29 January 2017: Liberia- Toweh Town

In this episode, I leave Saclepea and head back to Bahn, where I’d be briefly stopping again before taking the short ride to Toweh Town for a Nimba party at Ike’s house.

                I was sad to leave Saclepea and the lovely people I’d met there, namely Julie from the cookshop, who was legitimately one of the loveliest and welcoming people I’d ever met. Thomas said that a good chunk of all Liberians are genuinely this friendly and nice. What a world. From Saclepea, I hopped on a motorbike to Bahn, where I found Trey in his kitchen making spaghetti. We ended up watching, what else, seemingly endless episodes of How It’s Made. I don’t know why this has become so popular, but when hard drive selections are limited, sometimes you just feel the need to watch factory machines do things like turn wires into little springs at high speed, or cover snack cakes in fountains of icing over and over…and over. Or sometimes you just like to laugh at the host overact his reactions to the creation of things like bread and plastic bags. Yep, this is PC life, people.

                Anyway, the next day at Trey’s school, classes were cancelled after only one period. They were cancelled for the rest of the week for voter registration training, the same thing Thomas’s school was cancelled for. With no school to occupy us for the day, we decided to go to the cell tower to charge our phones (the generator was still broken), then wander down the road to a neighboring town. Because what else do you do when you’re bored? When we got back a couple hours later, we went to a big shop in town to get enormous (like 50 pound) bags of onions and flour to bring to Ike’s house.

                We took two bumpy and slow motorbikes to Toweh Town with the onions strapped to Trey’s bike and with the flour strapped to mine. I took the opportunity to recline back on the flour sack like a pillow. Ah, luxury. Ike was placed in a very unique house. It was the house of the former VP and then President Moses Bla. The house itself is really big, and what makes it kind of weird is that in the front yard there’s a huge mausoleum housing the former president, and to make it even weirder, there’s a big gold-colored statue of the man himself inside the house. Upon entering the house, it has become a Nimba PCV tradition to kiss the statue for good luck.

The Holy Ike-dol

                Ike had just built this awesome outdoor oven, and he went outside to start warming it up by building a fire inside it. As it heated up, the rest of us started preparing bread dough, and we later tested the oven by baking some awesome garlic bread. It was so delicious. We then popped over to one of the shops to buy some more baking ingredients and found a shelf of different flavored “gin.” There was ginger, lemon, and many other mystery flavors. The kicker is that all the bottles say that they are 40% alcohol, but they could actually range from around 10% to what was likely almost pure ethanol. Now that’s what I like to call Liberian Roulette.

Ike's oven

Cutting bamboo to use as "tongs"

                The next day, the other people started to arrive throughout the day. I was reunited with Milea, who was happy to see that the other PCVs had taken such good care of me during my independent jaunt around Nimba. At this point, we ceaselessly made different bread products throughout the weekend including pizzas, cinnamon rolls, pretzels, you name it. One night, we went out to get some things, and we ended up getting sat down at this new bar in town at a table with the supreme town chief, which is a pretty big deal. As we sat there, there were at least four rows deep of kids staring at us, just watching us sit there. This seems to be a common theme in PC life, but especially here. A small group of foreigners? Wow, let’s just stare at them like they’re zoo animals. In their defense, any time I saw a white/foreign person during my service, I would also stare uncontrollably, wondering the same things everyone else was probably wondering: what the heck are you doing here?

Throwing pizza dough

                Other activities at Ike’s house included making so much food, including carmelized onions (almost the whole enormous bag of them) on the coal pot. Side note: Most people in Liberia don’t have gas or electric stoves. They use a metal coal pot outside. There’s a small square space at the bottom that acts as a stand, then the top flares out like an upside down pyramid shape. You pour some coal into the top and get some embers going, then put your pot of food on top. It takes much longer than on a stove, but it’s way cheaper and gets the job done. Anyway, other than cooking and making fruit wine, we fetched many buckets of water from the nearby pump, played on a slackline, hung out in hammocks, found a secret society (no one really knows what these are- they’re kind of like the traditional religion, or maybe it’s something like initiation school) and were told to scram, had a dance-off in the yard with the neighbor kids, threw water at the other kids who wouldn’t stop crowding around Ike’s windows to see what us zoo animals were doing in there, etc.

Cooking on the coal pot with, you guessed it, all the neighbor kids

One really cool thing was talking with Cori, who is a Global Health OBGYN volunteer working near the capital. I liked hearing about so many of her stories of weird surgeries. Then I asked her what was up with a disproportionate number of Liberians, especially kids, having these huge, distended belly buttons. She said that they are belly button hernias where the lining of the abdominal wall is open, and so fluids and intestines and things collect in the belly button, pushing it outward. Some of these belly buttons are like little baseballs sticking out of people’s stomachs. It does happen in the US, but is easily fixed with minor surgery. It could also be genetic, which may be why this happens to a disproportionate number of people here.

The last day in Toweh Town, after a breakfast of lots of leftover pizza, Milea and I got a motorbike back toward Bahn. On the way, it had a flat tire, so the driver, the little kid on the front of the bike, Milea, and I walked to the nearest town to get it fixed. We sat in this village while it was being repaired, and soon enough there was a crowd of little kids silently staring at us, as per usual. We were directed to another motorbike guy who was able to take us all the way to Bahn, and then to the immigration checkpoint where I FINALLY got a 30-day stamp for my passport. Phew. After that, we reached Kahnplay, then ended at Duoplay. There was more water pump drama in town, which was probably just going to make people resent Milea because she had a key to the pump. Back at her house, we talked about my week of adventuring through Nimba without her, and how easy it is to make friends among other PCVs, even in different countries. We also laughed about how I was almost acting as a quasi therapist for her group, the traveling American to keep other Americans company and to have someone to have a fluent (American) English conversations with.

Covered in flour, as friends should be

Tune in next time when I get invited to attend a PC gardening workshop in Kakata!


AND, thanks to my dedicated Duoplay news wrangler, I have collected more delicious praise for the blog:

Guest post! Liberian English, by Milea

Milea has been awesome enough to write a post about Liberian English. She describes it far better than I could, since she's been living it. Enjoy!

 

“Shrimma Shrekrimma Sherma Surma Sheerma.”

 

This is the sound made by the more resolve-testing Liberian children as they imitate the way American English speakers imitate the sounds of Liberian English. No you read that right. Native American English speakers walk around Liberia intentionally talking in “accented” English in order to be understood by Liberians. Some of these Westerners even took language lessons and passed an oral examination in order to be ordained ready to communicate in Liberia. Hooray for the diverse ways in which tax dollars are squandered.

If you are sensing sarcasm here, you are right again. If you walk about with a native Liberian English speaker, point at things, and ask, “What tha thing?” [What is that thing?] you will find out, first, that the Liberian English language teacher who gave you this assignment as homework has a demeaning and vindictive sense of humor and, second, that the Liberian English vocabulary is nearly identical to the American English vocabulary. Some fun differences do exist – Liberians say “current” instead of “electricity” or “power”; “skin tight” instead of “leggings”; and “trunk” instead of “throw” – but 90% of the time a spade is a . . . shoot they call that one a hook. 80% of the time a pot is a pot.

 

Vocabulary aside, however, Liberian English is so heavily accented and has such a confused word-ordering that it can be almost unintelligible to an inexperienced ear. And vice- versa. I live in a very rural village in Liberia and, upon returning from a Peace Corps training where I spoke American English every day, was scolded by my market ladies. “Wha happe-na? I na hearin you. You tak slippry.” [What is going on? I cannot understand you. You are speaking too fast.]

 

Experts say this is because Liberian English is truly its own unique language - not a pidgin language. This is due to the fact that it has evolved internally long after outside influence from freed slaves, traders, and soldiers came to an end. In fact, Liberian English has become so official that it is used in TV shows and on the radio. What with the Liberian election coming up, the National Election Council has been running radio advertisements that say, “Elehtion is erybody's busness. Go na-na to de elehtion centa neah you. You muss be 18 year or olda to ge de vota cart.” [Elections are everyone's responsibility. Go to a voter registration office as soon as possible. You must be 18 years or older to get a voter card.] Additionally, linguists have recognized pronunciation patterns in Liberian English that are unique to African tribal languages ¹.

 

I'm no expert, but that has not stopped me from coming to a few linguistic conclusions of my own. The first is that Liberian English has some characteristics usually associated with someone learning American English as a second language – such as adding too many or forgetting plurals and being completely unoccupied with the idea of tenses. Also, Southern American English sounds extremely foreign to many native Liberian English speakers. My closest Peace Corps Volunteer neighbor is from North Carolina and has that rich, honey tipped, North Carolinian rhythm to his speech: “Now I know ya'll aren't tryin'a roast a pig without me.” The vowels have just the hint of a twang and Y's are stretched and melded with succeeding vowel sounds. Liberians who meet him have come running back to me in astonishment saying, “Da Peace Corps mah derh, aye na understand da mah!” [I can not understand that other Peace Corps Volunteer!]

 

Liberian English, like Southern American English, lets ending consonants slide. But Liberian English, unlike Southern American English, confuses hard “L”, “D”, and “R” sounds, meaning “There” might sound breathy like “Deh” or “Der” or “Dehl” depending on the person or the phase of the moon. This oddity gives Liberian English a slight Asian flavor to my ear. Liberian English is also unique in word repetition - “na-na” meaning “now”, and “two-two” meaning “a pair”. Word emphasis choice is equally distinct. Instead of emphasizing a certain word to make it more important in a sentence a whole phrase might be emphasized by adding -o! or “bad way!” to the end of it. For example, a Liberian English speaker might say, “I like that shirt baaaad way!” or “The soup tastes sweet-o!”.

Some days, I do have trouble convincing myself Liberian English is it's own unique language. I would much prefer to reach into everyone's mouth and pull out the wad of gauze that seems to be hindering and muffling clear speech. This, of course, is not a fair assessment, but honestly my name is Milea not Mahreeyeha. When I am trying to imitate Liberian English I use the back of my tongue near my molars instead of the front which seems to tense up my neck muscles, while simultaneously trying to will my tongue into jello. The verbal result, no doubt, would cause me to poke fun at the speaker if I were also a small child running butt naked through a field of goats.

 

Nevertheless, I have a higher success rate being understood when I try to speak Liberian English than when I don't. Though I have started to suspect this is due more to the intonation, rhythmic pauses, and sheer emotion Liberians put into speaking then the actual sound or vocabulary of the language. Liberian English is full of sighs, oaths, exclamations, and wrist movements that aren't verbal, but are necessary for clear communication. Some things are not said without thanking God: “How da day?” “I tank Gah-o!”. Other things are not said without adding a breathy marker of disapproval: “You see this test paper here? Chee! That boy na been studying-o!” While other things simply aren't said at all, such as “No, sorry. I do not want to take a handful of that huge mass of oily rice the six of you are currently eating.” The only answer available in Liberian English to the invitation, “Come let's eat,” is to squat down among the eaters, take a heaping handful of hot rice with your right hand, shove it into your mouth – palm first, and smile.

 

1    Read Cracking the Code: The Confused Traveler's Guide to Liberian English for more historical and phonological details.

26 January 2017: Liberia- Saclepea

Excited to pound some GB!

                In Bahn, Trey and I hopped on a motorbike to the town of Saclepea. At the checkpoint just outside of town, the cop stopped our driver, asking why he was taking two passengers instead of just one. The driver tried to argue with the cop, saying that it was very common practice to take two, three, even four passengers on a motorbike. The cop said that the driver should come into the office. Mind you, this was a little open-air tent tent with a few plastic chairs set up. “Come into the office” obviously meant, “pay me a bribe,” and as soon as the driver handed over 100LD, the cop was happy to let him go. That was the biggest load of BS I’d seen in a long time. “Fined” for having the normal amount of two passengers? Give me a break.

                In Saclepea, I would be staying with a PCV named Thomas. Trey and I found him on the road and we all went to a cook shop called “Place to Be.” We had rice with a dried fish soup. We then walked around town and found some awesome cinnamon rolls at the baker, which we ate back at the cook shop with a big plastic bottle of palm wine. Not too shabby. The owner of the cook shop, an awesome woman also named Julie, invited us to come in the next morning to help prepare the food. I immediately said yes, and the next morning before school, we were back.

A foggy morning, as usual

                Around the back of the cook shop, it seemed like Julie’s whole family, from little grandkids to her 103-year-old mother, were out there. They were almost done making the food for the day (at 7am!), but still had yet to prepare the GB. GB is a play dough-like food made from pounding boiled cassava. After Julie’s crew boiled the cassava and put it though a meat grinder to get out the knots, they put it in a big wooden mortar. Thomas and I were able to try our hand at “pumping” the GB. It’s hard work trying to make cassava edible. It’s also said to contain traces of cyanide, especially in the leaves. Something that is, in addition to being very labor-intensive to prepare, potentially poisonous in large quantities, seems strange to choose to be your country’s main food staple. After a few minutes of vigorously slamming a large stick into the bowl of cassava grounds, it soon turned into a smooth, and now edible, substance called GB. Fun fact: no one really knows what GB stands for, if anything.

Grinding the cassava

Julie seasoning the soup

Julie helps me pound the GB

A view inside the mortar

Thomas takes a whack at it

We sat down for a big breakfast of the GB we pounded and soup. To eat GB, the dough is formed into a disc, and people pull off chunks and roll them into balls with their fingers. The GB ball is dipped in the soup, at which point you might grab and hide a piece of meat behind your ball. Then, with the help of the “slippery thing” in the soup, an herb or plant that makes it slimy, you swallow your ball whole. It’s a very important thing to be able to swallow the ball in one fluid motion. No one really knows for sure why it’s swallowed, but they say it gets down to your stomach faster. When I told people I ate GB, they would ask, “Do you swallow?” When I said that, yes, I swallow [GB], they would be so happy, saying that I was a true Liberian now. It’s also more impressive to swallow bigger GB balls. Normally, they’re about the size of marbles, but people can easily swallow golf ball-sized balls, and there are the famed few who can swallow even bigger ones. Hopefully, though, you won’t have your life flash before your eyes and literally choke on it in your quest to show people how big you can swallow, as Trey once did.

My humbly-sized GB

Thomas helped me devour all this food

Into the soup!

After some photos with Julie and waddling out of there with our bellies stuffed, Thomas and I went across the road to his school. Thomas taught computer at the school, and we went into the computer lab where he worked on a power point about how to teach his fellow teachers how to type and use a computer. Meanwhile, I watched my new favorite thing, How It’s Made, on the neighboring computer. We learned that the next day, school would be cancelled for a voter registration training that would be held at the school. There was an election coming up, so people decided to use the school to train people how to conduct the voting. And again I witnessed the ease at which school is cancelled in different parts of Africa.

Julie and I had a little phtoshoot going on

After he was done working on the power point, we went to the enormous Tuesday market. There was absolutely everything there: spaghetti-filled turnover things, DVDs, regular meat, bush meat, all the lappa, clothes, alcohol, produce, shoes, plastic buckets, and on and on and on.

Some kind of giant poultry

Lappa

Lappa for days

A wonderland of plastic

Thomas shops for peanuts 

Banana delivery

24 January 2017: Liberia- Bahn

                I had debated whether to go back to Duoplay with Milea or bounce around with other PCVs. On one hand, I had only my camera and one change of clothes, but on the other hand, I had pretty much exhausted all the excitement of Duoplay. The choice was clear. I would have dirty clothes, but I would have an adventure. But, honestly, what else is new? I said goodbye to Milea until we would meet up again at someone else’s house in a week. With the help of some map-drawing expertise from the other Nimba County PCVs, I had a map and a route all planned for the next week. My next stop would be a town called Bahn.

My guide to Nimba for the next week, including towns, who lived there, and the transport cost

                We all left Abigail’s house in Sanniquellie, and I piled in a car with a few new buddies going the same direction, Trey, Thomas, and Ike, who happened to be the very people I would spend the week with. Our first quick stop was to the checkpoint outside of town. There are these checkpoints outside of every major town that you have to stop at, and some of them double as immigration posts. I got out and went into the office asking to get my 30 day stamp, which I was told that I could get at any immigration checkpoint when I first crossed into Liberia. They wouldn’t stamp me because my 15-day stamp was still not close to expiring. Guess I’d have to try again in a few days. We continued on the bump-tastic road. These roads apparently get 100 times worse in the rainy season. Some of the roads are so bad, it feels like your teeth are gonna jiggle right out of your mouth. Anyway, after replacing an inevitable flat tire, we made it to the next major town of Ganta. There, we got lunch and then checked out the gas station grocery stores. Outside of the capital, the only things remotely resembling grocery stores are actually inside of gas stations. Whereas in the US, gas station stores are usually more limited, here the gas stations have the widest variety of stuff. We also went to an electronics store where one of the other PCVs Ike was buying a battery and big solar panel for a solar setup at his house.

                From there, we got plenty of room in a big van that took us to Bahn. Ike left for his site, his battery strapped to the back of a motorbike and him holding his solar panel sandwiched between him and the driver. Hopefully he wouldn’t be caught by a gust of wind and sail away with that thing. I would be staying with Trey in Bahn, and we started out with a small tour of the town. We wandered around and saw the different shops, his school, and we even met his landlord who was sitting in front of the new bar she just opened. We went to the street food ladies and got some pig meat (they don’t call it “pork” or “beef” here- it’s pig meat, cow meat, chicken meat, etc.), some plantains, and some sweet potatoes for dinner. Trey normally had current, as he was hooked up to the common generator that powered a few houses, but it was out due to the generator being broken, so we just sat and talked in the pitch dark.

                The next day, we went to Trey’s school where he taught chemistry and biology. We started out in 10^th grade with some obligatory time-wasting, having the kids ask me questions, which they were pretty shy about at first. The excitement level perked up when one of them asked how old I was, and it quickly turned into a fun, spitfire round of “guess my age!” After watching Trey teach about the periodic table, I went back in the direction of his house to find his landlord, who was coincidentally also one of the immigration officers for the town. I intercepted her on the road, and at that time the immigration commander happened to be riding by. She flagged him down and he came over to talk. We decided that since I’d be passing the checkpoint the next day to go to a different town, I’d just do it then. The commander also tried to say something about it costing $10 to get the stamp. I just gave him the side eye and explained that, no, it was free, and that I’d already paid a buttload for the Liberian visa. He shrugged and said OK. Man, if these people want bribes, they sure don’t put up much of a fight convincing you that these fictitious fees are real.

The school

                It also happened to be Bahn’s market day, so I wandered through the bamboo stalls of lappa cloths, different foods, raw meat surrounded by clouds of flies, clothes, and other random items. I bought some lappa and some sunglasses, some very necessary purchases. I went back to school and hung around outside the staff room. Some 12^th graders came up to me to talk, and when they learned I used to be a PCV and taught math, they asked me to help them with a math review packet. Before I knew it, I was in a classroom teaching a whole class full of 12^th graders during their free period. How do I always end up accidentally teaching? Trey told me that, a few days later after I had left, they were asking him “Where’s our Peace Corps?” referring to me. What was he, chopped liver? Hah.

The teachers wanted a photo with me

Side note: Here, they call the individual volunteers a “Peace Corps,” like “The Peace Corps who lives in Duoplay,” whereas in Lesotho we always went by PCV, Peace Corps Volunteer, or just Volunteer, to avoid confusion with the organization at large. 

22 January 2017: Liberia- Gender day / Sanniquellie / Hiking Mount Nimba

               On Friday, after running, bathing, washing clothes and getting some awesome fried banana dough balls for breakfast, I went to Milea’s school just in time to watch her Gender Day classes. On Fridays for this marking period, instead of doing chemistry, Milea instituted Gender Day. She is so passionate about gender equality and always tries to work it in to lessons she teaches her students. On that Friday, she asked who in the class washed other people’s dishes the day before. Only the girls, and all of them, raised their hands. Those left, the boys, were called up to the front to wash some crusty old school dishes. They all did a great job scrubbing the dishes super clean, but some of them, especially the older students, were clearly more embarrassed than most. When the girls started making some comments about the boys, Milea emphasized that girls making fun of boys for doing these kinds of tasks was also an issue that needed to be worked on. Gender equality goes both ways, with both genders supporting the other and neither limiting nor degrading the other. She also told this great story about one of the Liberian PC staff members who tied his daughter to his back, as women normally do, to comfort her, even in the presence of important men who came over to his house. Milea pointed out that being a good father and making his daughter happy was more important than trying to look like a “manly man” in front of these other men. Gender stereotypes be gone!

They're all clean, Ms. Lind!

The boys are nervous to start washing

Some cool cats outside the classroom

The ABC class (the littlest nuggets) takes place in a palava hut outside

A primary classroom. I love these patterned openings in the walls!

Going home with the buckets

                Milea and I went home, then soon enough we motorbiked to Kahnplay (the town with the market we visited a few days earlier), then to a bigger town called Saniquellie. It was a very dusty and windy motorbike ride, and I made a note to buy some sunglasses ASAP. We arrived in town and walked to Abigail’s house. A fellow PCV who taught at the high school there, Abigail had a really big house, and had started cooking spicy plantain soup with rice. I met some of the other PCVs from Nimba County (the northeast county in Liberia, the one Milea lives in) who had also come over. And as PCVs from all over the world tend to do, we instantly meshed together quite well.

                The next day, we decided to tackle the adventure of climbing Mount Nimba. We all squished into an SUV, including one riding “VIP” (see bottom for an explanation). We drove a little over an hour through Yekepa to the mountain, then got out and started walking up a paved road to the top of this mountain. We carried sticks to swat away the swarming biting flies that ambushed us as we walked up, and soon I had lots of swat marks on my legs. We hiked up past all kinds of old, abandoned and gutted mining equipment and also climbed all over it. So this was why the road to the top was paved: for all the mining vehicles.

Starting the hike

Some of the abandoned mining equipment

                We hiked up farther across sliding rock shards to a waterfall where we refilled our water, then on a path up toward the top where we saw the mountain drop away and fade down, down, down into the fog of Guinea. This mountain was right at the border between Liberia and Guinea, so we were staring out into a whole different country. We could have easily hiked down into it, as there were no fences or anything. We ate some snacks along the way, including some awesome leftover rice bread, and shared some small coconuts.

Hiking farther up

                Next, we hiked back down to the Blue Lake, an old quarry filled with beautiful, reflective water, which was at the base of a stairstep mountain shaped by lots of mining. We swam in the cold water and imagined what kind of beasties lived deep in the lake, and which one of us might get swallowed up first. Then we hiked all the way down and retroactively paid the park rangers, who were not at the entrance when we first got there that morning. We hung out in the ranger tent for a while, chatting with the rangers and each dutifully paying our 200LD entrance fee.

The Blue Lake

                Since it was starting to get later in the afternoon, we speed walked back to Yekepa, a relatively fancy town built to cater to the mining companies. We sat down and some of us ate at this surreal cafeteria thing, which felt so out of place in this country. Then Abigail’s friend met us there and we all went to his house to hang out, eat spaghetti and luncheon meat (spam), and admired his super heavy mining equipment-turned-barbells in the back yard.

These were deceptively heavy

Chilling in the back yard

                On the way back to Saniquellie, we took a car whose driver played the same song four times in a row, the giant speakers blasting it through the whole car. He probably would have played that one song on repeat the entire way back to Abigail’s house had we not said something about it. That seems to be a trend here, playing the same song over and over and loving it. I was squished up in the back row, one of four people back there, so my shoulders were kind of sideways and my arm was hanging into the trunk. With easy access to the awful speakers, I was fooling with the wires on the subwoofer of this hatchback, trying to unplug it to make the ride a little more tolerable and not so deafness-inducing. I laughed so hard when I learned that the person sitting on the other side of the back seat, was also doing the same thing with the other subwoofer next to him.

Apparently giant grasshoppers live all over Africa, not just in Lesotho

                Fun things about Liberia:

1)      ATMs here give out USD, then you have to change them to LD on the street. Each guy advertises his exchange rate (when I was there, it fluctuated between 90 and 110 LD per USD), you hand him your USD, then you get a whole mess of LD at that rate.

2)      “You my friend, yeah?” says everyone instantly after you introduce yourself. Uh, sure…I guess I’m your friend…why not?

3)      Milea is so happy for Obama-branded everything, especially Obama umbrellas over food stands and Obama Smoothline pens.

4)      Riding “VIP” in a car means riding in the trunk, normally in a hatchback but not unheard of with a normal trunk. It’s a legitimate expression that people use, and riding VIP can be roomier than sitting in the normal seats, because up there you have to squish (at least) two in the front passenger seat and four in the back seat.

5)      People sell gas in these glass gallon jars (lots of them previously being mayonnaise jars) by the side of the road. Another popular roadside product is palm wine, which just comes straight out of the palm tree and ferments over the course of the day.

6)      Almost every price must be negotiated, including small basic items, but especially bigger-ticket items and transportation.

7)      Choosing a motorbike driver is of the utmost importance because of several factors. Because the dirt roads are so bad, crashes are fairly common, so you want one who is a) not drunk, b) wearing a helmet and closed shoes, because this shows he’s more conscientious about safety, and c) responsive to your haggling and will not try insist too hard on the white person price. 

20 January 2017: Liberia- Kahnplay market / self-defense class

                After school on Wednesday, we decided to walk to the Wednesday market in Kahnplay/Karnplay (lots of these towns are spelled a few different ways). We started out by walking on the road, but pretty soon we ended up getting picked up by a big truck passing by, so we got there in about an hour instead of 2. Milea said that in the rainy season, these big trucks can often get stuck in the dirt road that quickly turns into a mud road. That should be a new reality show: Mud Road Truckers.

                We got to Kahnplay and walked around the market. There were lots of clothes, lappa cloths, buckets, and a food area where we got various items like peanuts, popcorn, palm seeds, and tomatoes. The vegetable selection was pretty slim: okra, little onions, baby tomatoes, bitter ball, cassava and its greens, and sometimes garlic. What was cracking me up was that people sell tiny bags filled with like 5 noodles. Apparently, people put them in their soups (the sauce that goes over rice). Milea was also on a mission to get me to try sour milk (or was it “solid” milk? No one seems to know). It was her favorite treat. We found a kid with a clear bucket full of them and each picked one out. It was like a little bag of semi-frozen yogurt. Apparently, they’re made with milk powder, sugar, and an acidic ingredient like lime juice or vinegar. They were so tasty, and the frozen-ness was just what we needed during the hot day.

                Next, we went to a cook shop, which is like a little restaurant. We shared a big bowl of ground pea (peanut) soup and rice, with a chicken wing thrown in there for good measure. Sure enough, there were also 4 or 5 little noodles hanging out in the soup as well, which confirmed the use of the little bags of noodles sold at the market. It was also my first taste of the Liberian-famous Club beer, which came in these giant 750mL sized bottles just like in Lesotho. Yep, that’s still an insane amount of beer.

Ah, another edition of "Milea reacts to food." It's been too long.

                We ventured out into the market again, being called “kwipu” which literally means “educated white.” Ohh here we go again. Whenever we would hear it, Milea would call out, “Nto Milea!” “My name is Milea,” not white girl. I used to say the exact same thing in Sesotho. Some things are universal. Anyway, we wandered over to an area where people were selling huge stalks of green plantains. We got two big bunches for only 250 LD ($2.50). We continued walking, Milea wearing one of the bunches on her head. Always the fashion icon, this one. Then we found a motorbike to get back to her house, with our plantain purchase strapped to the back with a rubber tie-down.

Work it

                Back at her house, a neighbor brought over some bitter ball soup and rice, which we pretended to enjoy, but both couldn’t get over the taste of that bitter ball. Whew. It is definitely named aptly. We then went for our daily task of drawing water. We unlocked the pump and filled our buckets. The pump is normally locked during the day, until about 4pm, to ensure that the water doesn’t run out. It was almost 6pm by the time we got to the pump and it was still locked, with a long line of buckets in front. Milea ran over to someone’s house to get verbal confirmation that she could unlock the pump. Over the next few days, this turned into some crazy and unnecessary pump drama with Milea caught right in the middle. Achh.

                The next day, I prepared some notes on a self-defense session that I would be teaching at Milea’s school. We had a few women show up, mostly students, at the field in front of the school. They were awesome and really got into it as I showed them different ways to fight back an attacker. We also had a small discussion just so I could get to know their level of knowledge about rape. I learned that most of them didn’t really know what it is, and Milea even told me that they don’t think it happens at all because girls are really happy for any opportunity to seem valued by being able to have sex, whether forced or not. I also learned that domestic violence is a big problem, and an issue that the women are much more aware about. I ended up teaching them in a condensed, 1-hour session, and it was so great. They especially liked learning about body language and passive vs. assertive communication.

Passive vs. assertive. Look at them strut!

Demonstrating how using your voice makes you fight harder

Action shot! Role playing attacker and attackee

Sure, it was serious work, but we also had a lot of fun!

                We wrapped it up, and Milea went home to fry some of our newly-acquired plantains. They turned out to be really good, even though they were still very green. I went to bed and was surprisingly woken up at around 2am by the sounds of drumming and singing/chanting. Was I dreaming? Nope. Milea informed me that the hellfire-and-brimstone church right near her house regularly does these things and blasts music well into the night. Weird. It didn’t really bother me much, though, because I was excited to go to another town and meet more Liberia PCVs the next day. More on that in the next post!