Liberia, November 6

Greetings!

A quick update...

Nik and I went to Monrovia Saturday, his first trip in to the capital. He hasn't been willing to go in for previous grocery shopping trips, which take all day and involve at least 6 hours of driving, but the enticement of pizza and ice cream was finally too much.

He was a good traveler, as usual, plying our taxi driver with questions about monkey sightings and getting an interesting story about the driver hitting a crocodile in the road and taking it home on the top of his car.

Three hours later, we made the transition to another taxi just outside of Monrovia, and made our way over the bridge into the city. We got out and managed to be jostled along the streets, the sidewalks full of vendors, to Stop and Shop, which is owned by a Lebanese man and strives to be as American as possible. Nik was in awe of the canned tuna and candy selection. And the donut was on the house.

We then had several errands to run, and in one electronics store, the owner allowed Nik to sit and watch an American cartoon movie while Emmanuel and I finished our shopping, buying fresh fruits and veggies out on the street from street vendors. I found avocados (called butter pears here), green beans, carrots, cabbage, zucchini, cilantro - I was in heaven. We bought our items and left them with one of the vendors so we could return later for them on our way out of town. Notice the theme of leaving precious items in the care of strangers....and in all instances, the trust was well placed. We made our way back to Nik in the electronics store, and I struck up a conversation with the owner, who was Indian, explaining that I was teaching yoga. We talked yoga shop for a while, and he may bring his family out to Strongheart in the next few months to enjoy the beach.

When I asked about good pizza in Monrovia, he phoned his friend, also an Indian, who runs the Palm Hotel, and sent us to his friend to take good care of us. The pizza, according to Nik, was delicious, and I had a fresh salad and delicious Middle Eastern eggplant dish. Heaven.

Then the challenge of getting all of our boxes and propane tanks and fresh veggies back to Robertsport...not an easy task, but after two more taxi rides, and several more hours, we arrived near home by 8 pm, tho the taxi would not take us to our house because of the horrendous state of our road, so we had to carry all the items back to the house on our heads.

Luckily, we had found a bootleg version of Tom and Jerry on the street, so Nik was well entertained as we made our way back on the terrible road back to Robertsport.

Thank God for portable DVD players.

The moon is waxing, and a walk on the beach under the moonlight was just the thing to heal the bumps and bruises of our adventure.

love,

Rachel

ps – nothing brings 10 year old boys together across the cultural and language divide like old Tom and Jerry cartoons. There are guffaws and cackles coming from the next room from a group of kids as I write this….