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,