New Kru Town

After a night of little sleep, we were up and out of the house by 7am on our way to a new clinic at New Kru Town, which is a suburb of Monrovia. We drove for 45 minutes in a hospital van that picked up staff on our way there. It is in an area a lot like the slums of West Point, shanties with tin roofs crowded together with people selling their wares out in front.
We heard Viola speak, who is charge of the PMTCT (Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission) program. Her audience was filled with young girls ages 13 and up who were pregnant. Some had been there before and some for the first time. She explained all about how HIV was passed from Mother to child and how testing and treatment could have a big effect on whether or not their unborn child would contract the disease from them.
Later in the afternoon, we started taking an inventory of all the larger equipment in the hospital. We went through all the departments and looked for serial numbers, etc. on everything from computers to ultrasound machines. This hospital is located about 150 yards from the Atlantic Ocean and we are still in disbelief about the damage that the sea air and humidity can cause. Almost everything we looked at had rust and horrible corrosion on it. Equipment such as X –Ray machines are rendered useless after merely five years. There is so much broken equipment laying around that I would be totally discouraged if I worked here, but the Liberian people are used to being very patient and they seem to have an eternal optimism that something might start working again, so they better not throw it out just yet. We are slowly peeling the layers of the onion back as we find out more about how things work over here.

Interesting Observations
Food – Palm oil is orange and used in just about everything. They eat the greens of the potato plant as well as the potato. We usually have rice with every meal and some kind of meat or fish or both with gravy and most of the time we can’t tell what it is until we put it on top of our rice and cut into it. We have had meatloaf with a boiled egg in it with potatoes, omelets with ham and french fries, chicken and meatballs in gravy, etc. Dr. Sanvee’s sister cooks for us and the driver’s deliver it at mealtime or within an hour or two of mealtime. The fruit we have eaten includes oranges with very green tough skins (but pretty good fruit inside) and bananas. I have started adding a fruit salad to our dinner menu to give us a little more variety. We did get a tossed salad the other night, but made the decision not to eat it for fear of getting sick. Any leftover food goes to our driver, which he is glad to get. As of yet, we have not had fufu (cassava) which I hear is no treat and all starch and we have not seen barracuda (which they buy dried), but I hear could show up.
Stores – Everyone here has something to sell. You can buy lingerie out of a wheelbarrow (which is a moving store), bolts of beautiful cloth, trinkets, nuts and bolts, coconuts and just about everything in between. Sometimes it is in a big plastic bowl on top of someone’s head or in a large shipping container turned into a storefront. We found out that vendors can find you anywhere. The other day we had a knock at our door and it was a man asking for Dave. He had talked to him at the supermarket about his carvings and he saw our van marked St. Joseph’s. Sure enough he showed up at our door, selling his pieces. Yes, we bought several carvings (it is really hard to say no, although with so many asking it is getting easier) On another day, Shelly and I were found by another man who came especially to the hospital to sell us bracelets. We told him we were not interested, but practically had to hurry to our house so he wouldn’t know where we lived. The word is out that there are white people at the hospital with money.
At the supermarket they had a good selection of food, but basically no dairy products except a few cheeses. It did however have beer, wine and a huge assortment of powdered milk. Quite a bit of what we brought could have been purchased here.
Weather – We have had heavy rain with thunder and lightning, light rain, cloud cover and bright sun. All with lots of humidity, but it has never been during a time that it bothered us or we had to be out in it. We have not opened our umbrellas, yet.
Hospital Compound – There is a hospital, maintenance buildings, warehouses, housing for doctors and some nurses and their families, canteen, housing for the Brothers & Sisters of St. John, a coconut grove, a morgue, laundry, and after school care for worker’s children and visitor’s children. Along the road to the entrance are various vendors selling their wares. Everywhere there is vegetation, including trees and bushes with beautiful flowers.

Home of Peace and Joy

Today Dr. Sanvee arranged for the women in our group to visit Missionaries of Charity (Mother Thersea’s order), where the Sisters of Charity are called to serve Jesus in Monrovia. It is a place where adults and children can go who have HIV or AIDS to get drugs, food and care. Families can bring in their children who are malnourished and leave them there while they are nursed back to health. There are five sisters who serve there, two of which we met and spent a little time with. One was from India and the other from Connecticut. It was a pleasure to talk to Sister Mareja from Connecticut and be able to understand everything she said. She gave us a tour of the men and women’s ward and then we got to go up and see the children, which was the highlight of the trip.
There were probably 25 children, mostly toddlers with a few older ones mixed in who were hanging out before lunch time. We were able to hold them and talk to those that wanted to talk, take pictures and pass out small gifts. One boy could not believe that I had not brought balloons and kept asking me where they were. I had stickers, hair things for girls and rubber bracelets to pass out. At one point, I told them I had nothing else to pass out and someone reached in my outside bag pocket and found gum, which brought big smiles.
Lunch was fascinating. They brought all the children into another room, took off the small ones’ clothes –down to their diapers and sat them in two lines on the floor, facing each other. Each child received a tin plate and spoon, full of rice and gravy with chicken to follow. Those that were picky eventually got fufu (cassava). These tiny little people sat up and for the most part, fed themselves with only a few ending up with dinner on their brown bellies. The majority of us sat there with our mouths open, watching the whole procedure in awe.

Pictures to come later as they may take too long to download.

First Day News

We stepped out of the airport into the blazing hot sun. We were quickly ushered through immigration and customs. Apparently Dr. Lily Sanvee, our host and the hospital director, had notified someone about our arrival, so we had no hang ups in getting through. The doctor and two vehicles were there to escort us and our volumes of luggage to the hospital compound. We are staying in two bungalows equipped with bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen and living room. We take care of our morning and noon meals and Dr. Sanvee’s sister, Margaret cooks our evening meals. Over the compound fence is the Atlantic Ocean, so there is a pleasant breeze most of the time. It is the usual tropical humidity, but not unbearable. I have to admit we don’t have to sleep under mosquito nets either as our house is equipped with air conditioning. We are in the lap of luxury compared to our surroundings.
On Monday we had a tour of the hospital and later had a driving tour of Monrovia. We visited Star of the Sea Clinic which is located in West Point, a small area of the city where 70 – 80,000 displaced people live. Lots of standing water, corrugated metal roofing over makeshift rooms and something for sale in front of each one, even if it was only a few plantains or a day’s worth of palm oil, everyone has something to sell. When driving through the city, you saw all kinds of government buildings, lots of NGO’s (non government organizations), many other buildings (some were only shells and others that have been rebuilt) and stores, and people everywhere, most on foot, but many on motorcycles and in cars.
As in many third world countries, Liberia is one of stark contrasts. Even the very poor have cell phones and there are scratch cards (phone cards) for sale everywhere. Clean water and electricity are scarce, yet hospitals are open 24 hours a day. It amazes me what can be done with few resources. I have seen labor and delivery rooms that look like prison cells (so stark and filled with ancient equipment), but compared to the services in outlying areas, the women using them probably feel grateful.

We're Off

One Suitcase full of clothes,a drill and tools, one carry on full of clothes, two rubbermaid action packers full of more tools and filters for generators, one gym bag full of food, gifts, school supplies, frisbees, etc., passports and visas and two round trip tickets to Monrovia, Liberia.

S.T.A.R.

Okay, the only reason I am posting today is because our internet is sooo slow right now and this is one of the few sites that actually opened and I need to vent!  It is Saturday morning and I have been up since 5:10am because I had so many random important thoughts pinging through my head, that I finally got up and wrote them down.  At the moment I have at least 6 different lists going of things to do.  I need to do what we preach at preschool and that is Stop, Take a deep breath, And Relax.  Be a STAR Miss Sue! 

I am leaving the house at 7:30 and won't return until after dinner.  We have two baby showers to go to today and we have to squeeze in a Costco run, a Target run, a grocery store run and whatever other errands we need to do between them and on the way home.  It sounds like I am complaining, but it will all be fine and we are really enjoying Anna & Guillermo's visit.  Unfortunately, they leave the day before we leave, so while we hang out with them, we are also packing and repacking and generally have piles strewn all over the house.

Let me say for the record, that I have much to be thankful for and if a little stress comes with all that, then so be it.

They're Here!

Anna & Guillermo arrived last night from Honduras. Rachel picked them up from DIA and we met them half way. It is so nice to have them here again and see how our soon to be grandson is progressing. They will be here until the 1st of October and then we leave on the 2nd for Liberia.  It will be a busy two weeks.

We took a little ride around the area with Guillermo this morning to take some pictures of the aspens. They aren't at their peak yet, but getting close. Fall is such a beautiful time of year in the Rockies.   I'm including a few that made the cut.

Liberia
Our visas have been sent off, we have each gotten at least three vaccinations, there are Typhoid pills in the fridge waiting to be taken in a few weeks and Malaria pills and antibiotics to be picked up at the pharmacy, we even bought some nasty stuff to wash our clothes in to further keep away the mosquitoes. We are doing all the things that we should have done a long time ago, like getting our affairs in order and having a will drawn up. I guess for some people hopping on a jet and heading to the West Coast of Africa to a war torn, post conflict country is no big deal, but we are feeling a little intimidated and looking for things to make us feel more comfortable with our decision.

We are going to Monrovia, Liberia October 2 - 18. Our church, First Presbyterian of Boulder, is working with a group called Global Strategies. Their mission it is to implement international strategies to prevent HIV infection and care for those affected by HIV by means of strategic alliances with those who share in a compassion for alleviating the suffering of women and children. We will be staying at St. Joseph’s Catholic Hospital and working in the area of facility maintenance. I hope to visit a school and several other places while we are there.

We certainly didn't go looking for an African adventure (we thought Honduras was a big stretch). We are out of our comfort zone and also feeling a little out of control, but I guess that is exactly where God wants you sometimes. I always liked that saying, "Give Up and Let God".
I guess we will find out what that means.

On another note…
I just finished reading the book, "The House at Sugar Beach" In Search of a Lost African Childhood, a memoir by Helene Cooper. I have read several books on Liberia, but I especially liked this one. Through her story of growing up just outside of Monrovia and fleeing to the United States as the conflict becomes unbearable, you learn the history of Liberia, past and present. I have to admit, that before our adventure began to unfold, I didn't even know where Liberia was on the map, let alone its connection to the United States, etc., but slowly I am beginning to feel a small connection to that far away place.