Liberia, October 10

The Liberian Presidential election is tomorrow!!

So far, no word of anything untoward.

Today was a holiday (to celebrate the day before election day, I suppose) so Timmy and I organized the staff and Fellows and some of the local kids who spend a lot of time here with Nik to clean the yard. We then celebrated our productivity with a lovely swim in the sea. Tomorrow, (another holiday, for voting) after the of-age Fellows vote, we will re-paint the interior walls white to cover over all the grimy fingerprints.

Had a very interesting talk with one of the staff about the history of this house we are staying in and what happened in Robertsport during the civil war. Some notes: it was built in 1973 (the year before I was born). It is owned by a Liberian woman who currently lives in Georgia. Her mother, who passed away this past summer, was a nurse both here in Robertsport and in Georgia. When it was first built, it was a motel and the yard was full of coconut palms. The house was used by Charles Taylor’s forces until 1992, then was partially destroyed by rebel factions after they left.

He peppered his explanations with several inflammatory remarks about the current political situation and the war, that I will not repeat here. There is such a sense of how recent history is here. When we think of civil war, the American imagination places it at a safe distance (at least for me, a Northerner); here it was just a few years ago. Nik’s 12 year old friend Samuel was born during the war and his family fled by dug-out canoe on the sea.

Samuel and several other friends of Nik’s, and Timmy and I, and the two Strongheart dogs, took a march down the beach yesterday to a beach where sea turtles come to lay their eggs. Samuel then disappeared into the forest and emerged with a fruit called a monkey apple, which was quite delicious. One of Nik’s aspirations is to try as many exotic tropical fruits as he can, so he was well satisfied. There are also many wild almond trees here, you can eat the fruit and then once the pit dries you crack it open between two rocks and eat the nut inside.

On Saturday, I took a trip in to Monrovia to do the shopping. It is a 12 hour excursion on bad roads, quite exhausting and overwhelming. But so good to have a stocked house and everyone was quite grateful. The Fellow who came with me has come down with malaria, so he is slowly recovering from that. People here get malaria countless times so it tends not to be as seriously debilitating for adults as it is for Westerners.

Everyone has returned from the soccer tournament, the team that one of the Fellows is on made it to the Finals and came in second. Yay! He was approached by a coach in Monrovia who invited him to pursue joining a higher ranking team. We’ll see, but it was an honor in any case, since only 2 other players from all the teams were approached.

Lots more, of course, but thanks for reading and being a part of this experience with me!

Love,

Rachel