The last one!!!
This is going to be a bunch of fun stories, with no logical order, and tons of asides. Basically, what you are used to reading from me.
My absolute favorite day there was the day before we left. We all were staying at this "resort" where another church from Silicon Valley was holding a pastor's conference for the Liberians. This poor resort, it was considered the best thing, and our bathroom door didn't close. More on the hotel later. I got up, showered, I think, put on an outfit (shorts, T-shirt, and tennis shoes), and went down to breakfast. After that I hit the beach. Ditched the shoes and shirt, grabbed a nice walking stick, and walked, ran, and swam along the beach for at least 3 hours. Basically did that until a bit before lunchtime. Collected some shells, (pictures will be included in the Amazing Web Album), spent a lot of time processing, and just enjoyed the simplicity of my life in the moment.
At one point, I got a little bored, so I decided to try and get a coconut from a tree. This sounds complicated, but there were lots of trees, and one had fruit hanging 10 feet off the ground. I grabbed a beam that was 3 inches wide, 2 inches thick, and about 5 feet long, then started whacking away. 5 minutes later, no coconut, this guy comes around a wall, walks up, and offers to help me. I was a bit scared at first. Never seen this guy before, but then he helped me get one down, and then showed me how, and I got one by myself! Score! Now in order to give some closure to the story, the coconuts sat for most of the day, and that night Tony, Baker, and I were talking with one of the pastors and his wife. Pastor Vey and Cherry. They were talking about their crab traps they make (they live close to the beach), and I was curious, most crab trapping takes place at least in some amount of water, but they do it on the beach. Being me, I just had to know how. Turns out we had everything needed. Bucket, spoon, knife, and shovel were easily procured, but the key ingredient, a coconut was provided by me. After about 45 minutes, we had dug a hole for the bucket (so the top edge was flush with the sand), filled in around it, and scooped coconut meat out, and placed it next to the bucket. Someone got pictures of this, so you can try to imagine it, or just wait.
At the end of the soccer game at the VBS, I was sweaty, and dirty, and my legs were fairly covered with dirt, almost to the point that they were black. I was sitting down, slowly catching my breath, and 5 boys walked up to me, and then one of them delivered the best one-liner I have ever heard. He points at my torso, and says "White man", then points at my legs, says "Black man", and walks off, him and his buddies laughing. For some reason, this struck me as hugely funny, and apparently struck them as funny too.
One of the most amazing and memorable portions of the trip was driving places. Several times I was sitting on people, my butt cheek on their hip, or visa versa, or even me basically squatting on the floor of the car. I sat backwards on the floor of the van a couple times. When we were driving to the airport to pick up another group, I was sitting in on the floor, bored out of my mind. Tony, Baker, and Edwin were talking in the back, Marty was sleeping, Jen and K.J. weren't talking, and Chipi was thinking. So, of course, I started rummaging around in the van, looking for something. I eventually found a sticker. Something had to be done with this sticker, it was begging me to do something with it. I realized that Emmanual, the driver, was suspiciously stickerless, so in time-honored method, I palmed the sticker, and patted E-man on the shoulder, and asked how he was doing. K.J., Jen and Chipi did their very best to not laugh, but they drew E-man's attention, and he looked back, wondering what the heck was so funny. I sat there, perfectly straight-faced, just chilling. He didn't notice for the rest of the day.
On the topic of Emmanual, who was one of the nicest guys there, I must mention the race. Oscar, at some point, just out of the blue, asked how fast I was, and then challenged me to a race. He never came through on that challenge, but I did race Emmanual. The "track" was about 100 meters, from one end of a courtyard, to the other, then back. I had a good start, but E-man caught up on the turn-around, then I pulled away on the return leg. So fun!! One of the interesting things about whenever I would play sports, everyone reacted like I was getting out of my wheelchair to play, any kind halfway decent play would get huge cheers. Might just be the idea that white man can't jump.
At the VBS, after the structured events were done, I just started playing games, and not always organized games. The games developed really organically. One game started out as a form of dodgeball. Two people stand 20 feet away from each other, and then a group of people stand in the middle. The people in the middle are dodging the balls that are thrown by the people at the ends. The rest of play is like regular dodgeball. The game slowly turned into monkey-in-the-middle, and then into team keep away. I loved this process. So much fun.
One of my roles was game-player-in-downtime. This meant trying to keep anywhere between 100-250 kids playing a game. Some of my games included a crude version of Red Light, Green Light, Sharks and Minnows, Simon Says (they play Peter Parker Say. Yes, that Peter Parker), Stop, Stop, Go (Duck, Duck, Goose. Anyone know where the name comes from?) At the end of every single day, I was exhausted, sweaty, and stinky. Good times.
One last one I thought I touched on, but is always worth more time, Liberian taxi bumper logos. Lots of the drivers would paint little inspirational mottoes on the back of their taxis. A few of my favorites.
Papa Obama, Just Pray, Good Never Lost, Money Go Woman Stay, Go Arsenal!
Yeah, its that good.
That's kinda it, but I would love to answer some questions, so hit me with them.
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