liberian history 101

let me just tell you how wonderful it is to wake up to what we woke up to today... a kitchen full of yummy waffles and fresh smoothies. and then of course there's the beach. did i mention that their house is across the path from the beach? the wind was blowing. the sun was up, and it was just gorgeous. (jealous much?)

we spent the morning at an orphanage that the chapmans have just started to get involved with. i don't really know what i was expecting, but that was definitely not it... there were a lot less children there than i had expected, only about 16. there was really just 1 woman who ran the orphanage, and she lived in the same building that the children did. the operation acted like one big family. (in our western terms: she was a single mom with 16 kids.) the older kids helped to care for the younger ones, etc. while we were there, kristin and another woman from trinity dental clinic taught some basic teeth-cleaning tips to the children, and the kids that need work will get to go to the clinic to get work on their teeth. what a great way to give and serve!

this afternoon we got a bit of a history lesson from kristin. we visited this old rundown hotel that was thriving before the civil war. (research it if you're interested. it's pretty fascinating.) the war lasted for about 14 years and only just ended in 2003. the effects of the war are still visibly present: there is still a un presence, but they are essentially just here to keep the status quo. and what had been an up and coming center for western africa was basically just put to a halt during the war. there is just so much poverty. city poverty looks different from country poverty too: in the country people still can grow vegetables , but in the city the people are left to beg for their survival. today on the road we saw a few boys that were missing arms or legs, casualties from the war. (p.s. the streets were insane! i thought that the baggage claim was chaotic, but i hadn't seen anything yet. driving is really just a game of "don't hit those people that are walking right there out in front of your car.")

buildings and walls still have bullet holes. and then there was this hotel that we went to today. in its prime it was an 8 story resort. then it just got destroyed during the war, and then even after the war, it was overrun by rogues and vagrants (3000 of them to be exact). the soldiers had to drive everyone out. one of the more haunting sights in the hotel was on one of the walls, there was spray painted "any vagrants here will be handled by the police violently." it was very chilling when posted right beside walls that were just decaying. marjie commented that it even looked like the titanic rotting at the bottom of the ocean. it was quite strange and hard to imagine 3000 people living there at one time. i'll try to post some pictures of that soon, but tomorrow should prove to be exciting too: we're going to the bead village!

peace and love,
julia