My New Friends

I want you to meet my new friends. They are probably the cutest people ever.
The Equip office in Ganta where I am staying shares its property with an orphange and school, so there are kids everywhere. These are just a couple of them. They started following me everywhere. I had to go take photos of a clinic nearby for a story, and when I left they all ran after me. I told them that I had to go to the clinic, and one girl felt my arm with concern. "You sick?"
Speaking of sickness, its been a miracle. I haven't gotten sick past a mild headache (dehydration!) so far. That has been a real blessing. This next photos is for you, Mueti, because you asked for a photo of myself. The reason it is kind of off-center is because it was taken by a little 7 year old boy that probably has never held a camera in his life before.
And here's some Liberian jungle scenery for you all to chew on.
I've got to run. One of the volunteers, Sarah, is from the US of A, so she's organizing a little thanksgiving feast. Mmm, pumpkin!!!

The World's Coolest House

Hey, hey, hey from (slightly-less-muggy-then-the-rest-of-the-country) Ganta. We got here yesterday, just in time to be fashionably late for the staff meeting. On the way we stopped by the Equip office in Gbangra (pronounced Bang-a, but with a real popping sound on the "B"). The office is surrounded by the world's coolest fence.

Anyway, staff meeting was good. It was a bunch of people talking about all sorts of good stuff that is happening. Man, people here are hard to understand. If you thought I talked fast, then you have no idea. Not only do they talk crazy fast, but they drop the ends off of words and put o's everywhere. So "hey" becomes "heyo", me becomes "me" becomes "meo", etc... Also, they drop articles (a, an, the) everywhere! I helped out a bit with payroll which was a chaotic but kind of fun experience. Can you imagine doing the bookkeeping and salary for an organization that has to run entirely on cash?

You know what's surreal? That fact that I can have a conversation for free over the internet across the Atlantic, and in conversation mention that I'm in Ganta, and then have said friend look up Ganta on GoogleMaps, and see where I am. That, folks, blows my mind. Crazy stuff.

Here's a rubber plantation. Libeira is one of the world's largest producers of natural rubber. If you've ever had Firestone tires on you car, that rubber probably came from Liberia. There are plantations everywhere, but this is probably the neatest one I've seen so far.

This is the world's coolest house. I want to buy it and fix it up. It was built years ago by settlers from somewhere in Lousiana where they build everything on stilts. So they came to Liberia, picked a completely stable firm plot of land, and propped up their house on legs. Thus the world's coolest house.

Off to Ganta

Hey quick news flash.
I'm running off to Ganta. That's in the north of Liberia. You should GoogleEarth it or something. Do your research. Be informed.
There's a big Equip staff meeting up there and then I'm sticking around for a week or so to collect some stories and photo goodness. Just like the rest of the world, they have access in Ganta to this thing called the intraweb, or interweb, or something like that, so we can all still stay in touch!!! However, I might venture even further then Ganta into....THE BUSH!!! Villages! Jungles! Man-eating monkeys! (Don't worry Mom, I made that last one up) These villages sadly (or maybe not so sadly) don't have access to this interweb thing, so what I'm getting at is that sometimes...I might be unatainable for multiple days!!! How thrilling!!!

P.S. - If you want to be extra amazing you could pray for me! Pray for continued health (I've been great on that front, no malaria yet, no disastrous bowel movements, no going insane, etc..), and pray that God connects me with the right people that have amazing stories to tell of what he's done in their life.

The Hard Life

Yesterday was another Sunday surfing session. After riding a wave in, I put down my surfboard and sat on a palm tree that had fallen over, after its roots had been eaten away by erosion. I sat there and watched the sun set over the Atlantic, the view peppered with cumulus clouds, and the sky a glorious red. Ahh, it’s a hard life.

Audry has started making homemade yougurt. A bowl of yougurt with homemade granola is quite possible one of the best things on this earth. That and guava juice. Ahh, it’s a hard life.

I’ve started helping Dave in writing his book, and we are currently focusing on his memories from the periods of war in Liberia. This country has a history of seriously messing itself up. It’s a story full of instances of genocide, assassinations, ritualistic killings, child soldiers, human sacrifices, and even cannibalism. It’s a country where over 80% of the population is unemployed. For almost all Liberians it’s a very, very hard life.

We were watching this film last night, and this one older, father-like figure in the film had a line that really resonated with me. “I’ve lived in a world that hates evil more then it loves good.” I think sometimes we get so revolted by the evil we fail to embrace that which is good. The kids here that smile and laugh and wave at you as you drive by. The ability of people here who pick themselves up from immense losses and still face life with determination to make things better. The immense power of the Gospel that you can see physically change whole villages into something beautiful.

This Photo Needs No Caption

Sunday

Sunday was a good day. I was having a rough day on Saturday for no particular reason and by the end of it I was able to talk about it with a few people, which was precious. There is a lot of power in confession. But Sunday…Sunday was a most excellent day.

First off it was a beautiful day. The birds were extra loud, the sun was a little brighter, the sky a little clearer, the breeze a little fresher. We piled into the Land Cruiser and headed off to Monrovia Christian Fellowship. MCF is remarkably similar to what I have experienced at home, except that the worship team were really firm believers in fast tempos. It seemed like every verse of a song they would speed things up a little more.

After idle after-church chatter we piled back into the Land Cruiser, did a little tour-de-Monrovia, and wound up at Mamba Point for lunch. When we arrived home it was a quick change, and then Dave, Christopher, and I loaded up the Land Cruiser with three surfboards and drove off to Thinker’s Beach.

My first experience of surfing started out magically. As I started paddling I felt so excited. Between water and sky, it was sublime, almost ethereal. This was all before the first wave hit me, filling my foolish gaping mouth full of salt water. After being pounded by wave after wave I wasn’t so sure about the sublime state of surfing anymore.

It took what seemed like a good twenty minutes to clear the beach break. (The break is, apparently, the distance off the beach where the wave stops being all nice and smooth and starts sort of folding into itself and getting all foamy and messy.) Once past the break, I was completely exhausted so I just sat there on my board for a while and received some instructions from Dave. You’re supposed to wait past the break until you see a set of waves coming that suits your fancy, and then you start paddling like mad to try and match the speed of the wave. When the wave catches up to you hold on to the side of your board for dear life as the wave crashes around you and if your lucky you’ll find the balance to stand up. Something like that.

Anyway, I saw a wave that looked nice and big. I started paddling like crazy, at least as crazy as a totally exhausted person can be. The wave started to catch up with me and then it started to crash with a thunderous force around me and I was shot ahead, clinging to my board, not daring to stand up. For a second I experienced the most amazing feeling of being part of the wave rushing into the shore. After that second I was completely pulled under into a turmoil of current and wave and salt water down my throat. After recovering my senses, I slowly drifted into shore, completely wiped of all energy. Yet strangely enough that brief second epiphany was enough to convince me that surfing is very much going to be a big part of my life here.

Behold, photos, this time with CAPTIONS!!!

The House
The Backyard (sort of)
Fellow volunteer and surf extraordinaire
Christopher, with a gecko he caught

Random Facts Of Liberian Life You May Not Be Aware Of

• Coke and Fanta are a million times tastier when you drink them from a glass bottle instead of a can.
• The exchange rate of US Dollars to Liberian Dollars is 1 to 63. I am currently a possessor of a really large wad of cash.
• Fufu is quite possibly the weirdest food I’ve ever eaten. It’s so weird I won’t even try and describe it.
• Surfing is really hard.
• During the early winter months a wind blows down south, bringing lots of dust from the Sahara, making the weather constantly hazy.
• Rubber plantations look gorgeous.

Liberian Cell Phone Number

06-92-34-08

This Place Is Crazy

This place is crazy. Crazy hot. Crazy poor. People doing crazy things. People full of crazy amounts of love. And crazy delicious fruit.

Stepping off the plane was like stepping into a steam room and the feeling never stopped. I love it. I’m getting used to constantly sweating and everyone else being constantly sweaty.

One sleep after arriving in Monrovia, I packed a small bag and jumped in a Land Cruiser headed for Tappita, a town that was a 7 hour drive away. It would only be a 3 hour journey on any self respecting Canadian road, but this is Africa. I tried sleeping for part of it, which proved impossible, because you would be jolted awake every 10 seconds by the one pothole that the Land Cruiser didn’t miss.

By the time we arrived in Tappita it was almost 10pm and Dave had a to drive off a little further so he dropped me off at the Equip office there. I sat outside the office with about 7 Liberians, half of whom I’ve met but couldn’t remember their names, eating a dish of rice with some really foul tasting sauce poured over top with some sort of meat that I couldn’t distinguish because it was really dark. When I was ready to catch some sleep I was led through the town to some random house, then into a room which had a mattress and (praise God) a mosquito net. I blew out the kerosene lantern and flopped into bed. So there I was, one night after stepping off the plane in a remote town in the heart of the jungle of Liberia; a place with little or no electrical power, surrounded by complete strangers.

I was woken up in the morning by children’s laughter and the roosters. There are roosters everywhere in Liberia and I feel like I could strangle every single one of them. They have no sense of time. I rolled out a bed, grabbed my bag and wandered through the town and back to the Equip office.

The reason we were here in Tappita was TearFund. TearFund is a Christian NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) that works very closely with Equip. They were closing down their work in Nimba County which was based in Tappita and so there was a big hand-over ceremony. I came along to take lots of photos. After a 2 and a half hour ceremony there was a big meal, African style. It consisted of rice (of course) with chicken and potato greens heaped on top. It was delicious. We stuck around for a while afterward while Dave worked out a bunch of stuff with the TearFund people. Joel, another awesome volunteer from Vancouver, found a grapefruit tree, so he knocked a couple down. They were beyond any citrus fruit I had ever eaten.

We finally got back on the road and headed to Ghanta, where Equip has a significant amount a property with a large base. On the way we stopped by a clinic in one of the towns to see if there needed to be any renovations done. There was a woman in the clinic just going into labor, so of course we stuck around. I did a photo shoot about 2 minutes after the birth. Major culture shock!

Finally made it back to Ghanta and slept. Was woken up by a rooster far to early again. Dave had to arrange a load of stuff with a bunch of people so I wondered around. The kids here are beautiful. I walked down to the hand pump to get some water and was attacked by about four kids full of hugs. Every time you say anything the laugh at how funny you sound. I killed some more time by playing a game of checkers with one kid. He clearly let me win.

Drove back down to Monrovia. Joel and I headed down to the ocean for a swim and were soon joined by Christopher (another awesome volunteer from Smithers). The waves were huge and powerful. The water is really, really salty and it stings your eyes. We headed back to the house exhausted. We watched a movie while eating a massive bowl of spaghetti with a really good sauce that Audry made.

Now I’m sitting in the Eqiup head office getting various things organized. I’m getting a cellphone and I’ll post the number as soon as I can. I’m probably heading back up to Ghanta in a day or two to collect some stories and photos from around there. There is internet in Ghanta (the painfully slow kind) so I’ll try and post some more there, but I’ll be all around the area, so it might be a little while.

Prayer Requests:
- Praise God for allowing me to experience so many amazing things already
- Pray that my time around Ghanta is productive and that the Lord would prepare meetings and conversations that would lead to really good stories.
- Pray that I could be a blessing to the work here.
- Pray for Sarah (another awesome volunteer, this time from Alaska) as she is coming down with something that could be malaria.

(Click on the photos for larger copies. Please excuse the small photo size. The internet is currently disastrously slow.)

Flight Log: Part 2

11:51 (Brussels time) – One hour till my flight. Sitting near the gate, waiting. Popped open my laptop and opened my iTunes. Some random guy somewhere in the vicinity seems to have left his music sharing settings open, so I’m listening to his music library. He has good taste.
Security was a breezy, breezy, breeze. Brussels was gorgeous and full of lovely people, but I’m excited to finally get to Liberia.
It’s a two hour flight to Casablanca, and then 7 hours kicking around in the airport. The super sweet lady that gave me a ride had been there and assured me that it was pleasant, so that’s good. Then just after 10pm I grab a flight to Monrovia, arriving at 2:40 IN THE MORNING!!! Pretty stoked about that. Wow, this guy is a Rammstein fan. He has like every album! Hardcore! Actually, there’s a bit to much death metal for my taste. Also, what kind of band name is “Type O Negative”?
Back to my own music. Ahh, the soothing sounds of my favorite Icelandic bag.
(P.S. – This may come across as creepy, but watching people in airports is really fascinating. There is every kind of person imaginable and they are all at different stages in life. Like for instance there is this old couple a few tables over that are sharing a newspaper and they can’t stop smiling at each other. And this little boy who keeps running up and down the hallways.

14:32 (Casablanca Time) Somewhere 37000feet over Southern France – Royal Air Maroc ends up being a pleasant surprise. A hot meal on a three hour flight and really good service.
Random thoughts: People sleeping on airplanes look really funny. Also, there is very few sounds in this world that are as intense as the sound of a toilet flushing. It freaks me out every time. Also, why does the bathroom have an ashtray right next to the no smoking sign???
The weather just cleared up for a majestic view of the snow-capped Pyrenees Mountains. Absolutely breathtaking. Also, Coca-Cola written in Arabic is really cool.

15:20 – (Casablanca Time) We’re flying just next to another airplane’s jet stream. It looks really cool. It’s just this strip of cloud that goes on and on beside us.

15:20 – (Casablanca) Another jet stream. It’s like an aeronautical traffic jam!!!

15:21 – (Casablanca) I CAN SEE THE MEDITERRANEAN!!! If I wasn’t stuck in an airplane seat I’d to a dance of celebration. I’m pretty sure that’s the Straight of Gibraltar to the right.

15:33 – Wow the straight of Gibraltar is really, really narrow. I can see the Atlantic. It’s big. Also, I CAN SEE AFRICA!!!! I’m keeping a very calm composure here in the airplane, but I’m currently freaking out inside. So stoked!

15:37 – Tangiers looks really cool from the air. Anyone want to travel around in Spain and Morrocco at some point in our lives?

15:38 – Turbulence!!!

15:41 – Wow, the Atlantic is big. I mean really big. Like huge. Bigger then you can imagine. Massive.

15:45 – The Arabic alphabet is beautiful. It just had to be said.

15:58 – We’re going down! Only 15 mintues till landing in good ol’ Casa. (Casa and I are on short name basis.)

17:25 – I’m just experiencing my first African sunset, sitting here in the Mohammed V Airport, in Casablanca. Mohammed V is the squeaky-cleanest airport you’ve ever seen. This airport features a dazzling palette of skin colors. Every single shade of brown can be found here in this airport, in people’s skin. Less then 5 hours to go.

18:18 – This airport is weird. Besides being the cleanest place in the world, it is jam-packed with luxury stores. This is Africa, but the hallways are filled with Dolce & Gabana, Chanel, and Lacoste.

18:34 – Moroccans
have little, make that no, regard for no smoking signs.

18:38 – I always think that people with little wireless cell phone receivers are insane at first.

18:46 – Pretty sure I just saw one janitor give the other janitor a love tap. The third janitor is wearing Crocs. Also, I’ve been in this airport waaaaayyyyy to long.

18:50 - Wow, one janitor just full on sacked the other janitor. Stuff happens here at the later hours.


I’m sitting in my room in the Waines’ house across from my mosquito-netted bed. The room is painted in four different shades of blue. Liberia is beautiful. It’s like living in a sauna. I love it! Just a quick minute walk from the house is the endless ocean with breaks rolling in. The birds here are really loud and insistent especially the neighbours roosters at 4am in the morning.

Brussels: Take Two

Guidebook in hand. A steady diet of fries and waffles. Two different museums across town. A handful of old churches. Markets! The sound of a shutter click 150 times over. I decided that it couldn't hurt to be a complete tourist for a day. It didn't. Brussels is a fun city to walk around in. High-point: The War and Weapons Museum. It was free and there was a different cannon every ten feet.
Low-point: The Mannekin-Pis. It's this 2 foot statue of a little boy peeing. Hey look everybody a little naked boy peeing! Big deal! Get over it!

Behold, photos:

Brussels: Take One

Slept in really long today. Had breakfast and then headed out for a walk around the neighborhood. Ended up in a beautiful park full of fall colors. In the evening I hopped on a tram and zipped across town to visit a family that I used to babysit for when they still lived in Vancouver. The main course was scalloped potatoes the way they should be : punctuated by sautéed onions and smothered in Raclette cheese. A fabulous strawberry crumble followed. Delicious!

Flight Log

5:00am (London time) – Security and baggage through Vancouver is a breeze. The waiting lobby is gorgeous. Things have changed a bit on the plane since I last flew on an international flight, four (?) years ago. Every seat has its own screen (even in economy class!!!) so you can pick your own movies, listen to “up-and-coming” Canadian bands as well as the mainstream, and view flight statistics all the time, which is exactly what the very sweet old Dutch (?) gentleman is doing. (He is however, drinking a lot of wine. We’ll see how that progresses.) Pretty sure every single woman on the plane who is under 75 is watching the Mamma Mia! film. From what I can see (peeking across the aisle) it looks like a movie about silly girls fretting over really stupid looking guys, with conveniently big muscles. Old-wine-drinking-Dutch-guy’s screen informs me that we are somewhere over Hudson Bay, just east of Churchill. I should also mention that I just completed an intriguing roast beef meal. The beef was edible, the cucumber salad was surprisingly good, but we won’t mention the green beans. Also I have discovered that on a plane, tea=colored water.

Somewhere south of Greenland – A million different sitting positions later, and sleep is officially out of the question. So while I am awake, its time to review some films. “Hancock” started out completely lame, got slightly better, and then ruined it all with a typical Hollywood ending. It had potential. “The Incredible Hulk”, however, was well, incredible. Crazy CGI, insane fights, a good dose of humor throughout, and no mutant poodles.

13:17 (London time) – I’m sitting in the waiting area in Heathrow Airport which is actually a massive mall that features (oh horror of horrors) Christmas décor! Lovely wreathes and trees and lights and stars. I’m sipping a mocha which is alright, but I have this feeling that I could have made it better (does that make me a snob?) The atmosphere in this airport is surprisingly pleasant. All the staff are super cheery, and even going through security you get a smile instead of an intimidating glare.

I need to wait another half an hour before the mysterious location of my boarding gate is revealed. How thrilling. This traveling just feels like stepping through various series of doors, with the space between cities barely registering.

21:31 (Brussels time) I’m sitting in the Cathy’s dining room, feeling refreshed after a shower, a cup of tea, and a hearty meal. The Cathy’s are friends of friends with massive hearts. They’re leaving tomorrow for a few days, but they are totally cool with me staying in their home while they are gone. Talk about the family of Christ. I think I’ll just wander around tomorrow with my camera and see what happens. Expect photos.

All Packed And Ready To Go

My bags are bulging with what will be my only property for the next seven months. I’m running around like a mad man remembering all those last minute things that should have been on my list of things to pack ages ago, but they somehow slipped through the cracks, and only now I’m noticing how vitally important it is. All petty last-minute anxieties aside, I’m one pent up body of excitement. I have no clue how I slept last night.

My wacky flight path starts at 6:05pm today. I land 9.5 hours later in the sprawling Heathrow Airport, where I have relaxed three hours to switch terminals and take off for Brussels, the capital of Belgium.

I have the pleasure of experiencing Brussels for three days, looking forward to the generous hospitality of friends of friends, visiting a family I used to babysit, and enjoying some Belgian waffles. And possibly pee on a church (I’ll post a photo later to explain).