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,