Most Gracious Hosts

The people in the villages were the most gracious hosts. They offered us their best of everything for food and lodging. They have very little by our standards, but what they have, they offered to us. It was very humbling, and I also realized that we could not have survived without their generosity.

The villages varied in size from about 600 to 2000 people. They are farmers that live in town and walk to the farm every day. The smallest village only had about 20 houses, for 600 people. The houses are usually made of sod, with a thatch roof. We tried our hand at making the thatch roof - that's the photo above. The lucky ones have a corrugated metal roof (they call it zinc). They also weave a mat for the ceiling. They do have wooden doors, with a nail in the center for a handle. That reminded me of a hobbit door (from Lord of the Rings). They are also rather short doors and low ceilings. The bath house and toilet (if they have one) are outside. The best bath houses have a gravel floor and bamboo all around, with a cloth door. It's open to the stars. I guess if it's raining, you get a better shower. They use a bucket of water and a pitcher to pour it on. In the cooler weather (less than 80 degrees!), they warmed the water for us over a charcoal fire. That felt nice. I got where I really enjoyed the bath. We were usually very hot and sweaty after walking a long way in the jungle. It felt so good to be clean - at least somewhat clean. Our concept of clean sort of changed! We only brought about 2 changes of clothes, so I had a hiking set and a sleeping set of clothes. After the bath I put on the sleeping set of clothes. I washed my socks and underwear during my bath and hung them to dry. I bought the fast drying nylon stuff for the trip. It worked out pretty well. If it was cool at night, we used the Indonesian sarongs that we had brought, for covers. They have a similar piece of cloth here, called a lapa. I rolled up my extra clothes in a pant leg for a pillow.

I have to say, the worst part of village life is the lack of toilets! I am now an official member of the World Toilet Organization (no joke), and I'm trying to change that. They usually just "go in the bushes", which is rather unsanitary. When the rainy season comes, all of that washes into the streams. Then, lots of people get sick from drinking the creek water. The filters will remove the bacteria and parasites, so that will help a lot.

The food was good, especially after a long hike in the jungle. They always served rice. In fact, they say if you haven't eaten rice during the day, you haven't eaten. Usually, we had some kind of soup with the rice. Stan, the other volunteer, always asked for extra pepper. We call him Indiana Stan. He is really amazing. The soup consisted of "bush meat" or chicken. They have lots of chickens in the villages. The bush meat was what they hunted in the jungle. We really liked the porcupine, but didn't care a lot for monkey meat. Did your mother ever tell you to finish your plate, because there are starving children in Africa? Well, she was right. Malnutrition is very bad here. When we were finished eating, someone always cleaned our plates. And, they eat all parts of the animal - bones, skin, and all.

Well, there is a little insight into village living. They have no electricity or running water. The water is just dipped in a bucket from a stream. But now they have filters to make it safe for drinking! Thanks to all of you for supporting that effort!

Water Well Plans

We are making plans to return to 2 villages to install water wells for them. During our assessment trek, we found that 8 of the 13 villages we visited do not have a well. Of the 5 that do have wells, 4 have wells that are not working! Oh, the people need so much help.
We currently have funds for only 2 wells, so we have selected Gbeliekei and Lowuma. The villagers in Lowuma have taken it upon themselves to build a clinic and a toilet. They have no well, so we want to put one in for them. The villagers will dig the well to about 45 ft by hand. We are bringing a well expert from Monrovia. There is no road into the area, so we will bring materials to the end of the road, and the villagers will have to carry the materials on their heads along the forest paths. It will take them about 8 to 10 hours one way. We have a total of 50 sacks of cement, two hand pumps, tools, and various accessories. We are having trouble arranging transportation to the end of the road. The cost is outrageous, and we don't want to use all the funds for transportation. Please pray that we find something reasonable. The price is high due to the condition of the road. There are numerous log bridges to cross, and only a pickup or Land Cruiser can make it. So, we're looking at about 5 trips from Monrovia.

Distributing Water Filters

We visited 13 villages in the Kuwaa Chiefdom, or Belle District of Liberia, over a 2 week period. They don't have road access, so we walked.

We distributed about 90 of the 100 Sawyer Point One Water filters that we brought over. Most of these people do not have any clean drinking water available. They drink directly from the stream, which is, of course, contaminated. These filters are membranes and they remove parasites and bacteria, making it safe to drink. The people were so happy to receive them! Thanks to all of you who donated towards them! One filter has the potential to save many lives. If you didn't have the chance to donate towards the purchase of one, please see the item about donations on the blog - there's still time! We hope to bring them more.

In the mornings, we would have meetings in the center of town, in a "palava". They have a formal type of meeting process, with introductions of the chief, the elders, and us, the guests. They presented us with a "white heart" gift, to honor us. This was a coin, some kola nuts that they chew, and sometimes a live chicken. We also presented them with a white heart gift. Then, they told us their news in the town, and we told them what brought us there. We helped them assemble a filter and then used it. We used these filters for our own drinking water during our trek.

We're Baaack!!

Just a quick post until the laptop battery dies...

We're back from our 16 day trek, where we walked for about 47 hours and visited 13 Kuwaa villages. We distributed about 90 water filters to give the people safe drinking water. It was such a great experience. Everything went very well. We'll add more later!

Happy New Year - Liberian style

For New Year's Eve, Bekki and I were fortunate to join a missionary, Bette, at a church service at St. Andrews Lutheran Church in Monrovia. It started at 9 pm and was similar to our church services, with some liturgy, bible readings, and hymns. They use the old red hymnals. They are very animated and sing very loudly. They also have a responsive saying that goes:
leader: God is good.
congregation: All the time.
Leader: all the time.
Congregation: God is good.

The Liberians don't usually request things in their prayers. They usually thank God for various things. There was about 1.5 hrs of testimonials, where people got up and talked about what they were thankful for. It was things like good health, just being able to cross the street safely, finding a job, finding the church. They were all dresssed up in colorful clothes, and the women wore wrappings on their hair. Some of the men referred to God as "She"! We didn't think it was appropriate to take photos, so I'm sorry but we don't have any.
At midnight, they all shook hands, and then we made a procession outside into a field, with candles. We all stood in a circle around the Pastor and prayed and sang. This was the one time in the year that they make prayer requests. We wrote our requests on pieces of paper and they piled them up in the middle of the circles, with candles surrounding them. Then they started the papers on fire. My request was for the success of the Kuwaa Mission. I thank you all for praying for our health and safety, and I ask you to also pray for our success.

Happy New Year to you all.

visit to the beach

We went with Eb and Janelle to the beach near the Guest House. It was nice, relatively clean, with people relaxing, and some people doing gymnastics types of things. Here is a photo of 3 boys doing stunts. They were having lots of fun with it, building human pyramids, swinging each other around. We got our feet wet, but it's not advisable to swim because of the parasites in the water.

The kids liked getting their photos taken. They would keep trying to get in the front of the pack. Then, they always wanted to see themselves on the digital display. They have nothing, but they are so happy.

Be thankful for your water

I appreciate our good water in the US even more than ever now. A nice shower at the end of a hot, sweaty day feels like heaven. Here in Monrovia, most people don't have running water. They get about 2 jugs of water a day from a community well. We took a photo of one. They have to pay for the water, and they have to haul it. They also have water towers downtown where vendors come to fill similar jugs and deliver them with a cart. Here, where we are staying at the Lutheran Church in Liberia Guest House, they have a reservoir on the roof that gravity feeds to the bathrooms. Usually, the water runs out about mid-day, so we fill a plastic water container and dip out of it. We pour the cool water on ourselves with a pitcher to get a shower. It takes some getting used to a cold shower, but after the heat of the day, it feels good. When we go to the Kuwaa region, they don't even have well water. They bathe in the rivers and ponds. At the end of the dry season, which goes from November to April, the puddles get pretty dirty. They also harbor disease. When I come back from there, I will even appreciate Monrovia water!