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!
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