welcome and be a part of someone’s family at a time that is so challenging for all of them.  We gave Lamine $50 to help with the costs of the funeral so we hope that can help given the large cost of the funeral and all it entails. 

On Thursday we travelled down to Monrovia as we had to get our visas extended by Saturday.  We arrived and met the new Country Director who has come from Oxford, England, Liz, who is 27 and really nice.  She had just arrived less than a week ago (not knowing that she had accepted the job as Country Director!) and is fairly overwhelmed and understandably so.  The other girl who works for VIA, Jackie was also down in Monrovia, so it was really nice to get to all hang out.  We went out for a good dinner on Thursday night all together and had some drinks, which was really nice. 

On Friday, which was also Liz’s birthday, we worked in the morning and then later that evening 8 of us went out to the Mamba Point Hotel for Happy Hour (which has free appetizers and half off drinks) and had dinner.  The waiters brought over cheesecake for Liz and we had several people come over to sing ‘Happy Birthday.’  We all took advantage of the half-off drinks and were ready to go somewhere else after so we all headed out to a ex-pat bar Tides, which has a huge patio that hangs over the ocean with a lounge-type feel.  Once we got there, a friend of ours, Phillip (see Kevin’s facebook profile picture to see some of the people including him!) bought a round of a shot called ‘tough guy,’ which was poured out of a bottle with a layer 3 or 4 inches thick at the bottom of super hot Liberian chilli peppers in it!  When the bar tender poured the shots into our glasses she put a hot pepper in each shot and Kevin swallowed the whole pepper (the rest of us realized to stop before the pepper went down the hatch!)  We all felt super sick after the shot as it burned our lips and throats and we could actually feel the burn as it moved through out system.  Kevin felt especially awful but we all kept on partying until we finally left at 3:30 am!  We met a bunch of other ex-pats and had a really fun time, taking in the social aspect we seem to miss up in Gbarnga.  Kevin and I felt like we talked so much to everyone all weekend because we were so happy to have other people to talk with!

 The next day Kevin, Liz and I went into town to get some errands done and to go grocery shopping and after we got back to the house, Liz, Kevin, Jackie and I all went to Thinkers Beach for the afternoon.  We had SUCH a great time!  The beach had golden sand and HUGE crashing waves that pounded the shore and rushed so quickly back into the water, creating a very strong undertow.  They told us that someone usually drowns every weekend there because of the undertow so Kev and I stood at the shore about waist deep and jumped like little children through the waves, bracing ourselves for the undertow, for a long time.  We had so much fun and it was the first time Kevin had ever been in tropical waters so he liked how warm the water was!  We spent the afternoon sun tanning, sitting under thatch-roofed huts on the sand relaxing and splashing around in the water.  Everyone else there seemed to be so used to the idea of going to the beach here every weekend but for Kevin and I it was a real novelty so we were giddy like little kids and really enjoyed the afternoon. 

That night we came back to the house and I made dinner for everyone, which we ate while watching a movie.  Six of us also went to the Royal Hotel this morning for a brunch buffet (which had real coffee!) and we ate our last good western meal before we headed back up to Gbarnga this afternoon.  One of the highlights of the trip for Kevin was seeing two people wearing Canucks jersey’s but unfortunately he did not have his camera with him either time so he didn’t snap a photo!  Kevin has decided to leave his one Detroit Red Wings t-shirt here with someone so hockey is better represented among the second hand clothing because it currently pales in comparison to other sports! I hope to have a busier week this week since we will be doing our reporting.  Apparently WFP told Jackie and Liz that the reporting has gotten much better in Bong over the last couple of months, which was nice to hear after my previous meeting with them!

We have heard that it looks like it will be a cold winter in Vancouver and I am sad that I will miss the snow this season!  Anyways we hope everyone is well and we hope to hear from you!

Lots of Love,

My Trips into the Field!

November 13, 2010

Hello everyone!  It’s Tiffany this time and I wanted to write a new blog today to update all of you on my recent trips into the field...finally!

This week was busier than the rest as the European Union Food Facility donor (our main donor) came to visit a few of our communities along with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), the World Food Programme of the UN (WFP), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) all of whom we work quite closely with as we are the implementing partners of these other organizations for this specific project.  So on Wednesday we had all planned to meet at the MOA office for a meeting and then we would head into the field to get to work.  Well Lamine and I arrived at the MOA office about 20 minutes early all ready to go and we hastily walked into a meeting that was going on thinking we were late!  However, it turned out we were early and we sat in the wrong meeting for about 45 minutes just observing (the County Agriculture Coordinator (CAC), Monica, told us to hang out in the meeting so it wasn’t like we crashed it or anything) but just sitting in on meetings that has nothing to do with our project was not terribly exciting so we went to sit elsewhere.  As it turned out we sat and waited for nearly 4 hours as the donors and everyone else were VERY late!  Vehicle and road problems seemed to be the culprits, putting us well behind on our itinerary straight away.

Eventually we had the meeting where the EU donor interrogated the CAC, Monica, for about an hour before we finally began the hour and a half drive on terrible roads out to Samay.  This visit really put Lamine and me on the spot as we were now the ones being interrogated for how work has been done on the site while the donor scrutinized the paperwork in the field.  We answered his questions the best we could; however, Lamine had left several of the papers we needed at the office so we were not as prepared as we should have been.  I won’t get into a lot of details as that would ensure an extremely long blog post but let’s just say this project has been a challenge from day one and there is a lot of miscommunication between WFP with us.  It seemed as though we were being blamed for things that were not our fault.  This did not sit very well with me, so I asked the donor, who I got along with quite well, to have a meeting with all of us the next morning to show that the things that were said about our supposed “misreporting” were not true.  We ended up leaving the field at 7pm once it was already pitch black and had to make our way back through the muddy, potholed roads, which was slightly unnerving, but we made it back just fine.

So Thursday morning rolled around and Lamine and I walked into our meeting, after a very late night working at the office, with our arms full of every relevant document we had, proving our point on several issues.  It felt great to have the numbers right in front of me and see the questions that had been asked of us turned around and asked to others who at times struggled with how to respond.  Ultimately the meeting went quite well and I think a lot of issues were resolved on all ends.  I don’t want to talk specifically about these issues on an internet blog but look forward to talking more about it when we are home.  So we headed out into the field again, first visiting a UNDP microfinance project in Palala, unrelated to ours, which seemed to be going very well.  I was incredibly impressed with the woman who was running the project who really knew what she was talking about and thought to myself that if I were a donor, this is the type of project and person I would want to invest in.

Unfortunately, while we were at this site, Lamine got a phone call telling him that his mother, who has been quite sick over the past week, was now in critical condition and he needed to come back urgently.  He was very upset in the jeep as we continued on to our communities but was determined to finish the day. 

Soon we arrived at Bellemu where we gave a briefing on the community and the work we had done and then walked down to the large swamp where we have rehabilitated nearly 20 hectares to produce rice.  The heat was sweltering and for some reason we decided to meet with the community members in the hot sun without any relief of the shade.  We stood out there for nearly an hour talking and then walking along the bunds into the swamp to see how they measure their work output.  Everyone was dripping with sweat and our clothes were soaked as we walked back up to the community where they presented the EU donor with a white chicken to say thank-you, apparently white was to indicate purity of heart. 

Again we were behind schedule by about 3 hours and everyone was hesitant to head on to Garmu, our last community (the EU team was continuing on to other projects but we would be finished).  However, it was a good thing we went because as soon as we pulled up women came running down a path alongside the swamp with big bowls and buckets drumming on them, singing and dancing.  Kids ran alongside them and the men walked up to greet us and show us their work.  Lamine and I showed them our newly constructed dam and again gave a briefing and then the community insisted on bringing us up to have a meeting.  We walked with the community members while the women and men continued drumming and singing until we came to a clearing under banana trees where benches were laid out for everyone to sit.  Before the meeting started the community started dancing and a few of us figured why not and we all joined in.  I am sure I looked absurd trying to dance like an African woman but I tried and they lifted my hands in the air and pulled me around with their arms around my waist trying to show me how they do it! It was a lot of fun and I wished Kevy was there to be a part of it too.  During the meeting with the community, the chairman said that their intention and goal was to help create a food secure Liberia and they felt that their swamp was surely beginning to do this.  It was so excellent to hear that goal and it really reminded me of what this project is all about, regardless of the politics behind it.  After the meeting we were served food, which consisted of the typical rice, hot pepper sauce and mystery meat.  I gazed down at my bowl and could see what looked like a bit of chicken (or some other small animal), a vertebra of some sort with very little meat on it and then a full, huge tongue!  It did not even seem like the tongue was cooked as it sat there limply in my bowl.  I ate some rice and chicken and mulled over some of the other meat before I passed my plate on to Lamine to finish.  In the first bite he took the whole tongue and ate it up with a smile on his face.  Ick!  After we finished we headed back to Gbarnga with 6 adults crammed into the jeep and Lamine and I finally felt relaxed that our part was over. 

Sadly, when we reached Gbarnga Lamine headed to the hospital and found out that his mother had died while we were away.  He said that she looked at his sister and said “I am leaving now” and then died soon thereafter.  The day really was full of joy and excitement at times but it ended very sadly as Lamine was quite distraught.  I had to really push him to make sure he didn’t come into work on Friday as he is one of the most dedicated people I have ever met and is always working.  I think he was relieved to be able to stay with his family though. 

Anyways, yesterday Kevy and I spent the morning getting our groceries for the week and then spent the afternoon lying on the concrete floor trying to stay cool.  It is getting extremely hot here and we are constantly sweating.  Last night we both lie awake for hours dripping and uncomfortable; I don’ think either of us have ever felt so hot before.  It doesn’t seem like today will be much more exciting and reading and exercise will likely be the only things we accomplish, but c’est la vie!  We hope to get to Monrovia next weekend because our visas expire next Saturday so we need to get them extended. 

We hope all is well with everyone at home and we look forward to hearing from you!

Lots of love,

ANOTHER Quiet Day in Banga

Hello everyone, 

Its Kevin today as Tiffany is off in the field.

It is a very quiet Wednesday for me here in Banga because as I mentioned, Tiffany is off on an important trip into the field today.  Donors from the EU (European Union) are here to visit the projects they are funding.  These donors are very important and have the ability to end the current project simply by pulling their funding if they do not like what they see.  So, Tiffany along with her bossman Lamine, and a group from WFP will be courting these donors with a trip into the field, a few meetings and hopefully a nice dinner.  Alas, lowly Kevin is stuck at home to eat beans.  JK (kinda).  As I am sure most of you are just waking up, I have actually had a nice quiet day reading my book, keeping house and trying to not to sweat to death.  The donors definitely picked a nice day to go into the field.  I’m sure Tiffany must be sweltering, but don’t feel too bad for her as her Land Cruiser has AC.  Today has been hot but we have been fortunate to have rains during most nights making the mornings cool and it easy for me to stay in bed! 

That’s really all I have to say today.  I just wanted to say hello and hope everyone has a happy Remembrance Day.  Tiffany will give you a much more detailed account of her trip into the field very soon, maybe some pictures as well.  For anyone who does not know, she has put up some pictures on her Facebook account for your viewing pleasure.  There are only about 12 because it takes so long to upload, but there are some good ones.  I believe you can also see the pictures through my account as I am tagged in several.

Until next time,

Kevin

P.S. Thanks everyone who has been emailing us.  We appreciate hearing from so many friends back home.

P.P.S. We hope to visit some natural waterfalls this weekend.  We will let you know how that goes if we can get up there.

Happy Halloween!

Hello everyone and Happy Halloween!

I hope you have all been able to find other websites to occupy your downtime at work while we have been on a bit of a hiatus.  Things have slowed down considerably over the last few weeks with the exception of the few days we spent in Monrovia this past week.  We are now back in Banga, fully stocked on canned goods from the city and an appetite for the quiet of up-country.  Tiffany and I are currently sitting in the shade of our porch, eating pineapple and bananas, reading our books and watching life around us.  One observation we made earlier today was to remark on the lack of sizeable animals in the area.  We would have thought that as we live in a remote jungle community, we would see monkeys, snakes, goats, bigger birds, etc.  However, we then thought about it and I’m sure if there were more sizeable animals in the community they would probably all make it into the nightly meals.  There is, however, no lack of small birds, lizards, a few snakes, and tons of strange insects that all make a lot of noise. 

In many ways we are very happy here.  We enjoy many aspects of our daily lives like being able to read as much as we like or wearing few clothes and not caring what you look (or smell) like everyday.  We also enjoy the simplicity of life here; everything you need is easily accessed and done in a relaxed manner.  If you need water, you take your bucket to the well and get some.  If you need more rice, you walk to the market and buy some.  There are no complications in living.  But things become difficult in accessing things that you want.  You need more books, you have to choose from a very small selection of Christian books that might or might not be for sale in town.  If you want to eat something other than cabbage, rice and onions, maybe something more western, you have to make a four hour trip to Monrovia that costs a lot of money for white people.  In this respect, life is difficult.  We are so used to being able to get both what we need and want so easily that we have taught ourselves that we need high speed internet or a huge variety of foods and entertainment.  For anyone like us, it’s very hard to get passed that and learn just to live with what you have around you.  Our taxi driver who took us to Monrovia last week was very surprised to learn that although we don’t have papaya and pineapple trees in Canada we can get anything we want, no matter what time of year at the supermarket.  During the same discussion, he listed many of the foods that grew locally here, like cassava, pineapple, pawpaws (papaya), butter pears (avocado), and at the end he said “Thank God for Liberia!”.  When he said that, I realized just how much we take for granted in the western world, and that if these people can be so thankful with so little, then I can too.  So both Tiffany and I are trying to live as well as possible based more on our needs than on our wants.  (Not counting our computers with TV shows, movies and ebook readers!)

However, there are also aspects of our lives here in Liberia that frustrate and annoy us.  Things like having no privacy.  Although we live in a small community, there seem to be many people around all the time.  Whether it’s at 6 in the morning or 9 in the evening, people are always coming and knocking at your door to talk or sitting outside your house talking loudly while you try and sleep.  This is one area where Tiffany and I have troubles. 

We also are frustrated by the way everyone here views us.  To Liberians, white people are people of opportunity, and in many ways they’re right.  We’re the ones who have the opportunity to come here, live where we want, work in what we want and be who we want.  Many people are very polite and friendly to us.  But it frustrates me to know that most of these people are nice to us because they want something from us.  Now you might say, “Well Kevin, that’s just you being pessimistic and unfair.”  But truly it is how Liberians see white people.  For example, I believe in my last post that I told you about how we met a man named Kennedy.  We met Kennedy at our favourite drink shop in town where he came and sat down with us and we talked with him for about 20 minutes.  He seemed like a very nice man who worked at Phebe Hospital in the morgue and had been working at a mortuary in Banga for 19 years.  He was very nice and bought us a beer.  At the end of the conversation he asked us for our phones numbers so we could get a beer with him another time.  We gave them to him and he began calling us every day until we said we could again about half a week later.  We owed him a beer so we went and met him and bought him a beer.  This time, Kennedy started the conversation immediately with “I want you to help me set up a mortuary institution in Liberia.  I need you to connect me with people in Canada who can have me come over and learn at their institution and then help fund a school here.”  From then on, the conversation was focused on us giving him our home addresses and phone numbers so that he could contact us.  Also, about a week ago a staff member asked Tiffany for money to help with expenses for his children.  She decided to quietly help him but soon many others on the staff came asking for money too.  Now we get knocks on our door all of the time with notes to give them money for whatever they deem important.  One of the other staff always comes by to ask for money and I offered to help him to learn to use the computer instead of paying for a pricey computer class, but this has now turned into tons of people expecting to be taught whenever they feel like it, whether that is at 11pm or not.  Other volunteers have had the same sort of encounters.  One volunteer thought that she had become very good friends with a certain family in the community and they asked her for some financial help.  She was about to give it to them, when they called her by the name of the one other white person in town.  They didn’t realize who was who.  This kind of thing is always in the back of your mind when you are talking with people here.  We have realized that we are not really friends, although they are friendly, we are seen as opportunities.  This realization has tainted the welcome we once felt from the people here.

But on a lighter note, we had an excellent 4 days down in Monrovia where we took advantage of our “wants” feasting on a western diet and an air-conditioned hotel room with wi-fi.  We splurged and stayed in what is deemed the nicest hotel in Liberia, and although it was very clean, we could have had the same calibre of room in a Super 8 type hotel back in Canada.  Everything in Liberia is significantly over-priced for non-Liberians.  But after over one month up-country we thought less of the cost and more of the amenities (yes running hot water is one of the best amenities for us now!) We ate a cheeseburger at the Mambo Point Hotel which was honestly the BEST burger we have ever had.  I am sure it is partly due to the fact we have been craving this for a while now but really it was delicious and we savoured every bite.  We enjoyed real breakfasts and Tiffany got coffee that wasn’t a 3 in 1 Nescafe mix and was very pleased about that.  We also stocked up on groceries, bought some movies (pirated ones from Japan that crowd the streets in town), and I even found a beard trimmer so I no longer have to shave off my whole beard like before and can properly cut my hair.  Later that evening Tiffany gave me a “military” style haircut after the first shave on the side was shorter than expected.  I think it looks BA (bad-ass), Tiffany isn’t as convinced.  Other than that we enjoyed the beautiful ocean views and relaxed a lot.  Our last day was more frustrating as our ride back to Gbarnga cancelled on us and we couldn’t find anyone who would take us back at a fair price.  Finally after a lot of finagling we were able to arrange for a driver; however we had to pay $10 more than we normally should even after a long negotiation. 

Although we mentioned our new time line in our last post, things have once again changed, though this will be the last time.  We won’t get into many details in the blog but there are some rather serious issues with this organization that Tiffany has a real hard time with and go against many of her beliefs in what is acceptable for organizations working in development.  Moreover, she has yet to be paid, and without any transportation to get her into the field, the “Field Coordinator” role does not actually exist.  This does not look like it is going to change any time soon as the company really has no money and the project is unlikely to get renewed so Tiffany has a very minimal amount of work to do, and none of it is challenging or couldn’t be done by existing staff here.  She is lucky if she has 1-2 hours of data entry work per day.  Therefore, this really is not the experience she had anticipated or was told it was going to be and we have had a difficult time justifying staying for the whole contract given the realities here.  So...we are now leaving Liberia at the end of December and have booked a plane ticket to Nairobi, Kenya.  From there we will go to Tanzania for two months to travel and visit the beaches of Zanzibar.  We will then fly back to Liberia and will leave on our original flight out of here on February 28, 2011.  Our time in Africa will still be 6 months and although we are very disappointed in how it has turned out in some ways, it does not make sense to continue in a position that is meaningless and when we have a wedding to save for and jobs/schooling to consider. 

That being said we have learned many things already here and ultimately we are happy we came and could have this experience together here.  This post is getting quite long so we will go for now.  We hope everyone enjoys Halloween and we hope to update again soon.

Much love,