Did you ever play Donkey Kong on one of those old Commodore 64s in the early 80s? “You” were Donkey Kong and you were trying to climb this series of tilted platforms while jumping barrels as they rolled toward you? It was awesome.
I’ve mentioned before that as I’ve considered this trip, and – more broadly – moving to Liberia for the 2-year project , I’ve thought of it as taking a step through each door as long as it remains open. Over the past several weeks, doors haven’t been shut, exactly, but there have perhaps been a series of barrels to hop on the way to each one! The egg allergy was a big deal right up to the end. Before the immunization scafuffle I could at least eat eggs (as long as they were well cooked). It took me eating an amazing omelet at Jen & Mustafa’s the day of our departure – and feeling completely miserable for a good bit of the first leg – to realize that further egg eating is out of the question for the foreseeable future. It was probably a good part of why I had such a hard time recovering from the immunization. Not rocket science, I suppose, I just didn’t expect “normal” to have changed liked that. Mustafa also had just a crazy time prepping for this trip. His barrels took the shape of misspelled names and times on visas, multiple projects and school work coming due at the same time, and all sorts of fits and starts with the initiation of the project. And then the travel itself had several points at which we might easily have been held up until Tuesday or beyond.
This evening after everyone left, Mustafa and I sat out in the guest house living room discussing this trip so far. We can’t help but feel that God is directly involved in how so many things are coming together. The seemingly random chain of events that brought us here, that brought Shelter’s work to the attention of Rob Sirleaf and the Ministers we met yesterday, and that’s pulling together a most unique series of meetings and visits in a 10-day period, feels more than random. Where it will end, I have no idea, but I’m thinking it would be interesting to log the meetings so far, with a (hopefully) high-level summary.
Sun. night
James Richardson, a Liberian who works with OIC, picked us up from the airport and explained some of what he does with training ex-combatants (former child-soldiers: the school renovation project will probably be largely staffed by these guys).
Mon. morning
Gladys and Abee. Both have been constantly by our sides and helped us navigate. Abee, the streets of Monrovia, and Gladys – pretty much everything else. Honestly have no idea where we’d be without her.
Mon. lunch
Rob Sirleaf and the Minister of Agriculture and several assistant Ministers – I already wrote about that one!
This morning
Gladys set us up to meet someone from her church: Aaron Dahn with Diversity Farms – a Liberian that’s working on jump-starting multiple agricultural programs. Aaron was fascinating to talk to. He and his fellow agency members are personally funding a nursery and running classes for farmers to learn how to better manage the soil and produce greater
harvests. I could talk about what they’re doing for a long time, but one neat aspect to their work is that they’re staffed, funded, and completely run by Liberians – no outside intervention or help at all to this point. They’re putting in for a government grant to significantly expand their work.
Today lunch
Craig from IRD – a partner organization in the school renovation/school feeding project. Interesting guy, just flown in from Columbia, trying to set up the food fortification part. It’s not as easy as you’d think, as there are practically no food processing plants in the country.
Today dinner
George (WE FOUND GEORGE!! This is George!) from OIC, who Shelter will be working with pretty closely on perhaps multiple projects. George is a fascinating guy – he got his education in the Soviet Union and got a
chemical engineering degree there. He’s spent considerable time knocking about Europe, and speaks with such a strong Liberian accent that I can’t understand him unless it’s relatively quiet in the room and I’m really concentrating. George knows a ton of people, and later this week we’ll get to find out a lot more about what’s he’s up to.
Dinner also included David A. and Paul from the UN. Mustafa knows them from a connection back in Minnesota.
They’re incredibly helpful – the meeting started off with Paul setting us up for a meeting with a Deputy Minister of Education for next Monday, and ended with them coordinating our trip to Bong County on Friday.
Tonight
Really random – my church’s denomination (Evangelical Free Church) isn’t particularly huge or anything, but tonight when we came into the guest house and started talking with some other guests, who would they be but E-Free pastors! They’re here for a training thing with ABC (Africa Bible College), whose campus we’re on. Titus and David both seemed like solid, caring people, so it was great fun to connect with them.
So what’s the big idea? No idea – and no, I don’t know at this point that I’m coming back for the project. But I am trying hard both to be here, and to step away a bit and try to figure out what living here for 2 years would really be like.
Gladys gave me the phrase today, to use when things aren’t working at the level of expectation of bewildered westerners (like not being able to find George): TIA. This is Africa.