Here's another

Here is the second of my Liberian moments to share with you...

Last week I took Cheri Shea, wife of Alan, to town for her first shopping trip. I also had quite a bit to do and Lisa Kejr was with us. We were running a bit late for something- probably just that I wanted to get home so my househelpers could feel free to leave. But I try to not be in a hurry when I drive in Liberia - there are too many opportunities to get into an accident and the extra 4-5 minutes it takes to drive sanely won't really bother anyone. Someday we should take a video of what it's like to drive here and post it.

Anyway, we were just leaving a congested area of town when a traffic officer stopped me at the intersection to let someone turning left into the traffic. We have exactly one working stoplight in Liberia, so most of the traffic control is done by policemen. By and large, these officers put in long days doing a rather tedious and thankless job with a pretty good attitude. But after I stopped and the other car entered the traffic, the officer signalled me to pull over. Oh no, what is he going to say that I did (after all, I stopped in plenty of time at his signal...) I was grumbling behind my closed window but I pulled over. He strolled up to the car as I let the window down and greeted him in as friendly a manner as I could muster. "What is your name?" he asked, and I replied with my name, "Mrs. Debbie Sacra". "Thank you," he said, "my name is Frances - I see you passing here every day and I wanted to know you. Have a nice day." Lisa, Cheri and I just cracked up - he pulled me over out of curiosity? To introduce himself by name? I told him he really scared me, pulling me over like that, but why feel bad? Liberians are friendly, maybe to a fault, but overall, it makes Liberia a nice place to live.

A Liberian moment

I've had several Liberian moments that I (Debbie) want to share with you in this and future posts. They have been moments that made me laugh and think how much I enjoy getting to live here (sometimes).

In order to understand this one, you have to know that in Liberia, this is called a lemon.
In America, we call it a tangerine or maybe a mandarin orange.

And a lemon is called a lime because the limes that we have here are key limes and they start out green and turn yellow when they get ripe. So all the sour fruits, whether they are green or yellow, whether they are the regular citrus lemons or limes, are called limes.

So here is the story: one of our favorite powdered drink mixes (like Kool-aid) here is the "lemon" (not tangerine) flavor of Foster and Clark's. Best powdered lemonade I've ever had. But since about June, it hasn't been available (a normal phenomenon here - things come and go and come again later). So everywhere I go in town, if I see someone selling Foster and Clark's drink mixes, I ask if they have lemon. Last week, I was in my car waiting for someone and a guy with a pushcart loaded with drink mixes walked by (Melanie Goodnow once said, if you can't find something in the store, don't worry, sooner or later someone will walk by selling it). So I asked him, "do you have lemon?" Now the package for what I call lemon says LEMON (just like that in all caps) right on it. But what does he pull out? "MANDARIN" - tangerine - and that's what it says right on the package. But the picture shows..... a lemon, as he sees it. I laughed - sure, I know that is what YOU call a lemon, but I want the one that SAYS lemon on the envelope. Oh, he says, you mean you want lime, the sour one. Yes, I know it's sour like a lime, but it SAYS lemon! Yes, but, you're in Liberia and that's how we call it, no matter what the package says. "Mandarin" is lemon, and "Lemon" is lime.

And this is all in English! I'm sure that translating all that into a different language would really be a recipe for confusion! But it was good for a laugh last week - and I had a good one. Hope you've had at least a little chuckle over this too. More later.....

What to post?

I'm sitting here, thinking I need to post something, just to let you know we are still here. We are. And rainy season has truly arrived. Larry and Sandi Dick are with us for a couple extra days because their flight was canceled due to heavy wind and rain for the last 24 hours. I expect you folks on the east coast of the USA should be looking for a tropical storm to form once this gets out over the ocean. Hopefully it won't become a hurricane. Rick says that if it does, it should be named Lauren for our friend whose beachside wedding got rained on yesterday - it was nice all afternoon until 4, and that was exactly when the wedding was due to start. It was a holiday - the Liberian "Independence" Day - see my blog from last year for more info on that.

The wonders of the internet never cease. Earlier this week, I discovered that our internet connection was good enough to listen to BBC's "Focus on Africa" online. Made me wonder - could I listen to US radio? In particular.....to hear the Red Sox games? It's been killing me to miss the great season they are having (62-40, best record in MLB). Turns out that yes, I can. Isn't that cool? Of course, it means I stay up too late listening to the games, especially if it's a good one. It's kind of weird to hear the RKO announcers and ads for Dunkin Donuts, d'Angelo's Sandwich Shop and Giant Glass (1-800-54GIANT), sitting here in Africa. But it's great not to miss the fun. I remember back in 1988 when we were here and one night I caught Johnny Most announcing a Celtics game on Armed Forces Radio- it was such a sweet moment to get a little bit of home. We're pretty spoiled now with email and internet access. I guess that means the Red Sox Nation extends even to West Africa.

Max is just with us for a couple more weeks- he'll go back August 12th and begin classes on the 16th. We're planning to send the other boys to the new American School, but they may not start till later in September because the building is being renovated. I warned them that we are going to start "school"- some Math and maybe writing - soon after Max leaves so they don't have too much down time. But they won't mind I think. We're running out of things to do in the rain.

So that's a quick note. Just a glimpse of everyday life here.

ELWA Academy Closing Program July 7, 2007

Here's a little glimpse of the "chaos" of an elementary school closing program. Singing, talking, dancing, marching, dodging in to get a picture- everyone is moving. But as Rick once told Do Young, if you are going to live in Africa, you have to learn to love a little chaos!

The quality of the upload was a little disappointing. If I can do better, I will make a note.

Mystery Photo number 3 Revealed

Well, it's time to let you know about mystery photo number three. We did have some correct guesses--I guess we're being too easy!

It was a type of termite nest, but in a rather "fungal" formation, located up in the woods behind a waterfall where we went during our vacation in Bong county last month. We had a great day at the waterfall, which was beautiful and refreshing as well as lots of fun. We went there with some new friends the Lippys who are Baptist missionaries up in Gbarnga, and who have six kids (3 boys and 3 girls) whose ages overlap ours pretty well.

We also got to visit Rainbow Town, a sort of mission station with an orphanage for about 90 kids of ages from 1 year to 18 years, and a school which educates both the orphans and kids from nearby villages. Our friends Jackson and Harriet Quenisear manage Rainbow Town with help from several different ministry groups. This pic is of Jackson and Harriet's son, Germeni, with Max and Caleb, looking at the fish pond.


Lotsa love from Rick and Deb.... more soon....

The best tool in the world

You probably think that this would be Rick writing. But it's Debbie. I wish I was a poet - if I were, I would write a poem called "Ode to the Vise-Grip". Last summer when we were home, it was June, so we bought Rick some tools for Father's Day. I'm not really very educated about tools, but I saw a set of vise-grips and they looked cool so I got them. The pretty blue and yellow handles caught my eye I think. What an outstanding tool! We have used these handy dandy devices to unstick several very stuck things in the last couple weeks. And things tend to really get stuck here - between the high humidity and high salt content in the atmosphere, stuck stuff is just part of life. So this is a very silly blog entry, but I just want to recommend the lowly vise grip to all of you - it's not a power tool, but it is a powerful tool.

It wasn't poetry, but it was kind of poetic, don't you think? I bet Rick could turn it into a real poem, but he wasn't interested.

Mystery Photo number 3!!!

Well, we're back from our very quiet, maybe even a tad boring, vacation in Gbarnga. But it was just what we needed.... some down time. System shutdown for a little maintenance!

We'll tell you more about it soon, and share some more pictures, but at 11:15 at night, all we have time for is MYSTERY PHOTO number 3, taken during a walk in the woods. That's Jared's hand next to it. WHAT IS IT?

--looking forward to hearing from all of you! Love, Rick