Saturday's Walk to Market

Yesterday Joey and I walked with a group of others across the one bridge to Monrovia proper and into the market area in the center of town. The UN guards also let us go to the top of the Ducor Hotel which used to be a very nice hotel as I understand it, but is now a bombed-out shell that up until recently was occupied by "squatters", homeless folks looking for shelter. The view from the top was spectacular but it was a little dangerous as the handrails are missing in quite a few places. We later walked to the craft market across from the U.S. Embassy. Every vendor there insists that you visit their stand, so you have to be very direct if you don't want to spend the whole day there. We bought a couple of little things for Bethany's birthday on Sept. 9th and some cloth. It was fun learning the process. We were on the move for 6 hours yesterday and were completely exhausted and a little sun-baked when we got back.

The safe drinking water in town comes in sealed bags and the only good way to drink it is to chew the corner of the bag off and suck the water out. There are some huge, deep holes in the sidewalks and the sidewalks are often very narrow and very crowded so you have to really pay attention to everything to make sure you don't get run over by a car or wheel barrow or end up at the bottom of a garbage-filled hole somewhere. Our skin is far too light for us not to draw attention so we often will hear extended kissing noises as people frequently try to get our attention for one reason or another. Most often it's okay to stop and talk for a minute, but you can't cover any ground if you don't ignore some of it. I think I'm starting to feel a little more comfortable with these walks, though. I decided to carry our compact camera around my neck part of the time and attracted a lot of attention from one group of kids who wanted me to take their picture. They were very happy to succeed and ran off as quickly as they had come. The rest of the street photos above were just snapped as we walked without looking through the view finder. They may help give a little of a sense for what town is like. The last photo shows Joey with a couple of our friends. In that photo you can see Mike and Patrick working on getting a drink of water.

Jenny, Bethany and David went to the beach yesterday and had a great time. Jenny will fill everyone in on that soon.

John