|
|
Well, it's been a long time since I've posted anything. Months, really. Sorry-o, as a Liberian would say. I received an email the other day that just made me laugh out loud. I bought some African jewelery to take home as presents a street vendor, and because he was extremely generous, I felt obliged to give him my email address (also, I felt it was safe as I knew I was leaving the country in 3 days, at that time). To my surprise, he actually wrote me an email, and because it amused me so, I thought I'd share it with you.
Hi Kristen. It is so unbeleiveable about
the way I can't just stop thinking about you since I set my eyes on you
for the first time. Things has not been the same way for me I must
confess to you this day but I just have to live with that because you
are not around me. I want us to be best of
friends so that we can be in touch with each other and to communicate
constantly. This will make us care and thinking of one another and know
the true meaning of friendship. Hoping to get a fast and quick response from you as soon as you get through reading this mail. Thank you o-ma. Good day Chin0
Wow. It's so odd reading emails from Liberians because they sound almost as flowery in their writing as the Chinese do, and the Chinese are known to have written some pretty ridiculous prose. Ask for samples (see, especially, letters from "Leeco") and you'll soon know what I mean.
Anyway, who doesn't enjoy a hearty guffaw at someone else's expense?
Come on now, be honest. Try to rise above your suppressed feelings of polite protestations, and admit to the fact that reading fluff like this, without due justification as to its intensity, is downright grin-inducing.
Toodles!
| | |
|
Just an FYI, seeing as we're in a third-world country in Africa, work is a little different here. 1. Heat. At least 90 degrees plus 100% humidity. 2. Machinery....or the lack thereof. All labor is, indeed, manual. Oh, so manual.
I sweat a lot. We drink like 5 liters of water a day just to stay averagely hydrated. The men sweat like I've never seen anyone sweat before. It's kinda gross at times. It literally pours off them.
So we're building a clinic in a village just outside of Monrovia. We're building it from the ground up, using no machinery, and limited tools and equipment. I work with about 20 other men, and I LOVE IT!!!
Here's a list of some of the work I've been able to do so far:
1. Digging. Lots and lots of shoveling. Like 4 days' worth, at least.
2. Hauling 110lb cement bags from the bed of the truck to the tool shed. Phew! Now those are heavy! I also realized how unflattering my near-weight is when I have to carry it in pillow-form.
3. Bending steel.
4. Carrying 10 m boards across my shoulders for the building.
5. Laying bricks and filling in the mortar.
6. Last but not least, drawing water from the village well at the bottom of the site, to be carried to where the men are mixing cement by hand. I think I drew water for like 3 days, and it's harder work than it sounds like it would be. I liked it though, as I have found myself liking almost all of this manual labor (except the 4th day of digging).
Partly finished with digging the foundation to the clinic we are building in a village (no machines!)
I know it looks like we're just two big kids playing in the sand, but no, we're actually smoothing some freshly poured concrete. It's just a bad angle. No, really. We ARE working....
The men mixing the concrete by hand (or shovel). Hard work, let me tell you!
Me, about to begin some serious welding!
After a long day at work, I like to unwind by eating cream of mushroom soup straight out of the can with a shoehorn. You know. The uge.
All in a day's work, eh, comrade?
| | |
|
Nor I, for that matter, until I got here.
Bathing and clothes-washing time.....
Pumping water from a village well.......a daily activity for the women here.
Children gathered around a house during the midday heat.
A 'filling station', i.e. gas station. So common here. This is what a gas station in a third-world country looks like. Check out the giant jars of pink fluid....yep, that's the fuel they sell, watered down to make a profit.
A girl carrying the day's water on her head from some well to her home nearby.
Joy sure does a lot here.....service station, beauty 'saloon', and pharmacy, all in one. Don't know which one to trust. I'm sure it's all quality service.
Public transportation. A donated van from some European country, packed full of passengers (some as full as 50 people at times), and 'windows' cut into the sides of the Jam-Jam, as they're called, to enable the passengers some fresh air.
One of the many HIV/AIDS awareness posters the govt has put up to try to educate the masses.....
Another one of the many, (rather graphic, don't you think? -especially since they're hand-painted!) posters about rape, another big problem in this country, chiefly due to rebel soldiers during the 14-year civil war. Sad.
| | |
|
So, many of you may not know this about me, but.....I have been harboring a deep desire to learn to weld for quite some time now. Great was my joy, you can well imagine, when I found myself friends with a dutchie by the name of Arjan who was, in fact, a welder on the ship and who did, in fact, take time to teach me his trade.
Friggen sweet!!!, is all I have to say to that! Talk about friends with benefits....REAL benefits!
I'm a weldist now!
| | |
|
