Day 16

As I start to write this post I am sitting in an Internet cafe run by a lady named Korpo Woiwor. She is a friend of Emmanuel’s and he trusts her to fill out paperwork for him. It is almost 9:00 PM local time. Korpo was working on his papers when LEC went out. I stood out on the 2nd floor balcony and watched as the city kept going. The stoplights quit, but they don’t always mean much in Liberia anyway. At least not around the busy intersections (junctions, as they call them). Just before LEC went out I took a short video. I watched as lights came back on as businesses started generators to get their lights working. Across the road on a big screen in a bar/restaurant of sorts, I noticed a soccer game being broadcast. This is all off generator at this point. Either that or they had to switch to solar if they have this with the batteries charged.

Well, Korpo had to wait for fuel to arrive for her generator putting her back to work. This doesn’t phase Liberians, as this is an almost daily occurrence. She is finishing up some documents for Emmanuel, an updated visa application for Emmanuel and Wintee, so if they can work things out they will again travel to America. He just wants it available in case the opportunity arises. The new visas are for 3 years, which make things so much easier if you can get one.

Our day began with a cooler feel to the day and the humidity seemed down just a bit. We had spaghetti and hotdogs with some scrambled eggs placed on top. It was pretty good.

After breakfast Leo and I decided to go for a walk and we went quite a ways. We took many pictures along the way. Occasionally people will get angry and say we should pay for the pictures. We explain they are for our personal use and we are not influencers trying to make money off these images. Most are okay with us then.

When we were leaving on our walk a group of men Leo got to know called him over. They wanted to invite him (and now I’m included) to a discussion about Christ tomorrow at 4:00 PM. We aren’t sure what that will be like since they don’t attend Emmanuel’s church, even though they sell across the road from it. It will be interesting. We accepted and we asked them to plan a couple of kaekaes for us to ride tomorrow. We told them to have them arrive by 10:00 AM. We’ll see how these plans work out. The kaekae is a 3 wheeled (small wheels) motorized vehicle used as a taxi. Renee didn’t want to ride in one, but Mother Wintee said she’d go with Renee so they, along with Leo and me will go for a ride tomorrow. We want to go to their Walmart type store called the Exclusive. We want to find ingredients for a blond brownie that Applebees used to serve with a maple glaze over the top. Emmanuel loved it in the states and Leo has Patty’s recipe so he is going to give it a shot with the coal oven tomorrow. I’ll have a report on how this turns out.

When we got back from our walk Emmanuel wanted to check his new car out for a problem, and there was some shopping needed for Wintee and Meko. Anytime you go to ‘town’ it is interesting. Emmanuel left early on a motorbike taxi and Philip drove me, Renee, Wintee and Meko, first of all to find Emmanuel and then on to the stores. Meko planned to buy a ‘DK bag‘ (colloqua for a bundle of used clothing from another country that they buy, breakdown and sell in pieces). They are a good size and they sell for $100-$200 US dollars. They have three grades of quality that determines the price. Meko bought a bundle of women’s underwear that she will breakdown and sell. I was at the house when she opened the bundle. That’s a lot of underwear! She said they sell for $100-200 LD (Liberian dollar currently exchanging at 182/1 US dollar).

Well, we got the car checked (looks like it will be fine), the DK bags (Wintee bought one of men’s white shirts) and Renee bought some pineapple and limes from a street vendor and we headed back. They too have rush hour traffic and things move slowly. We got home about 5:00 PM and had our kidney beans soup over rice with fresh pineapple and some lime squeezed in the water. Leo did a lot of reading while we were gone.

After eating and waiting for the sun to cool down, Leo headed out to water his gardens while Renee and I watched the bake of underwear get opened. They just started to dig into the pile when Emmanuel said he wanted me to go with him to the Internet cafe. We arrived here before 7:00 and now it is after 9:30 as I wait for them to finish.

I’ll add pictures another time as the cell network isn’t so good here. I’ll try to post this update as written. Thanks for following.