Where On Google Earth Am I?

This is gift to all you technically enabled people, specifically does that know how to use Google Earth. Below is a link to a .kml file which you can open up with Google Earth. It will show you numerous yellow thumb tacks that highlight the locations of various places around Liberia that I have mentioned in this blog. Click on the yellow thumb tack and you will get a little blurb about said place. Enjoy!

To download, you will need to right-click the link and select "save link as" and then save it on your computer. Clicking directly won't work.

StophLiberia.kml

Because Mom Said It Was Ok to Post a Photo Without Text

Zupfe

Last weekend I decided to make Zupfe. Zupfe, for the un-informed, is one of the best things on this planet. It is so good, in fact, that you should phone my Dad right now and ask him for the recipe and then make a loaf.

After having Dad explain the finer points of the fine art of baking Zupfe, I started mixing and kneading the dough. I had some anxiety over it as it felt a bit too firm, but it rose gloriously. I cut the dough in half, braided it, brushed on the egg yolk, and popped it into the oven.

As I watched it slowly grow and glow golden-brown in the oven I swelled up with pride, feeling honored to be part of such a rich Swiss heritage that included delicious things as Zupfe (and Ovomaltine).

I checked up on it a while later and noticed that the flame in the little propane oven had gone out. I looked at the dial and noticed that it was turned off. Someone had shut off the oven while my Zupfe was inside!

I must have looked at the wrong dial, because when I lit a match and went to re-light the oven, a ball of fire the size of a beachball came wooshing out straight at my face.

When I shook off my suprise the first thing I did was feel for my eyebrows. Thank God! Still there. Then I looked at my arms. Oh no. Oh no. All that remained of almost 18 years of precious arm-hair growth was stubble and charred remains. Feeling around my head I realized that I also manged to reduce my hairline considerably.

One of the best aromas on this planet is that of a freshly baked Zupfe. One of the worst is that of burnt hair. Half a bottle of shampoo and three packs of frozen veggies later, I finally cut off a slice of my now baked to golden perfection Zupfe. I mixed up some honey and butter, spread on a little and started to eat. As soon as I bit down into that little slice of heaven I realized it was all worth it.

Didn't turn out as nice as Dad's, but I figured it was ok for a first time.

Surroundings

Good Good Friday

On Good Friday some people in Monrovia celebrated by making effigies of Judas and then beat it to shreds with sticks. Only in Liberia.

I was in a foul mood on Friday. For some reason everything irked and irritated me. It was unusually hot so I was unusually sweaty which also means I was unusually uncomfortable. I felt annoyed by people's mannerisms or a side remark or any other trivial thing. I was letting all these little things percolate inside of me when God hit me over the head with this:

"But Jesus made no reply, not even to a single charge."

The one man who had most reason to cry out accusingly at the very people he had come to save, did not say a single word.

I think sometimes we often are so focused on the physical brutality of the cross, that we miss just how dark this day really was. Human history has lots of examples of humans who have suffered greater physical pain then the cross. The real suffering was in carrying all of humanity's sin. The weight of that is so great that we can't really comprehend it. It was a weight so heavy that it caused Jesus, God made flesh, to cry out "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"I think back on my moments of greatest guilt and shame and remember how burdened I felt. When I realize that that is only a drop in the ocean of human transgression, I start to get a glimpse of what really happened at Golgotha.

What follows next is, in my opinion, the most beautiful and understated passage in the Bible.

"At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom."

Because of the cross we have the privilege of walking right into the Holy of Holies and start a beautiful relationship with God, creator of the universe.

Awesome.

Into The Bush

I quickly threw a bunch of clothes into a bag, made sure my camera and camcorder were charged, jumped into some shoes and rushed out the door. Thanks to a last minute plan, I was leaving smoggy Monrovia behind for a week and heading off into the bush.

A large part of what EQUIP Liberia, the NGO I’m volunteering for, does is to train community health ambassadors. It’s a pretty sweet program. People volunteer for a series of workshops and trainings stretched over a 15 month period. The trainings are all about disease prevention and basic hygiene. Most importantly the CHA’s (as they are called) are equipped to carry what they’ve learned back to their communities and share it through giving health talks, performing dramas, and living out what they preach. Its been a program with HUGE success. When you drive through towns where CHAs are active, you can see a drastic change.

The reason I am explaining this is because I was rushing off into the bush to be a part of three different graduations of these community health workers. My job was to take photos and video for future use in newsletters and promotional material, but that was really just an excuse to get out to some of the more remote parts of Liberia and meet some amazing people.

Destination number one was Karnplay. It was a squeaky clean town by Liberian standards. There were no piles of burning garbage on the side of the road and a lot of the large trees had been left in the midst of all the buildings. The children were unusually polite and serious, too shy to even laugh at my obvious whiteness. We stopped at one house. The small 4 year old boy standing outside took one look at Chris, my fellow Canadian volunteer, and booked it inside, apparently scared that “Jesus” had come.

(school children in Karnplay)

The ceremony was beautiful. It was complete with dramas and a song with the lyrics “Diarrhea is not fun so follow my advice / Wash your hands after poo-poo / Wash your hands after poo-poo / Diarrhea is no fun so follow my advice.” There was one graduate who had started his training years earlier but had to flee with the onset of the civil war. He had faithfully come back ten years later to complete what he began, because of his desire to serve his community. There were younger graduates thirsty for the knowledge, and elderly looking for a way to serve the towns where their grandchildren and great-grandchildren now live.

After the ceremony, the graduates brought out a “little” gift for us EQUIP staff as a thank you. My jaw dropped as they carried in seven bunches of bananas, two bunches of plantain, two pineapples, a whole bag of avocadoes, a pumpkin, and some chickens.
Karnplay was also the place where our car decided not to start. One failed push-start and an opportunistic mechanic later, we were back on the road.

Our Land Cruiser was now packed with goods, the chickens peeing all over the floor and the bananas shifting around precariously on the roof rack. We rolled and bounced our way down the rough dirt road towards Garplay. It seems like all the towns in the area end with “-play.”

About three hours and just as many sketchy log bridges later we pulled into Garplay. It was another gorgeous town, on a slight hill so that you had a view of the expansive rainforest around it. Since the ceremony here wasn’t until the next day, Ma Ester, the regional CHA trainer kindly put us up in her round house.

Soon the kids started to gather, wrestling in the yard. One boy started singing spontaneously and we all held our breath, because it was the most beautiful and fragile voice. After he finished we all clapped and he got really shy, but he sung later for us.

When a good crowd of kids had assembled, I pulled out a pack of bright orange balloons that might very good friends from home had sent me. The kids went nuts. Soon Garplay was filled with groups of children running pell-mell after balloons.

(the children of Garplay)

Around the soup pot that night we had an interesting discussion. We were talking about the different types of meat that the Liberians eat. We had covered the usual suspects like goat, ground-hog, snake, and monkey when Paygar, our Liberian friend said, “But the best meat of all is the chimpanzee. I love the chimpanzee!”
Chris, my fellow volunteer, was quick to interject. “But the chimpanzee is almost extinct. It almost finished!”

“Then we will finish it!”, declared Paygar with a large amount of pride.

That night I sat on the porch and played guitar, a new found skill of mine. Once in a while, and it happens quite rarely, you find yourself in a place void of worries or concerns. That night, sitting on that porch in that little village of Garplay, under a canopy of endless stars, and singing songs for God, I felt completely at peace. Everything was the way it should be. Sarah and Chris, the two other volunteers, came out to join me and we just passed around the guitar and worshipped into the night.

The next day’s ceremony was a smashing success. More songs, more dramas, and more beautiful people.

We headed off to our last destination, burdened with some more plantains. The road was long and soon we found ourselves driving in the dark on a bumpy road, getting pin-balled from side to side. We had just navigated another treacherous log bridge when we ran into real trouble.
A local and his machete proved to be providential and in a matter of minutes he had us through. Bonglay ended up being completely willed with sheep. Not the white, fluffy type on rolling green hills, but the matted-wool, floppy eared, dusty type that poop everywhere. Jerry the regional CHA trainer, a big man with a bigger voice, made us feel welcome and showed us to our beds.

Our beds ended up being in the most peculiar and pretty house in Liberia. Here in this remote jungle town an older couple had carefully nurtured an immaculate dwelling. The walls were covered with an eclectic mix of paintings, family photos, and framed shots of the London Tower guards. I even found a VW poster in one corner of the kitchen. A beautiful queen-sized bed was a welcome site.

Under the morning light Bonglay appeared as a town very much alive. The ceremony was big and noisy. We had to make it all the way back to Ganta that day, so after a quick bowl of rice with groundhog (which, by the way, is delicious) we jumped into the Land Cruiser and headed back.

Coming back out from the bush I felt like I left a little part of me there, under those stars surrounded by those trees and all those beautiful people.

(cooking a cassava snake)