Shoe Shopping

On Saturday afternoon I took Bethany and David to Water Street to find tennis shoes (or "trainers" as they are refered to by our English friends). Above are snapshots of David inside a shop wearing his new shoes and of the shop where Bethany got her shoes (the one with the pink doors). The whole thing took a bit of planning. Things had been building up for several weeks. David had destroyed his shoes on the little buggies they have here on the dock for the kids to ride on and I had been trying to find an appropriate time to go find replacements for about a month. The whole process is so simple, by comparison, back home. You just go. Well, here I had decided to go into town a couple of weeks ago with a Liberian friend of mine to scope out the situation and get his advice on what type of vendor(s) to look for before taking the kids with me. I found out then that the actual shops and not the street vendors were probably the best bet in order to be sure to get new shoes and not to end up paying too much more than the shoes are worth. I also found out that I would not be able to make it on a weekday since the shops all close at 5:00. Water street is too far to walk to with two kids in tow, so it would have to happen on a weekend during the time I have a vehicle for personal use. Each driver on the ship can sign out a vehicle for only 4 hours per weekend for personal use, so arranging that would take a little bit of planning. It would also mean no recreational trips that weekend that require a vehicle since shoe shopping would take the better part of that time slot.

Well, we got it done on Saturday. Jenny had been out for about a 6 mile walk in the early part of the day with several other moms and was not up for shoe shopping, so it was just Bethany, David and me. We got David's shoes at one shop and Bethany's at another. They are not great quality, but the price was right. David's were $10 and Bethany's were $7. They were happy to have new shoes and I was happy to have met the challenge of shoe shopping for children in Monrovia.

John

For an interesting perspective from a Scottish journalist who recently visited us here go to http://www.sundaypost.com/postindex.htm and scroll down to the story entitled "Terrifying car journey down the road to hell". Some that I have talked to here have responded negatively to this article, saying that it is too grim and sensationalistic and too heavily weighted toward promoting negative stereotypes about Africa. I like the bit at the end about Dr. Keith's starfish.