Hi everyone its Tiffany!  Sorry we have not written in a while, but not much was happening but finally we have something to write about in the blog post!  The last two days have been more exciting than usual for us as I had a work monitoring trip into the field to do with our organization along with WFP, and several government ministries and Liz, our Country Director came up bringing a vehicle, so Kev came into the field with us!

We started out bright and early on Saturday morning and headed out into the field on the crazy dirt roads I was hoping Kev was going to get to experience before we left.  The drive to the first community we visited, Botota, took nearly 2.5 hours on awful back country roads that have potholes the size of vehicles.  On the drive our battery tipped over several times leaving us with no power in our vehicle so we had to wait until we rolled to a stop to fix it and we fell partially through a bridge over a river.  Finally we arrived in Botota, which is a small community with a rice swamp about 5 hectares large.  Many of the women were out in the swamp harvesting the rice, which was great for everyone to see and we walked out on the bunds (raised dirt pathways through the swamp) to get a good view of the rice and what was going on.  We then held a community meeting to discuss the continuation of the project with the beneficiaries and tried to deal with some of the issues that have been occurring with the project to date.  It was fairly positive in Botota and afterwards we were served cassava greens with fish and some bush meat over rice which is quite spicy but we like it. 

We then headed deeper into the jungle to the next community, Bellemu, situated literally in the middle of the jungle.  We had to take tiny roads through the dense jungle to get there over rickety log bridges and when we got there, there was no one in the community so it was like coming across a jungle ghost town comprised of mud huts with thatched roofs.  Kevin describes it as in ‘Lost’ like stumbling on the “Others” community in the middle of the jungle except with huts and not houses.  A few people turned up and we made our way down this tiny bush path to see where the swamp was.  They have a swamp about 4 hectares large, which was also good to see.  We tried to have a community meeting but due to the fact that it wasn’t their swamp work day, the community was for the most part working on their personal farms scattered throughout the bush.  Most of the trip went this way, where the communities weren’t really prepared for the visit and because it was on a weekend, many of the people were busy doing other work.  It was a little frustrating but the main purpose of the trip was to take a GPS system that the ministry of land, mines and energy technicians would walk around the whole swamp with to accurately measure the swamp.

Finally, we headed out of there and visited Samay, which I have been to a few times now, but it is an excellent community (our project poster-child community) that has a swamp 25 hectares large with a dam we built.  Again most of the community was not there but we managed to have a successful meeting with the chairman and some leaders.  While there, kids followed us everywhere and we got to walk through a lot of the community which was much larger than the others we had visited.  By the time we left we had already had a 10 hour day in the field with another hour and a half drive back...so it was a tiring day! 

Today we got up early again and headed out to a few more communities.  The roads were better to these communities but our truck did break down for a little while during the trip, but was fine in the end.  Today was more difficult as it was Sunday and most people were at church and a lot of the preparation work for the visit was not done so people were arguing and blaming each other for this and that.  The long talks that often turned into arguments can be exhausting and by the end of the day we were ready for the monitoring to be finished.  We saw three communities today, though we spent the majority of the time in one community due to our broken down truck and bickering! 

Ultimately, it was really nice for Kev to get to see the places I have been able to visit and to get to see the work we have been doing.  It was also great for making our time pass by really quickly!  We only have three more days up here in Gbarnga!

We have a dinner tomorrow night with the family who lives across from us (there are 24 people who live in the little house!!! Not to mention animals!)  Then we will have a nice dinner at the Bangladeshi restaurant in town as the owner says he wants to cook us a nice meal before we leave and finally our last dinner will most likely be with Lamine, my co-worker , at his house so we figure time is going to fly now.

We leave to Monrovia on Thursday morning where we will spend one night and then Liz, Kevin and I will go to Robertsport (the nicest beach in Liberia with nice tent bungalows on the beach) for the 24^th and 25^th before we come back to Monrovia for one night and then fly to Kenya!  We are very excited for our upcoming trip and also for Robertsport over Christmas, though I still prefer snow to a beach on Christmas any day!

Anyways this is very long now, but we will write again before we leave Liberia.  We hope everyone has a very merry Christmas.  We wish we were there with our friends and family for the holidays!

Below, Kevy wrote a list of the humorous differences between life in Canada and Liberia so enjoy!

Lots of love,

What’s the Difference Between Me and You?  Several Differences between Liberia and Canada

1. In Canada, to be profitable, gas stations (or filling stations in Liberia) are not reliant on the success of the mayonnaise industry.  In Liberia, a filling station cannot operate without empty mayonnaise jars which are used to measure the amount of gas being put into your vehicle (taken from a large barrel).  In effect, you could ask your gas station attendant “to fill ‘er up with 3 of the heavy duty jars “.

2.  In Canada, our mayonnaise companies do not produce such massive jars of thick mayonnaise to have to include on the label “Heavy Duty”.  In Liberia, they do.

3. In Canada, Cold Water means only one thing: cold water.  In Liberia, Cold Water is money you pay to the corrupt police officer who sets up an independent road block when they’re short on cash.

4. In Canada, police officers are looked upon with trust and respect.  In Liberia, they are the most fearful people in the community and are avoided with the utmost care.

5. In Canada, drinks are served with a coaster and a glass.  In Liberia, you get the coaster and the glass, but in addition you get a roll of toilet paper to wipe the rim of the bottle beforehand.  (Done because all bottles are returned and reused after going through an shady sanitization process)

6. In Canada, we have papayas, avocados, peanuts, squash, and eggplant.  In Liberia they have the same things but instead they are called pumpkin, pawpaw, butter pears, groundnuts, pumpkin, and bitter balls.

7. In Canada, we have four seasons.  In Liberia as in most equatorial countries they have two seasons; the “5 minute power washing” rainy season, and the “I think I’m seeing mirages” dry season.  The “5 minute power washing” rainy season is also commonly referred to as the “Is the rain on my tin roof actually drowning out the sound of the generator in the next room?” season.

8. In Canada, potholes are a minor annoyance.  In Liberia, your vehicle may be swallowed by a pothole, of which you must drive out of. 

9. In Canada, a child’s small bladder may be the cause of a lengthened car trip.  In Liberia, it’s all about the potholes!  (The massive number of potholes can lengthen a trip by hours!)

10.  In Canada, when giving directions, you use either street names or house addresses.  In Liberia, there are no street addresses just situations like the one for Visions in Action whose official address in Monrovia is “On the 2^nd Street behind the YWCA in Congo Town”.  For us in Gbarnga, our address is “Where the young white people live”.

11. In Canada, “saucy” is a term used to either describe a very sauce heavy dish or a flirtatious female as in “Boy, she’s a saucy minx”.  In Liberia, it’s not the women who are saucy, but the high speed motorbike drivers as in “Boy he is going very fast! He is very saucy!”  Other examples of Liberian English: Vexed means pissed off, carry means travel as in “I will carry you to Monrovia”, talk small means speak for a short time and slippers are flip flops or sandals.

12. In Canada, speedometers are used far more frequently than your vehicle’s horn.  In Liberia, I believe speedometers are disconnected to “conserve fuel”.  However horns are used more than your gas petal and for many reasons.  To make your presence known to pedestrians on the side of the road, you usually give a good long, maybe 3 second, blast.  If coming around a corner, you usually honk for about 5 seconds with a series of repeated blasts.  If there is a pretty girl on the side of the road, two honks will suffice.  And if you just want to lay on it, there really is no set length or pattern, you just honk.