A trip to the Du-Port,Liberia's first port

Hi everybody... as our time in Liberia is looking shorter and shorter (leaving in just over a month), we've enjoyed getting to know this rich country and culture better and better even in recent weeks. We took our second trip to Kpatawee waterfall a few weeks ago; we posted our first visit there a couple years ago. And yesterday we visited the Du-Port--known as "Liberia's first Port". This is a canoe-only creekside drop-off point for firewood, charcoal, other goods, and passengers wanting to get to Margibi county or Marshall. It was used for more serious cargo back in the years before Monrovia's Freeport was opened up. When you drive down to the end of Duport Rd. there's a paved circular road that gets you within a few yards of the creek, which feeds into the "Du" river (thus the name Duport). This was unfortunately also an area where many innocent people were killed during the 1990 war, and in fact there is a marker there in the traffic circle indicating that it is the site of a mass grave in which victims from some of the killings and atrocities in the 1990 war are buried. We were told by Mr. Kpahn, one of the community elders, that a durable memorial marker is being planned for the site:

Over the last few years a Liberian who has been living in the US has been working to develop an area that is about 25 minutes (when going with the current... more like 50 minutes when fighting the current) away by canoe... So we decided to take the canoe ride over to "Mangrove Paradise" as it is being called. After a few minutes of tough negotiations (I started at $10 US, he started at $35) we wound up at $20. I suspect on a different day you maybe could get the ride for $15... Here we are in the canoe (Caleb was with us, but he was hiding behind his brother!).

It's a terrific ride--very quiet. We saw some beautiful birds--a couple of tiny malachite kingfishers, some type of cormorant, and a couple beautiful little waterfowl. We're told the birds are more numerous late in the afternoon. And the trees are absolutely amazing--terrific intertwined mangrove root systems all along the river. Sometimes I felt I'd been transported to one of Tolkien's swampy forests! And in fact, we spotted some lovely round trees that we have tentatively identified as the lost entwives!

Great Roots, huh???

When we finally reached the "island" where Mangrove Paradise is to be built, it was a beautiful area, but not much had been realized yet.... just a few half-constructed huts and shelters. So it has great potential. Highly recommended for the lovely canoe ride!

Surprise Meeting with Rick

This evening something quite amazing happened. I was working late at the doctors' office at the hospital, and around 6 pm, our receptionist, Rilley, told me that Dr. Befus' brother had stopped in, and when he saw I was busy he said he'd be around and would check back later. I expressed my disbelief to Rilley, and all she said was "He resembles Dr. Befus!" Dr. Steve Befus served here with SIM for many years, taught me much of what I know, and was the one person most responsible (besides the Lord) for ELWA Hospital's survival through the war years. Steve passed away in 2003 due to cancer. I was kind of trying to figure out what Steve's brother would be doing here, and if it really was true. A bit later I stepped outside of the front door to take a call and saw him across the parking area! He was tall and walked a bit like Steve--the resemblance was unmistakable. His name is Rick Befus, and he's part of a team here from a church called "Harvest Chapel" in the Chicago area (correct me if I got the name wrong). He's been teaching at a church just a couple miles from here this week, and returns to the U.S. tomorrow. We talked briefly. It was great to connect with him, and great to be reminded of Steve B. and his faithfulness for 20 years of service to His Lord. Thanks God for arranging that! --Rick

Newsletter from Sacras

Here is a link to download our latest Newsletter--it's kind of a family update with some prayer needs and praise items. Thanks for listening!
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0BxmrBCeqHyiLNzU0ODFjZGQtNWVlOC00NWU3LTkwYTItMGFjN2NjZmQyODli&hl=en

Mt Coffee, Liberia

Hey... Mt Coffee... sounds like someplace you dream about with Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts at the summit! But it's actually the location in Liberia where the big hydroelectric plant used to be... and may be again some day. The team that has been out doing work on the ELWA power system, headed up by Steve Kejr, wanted to visit the old hydro-power plant on a Sunday and so the Sacras and the Lairds joined them on a little "field trip"--we started out with church in Kollieman Town, Todee District, which was quite nice... and then the Pastor, James Richards guided us on our way to Mount Coffee where he'd arranged several locally knowledgeable folks to give us a guided tour around the old hydro plant, and then on a hike about 1.8 miles up the old riverbed to the site of the major dam that diverted water to the hydro plant. It was about the hottest day of the year so far, so that was a little challenge for us, but we had a great time! Enjoy a few pictures and comments from the trip:


Here it is from the outside, and then, below, from the inside. It had 4 huge turbines inside, and during the wet season,provided a big part of Monrovia's electricity.

The insiders' view of the turbine's "home".

Then on the hike up to the main dam, the boys enjoyed themselves along the way--caves and cliffs, streams and rocks!

And a little drama for mom's sake (she was enjoying a lady's retreat in Ghana)... Please don't worry, Jared had his feet on a nice little ledge, perfect for standing on... honest!

Finally we made it to the big dam, built in the 60s, and with lots of evidence of partnership... parts from Wisconsin, parts with "Bethlehem Steel" stamped on them. The costs of restoring this project would be great, but imagine the rewards! With 200 plus inches of rain per year, Liberia's hydropower potential is awesome!

And for me, the view of the wide St. Paul River from the dam made it all worth it! Praise God!

Computer Rice...

Well... if somebody told you there was a product out there called "computer rice", what would you say? I know what I'd say... "HOGWASH!". And yet, here it is. Yet another one of the strange things we encounter living in Liberia. Debbie bought it because she heard that this computer rice is especially good...
This certainly gives new meaning to the question "How many bits in a byte?"
I learned that this rice is made with the latest Intel parboiled chip... Each grain of this rice has inscribed on it 10,000,000,000 little ones and zeros... When you eat this rice the little microcomputer chip in the grain of rice enters the body and those who produced the rice can then track your whereabouts for a while... until of course the inevitable takes place...

Looking forward to some good comments on this one...

That satisfying "pop"

Hi... this is Rick...

On Tuesday morning, it was sprinkling, so I walked to work with an umbrella (rather than riding my bike). I had my backpack on my back with my planner and a bottle of water and a sandwich inside. About half way to work I noticed some pain in the middle of my back--more on the right side--and with each step the spasm seemed to get a little worse. My backpack seemed to get heavier with every step. I had been fine when I left the house, but by the time I got to the hospital I could barely get to my office without some serious discomfort. As distressing as the pain itself--which was distressing me enough--was trying to figure out what I had done to myself to have such a back spasm. I hadn't done any particularly hard work during the past few days. I had been on call over the weekend and done a couple of cesarean sections, but I couldn't recall anything out of the ordinary. I took 2 tylenol tabs and laid down on the examination table in my office for about 20 minutes, and it gradually calmed down enough for me to get up and start my rounds for the day.

A little later on I bumped into Moses, one of the operating room assistants, and I suddenly remembered how I had strained my back! I felt so much better just knowing that there was an adequate reason for this back spasm I'd had this morning. Three days earlier, on Saturday, we'd had an accident patient come in to the emergency room. He was in agony with his shoulder. He'd been the passenger on a motorcycle and they'd had a collision with a car. On exam, it was obvious he'd dislocated his shoulder. X-rays showed it wasn't broken, just dislocated, and so we took him to the OR to reduce the dislocated joint. I knew it would be a tough one, because the guy was pretty muscular. After 10 mg of valium and 30 mg of pentazocine (a narcotic) i.v. to sedate and relax him, we applied traction to the arm to try to reduce it. This is actually a pretty funny looking maneuver--The patient is lying on a stretcher. Person A holds a sheet wrapped under the patient's arm and pulls up, toward the head, while person B (me) places their foot in the patient's armpit and pulls the arm down and outwardly to allow the head of the humerus to pop back into place. We tried several times and I couldn't get anywhere! (imagine my face turning red at this point)... So I asked Moses to help me. He stood next to me, lifted his foot up and placed it right on top of mine in the gentleman's armpit, and we both hauled his arm as hard as we could. Even with the two of us pulling as hard as we could, it was three long hard desperate pulls before we felt that satisfying "pop" as the shoulder went back into proper alignment. The patient was able to go home a couple hours later in a sling and feeling much better!
And after having taken a couple more doses of tylenol and a couple hot bucket baths, I seem to be much better too!

I find myself wondering if this is how they do it in America these days.... : )

The House At Sugar Beach...

Hi... Well, we've had our summer "off" (Deb and the boys were back in the US for 7 weeks... and I joined them for the last 4) and we've been back in Liberia for a month. Work is all right, and the boys are chest-deep in homeschooling. And we've been reading a terrific Liberia book called "The House At Sugar Beach" by Helene Cooper. She is the White House correspondent for the New York Times. She was born in Liberia and grew up here til the age of 14, the daughter of Americo-Liberians. It's a well written book, which pretty honestly shows a lot of the inequities of pre-1980 Liberia. In 1980, Helene's uncle was executed along with other government officials as part of Samuel Doe's coup, and she left the country about a month later. The book is a memoir of Helene's life, climaxing with her return to Liberia in 2003 to seek out her long-lost foster sister, Eunice.

One of the interesting things to me has been just the familiarity of it all--Sugar Beach is just a few miles southeast down the coast from us here at ELWA, and there are a couple brief mentions of ELWA in the book. But I wanted to know exactly where it was. There's no exact spot known as "Sugar Beach" now--at least not well known--so after looking for options of places matching the description on Google Earth last night, I took a walk this morning before church to go looking for it, and here it is: The House at Sugar Beach, as it is today--run down, only half of it occupied, a monument to the history of this nation which is told so well in this book. In case you want to see our area... check out Google Earth... the house at sugar beach is at 6 deg 13'41'' N, 10 deg 40'03" W. My walk this morning (one way) was about 2.4 miles of coastline.... see if you can find us at ELWA on Google Earth... we're waving!

The House at Sugar Beach, as it is today (picture taken from the ocean side...I'm standing at the tide line).