DISNEYLAND PARIS!

Last week I was able to take the week off and go to Paris with my friend Bev and her two boys! It was a blast to go to Disneyland and take a complete break from work in Liberia. Don't get me wrong, I love it here, but I was at the point of needing a small break from this wonderful country :) So, we boarded the plane on Sunday night, thankfully because when I went to check in, they once again told me that my tickets had been cancelled. After two hours of waiting patiently, I had a boarding pass in my hand, with a slightly changed itinerary from the rest of the group. But, I was free to leave.

Felix and I on the way to our hotel, just down the road from Disneyland Paris!

I don't sleep very well on planes, so I was pretty tired from missing a nights sleep on the way to Paris... it feels so good to just lay horizontal! Bev and I were talking about how the more you travel, the more you appreciate your bed... or any bed in general, and the opportunity to lay down!

We got into Paris on Monday, so we headed towards the parks to see where we needed to go the next day. Between the Disneyland Park and Disneyland Studios, was Disneyland Village filled with stores and numerous restaurants... including McDonalds!!!!! All three of us ran when we turned the corner and saw it! :)

YES!!!!! A Cheeseburger!!!! I'm certain the people seated around us thought we were insane by how we were reacting to simple McDonalds food.

Monday was actually the nicest day we had all week... we enjoyed basking in the sun since we haven't seen it in Liberia for a while.

This was the first day in Disneyland.... Once I passed those gates I was like a little kid again, skipping and running through the streets- so much fun!

Felix and I on the teacup ride- he was my riding buddy.

The little green men from Toy Story during the nightly parade.

The boys were hilarious... they had never seen anything like Disneyland before, and so when they saw the characters they would freeze and do these funny little nervous waves. I'm trying to coach them along here...

Meeting Goofy and Pluto

WOODY!

Checking out where to go next...

The boys' first experience with cotton candy.

One of the many foods I really miss while living in Liberia is TURKEY. So I made sure to eat a turkey sandwich everyday!

Every morning at breakfast I would take enough supplies to make us ALL turkey sandwiches for our lunch.. I was shameless...make four sandwiches and put them in my bag for later! Just like any good dutch girl would... :)

My fave ride of the week- in Disneyland Studios.

We took the boys on "It's a small world" ride... I did not have good memories of this ride from when I was in 7th grade, but I was very impressed with Paris' version of it. Maybe it is because I appreciate other cultures so much more now than I did then... But here was my "Iowa" scene from the ride.

In the Disneyland Village there was a "Chicago Steakhouse" restaurant... which of course my eyes lit up when I saw. I was so excited for a steak! The steak was a disappointment compared to dad's homegrown beef, but let me tell you, this ceasar salad was amazing! (Another thing we dont get in Liberia... salad!)
We went to a stunt show in the Studio park, where they showed how they film stunts in movies- it was amazing to watch. Notice how the red car has ramped over to the other truck.

And the man on fire...

The last night we treated ourselves to the Buffalo Bill's Wild West dinner show! It was a blast! Complete with horses, buffalo and long horned cattle... It made me feel more at home actually. It was quite funny to attend one of these shows in a French culture... they would play familiar country music and everyone was like "huh?" but still a great time.

We took a day to see a few of the sites in Paris.. here we are aboard the metro.

Hanging out with the boys at the Louvre courtyard, the museum where the Mona Lisa held.

Bev and the boys in front of the Notre Dame.

The Eiffel tower! On the way to the tower I was thinking that I wouldn't be too impressed, but I was wrong. It is a very impressive structure, and beautiful at night!

View from the very top of the Eiffel Tower.

We were coming down the steps from the very top level to find a marking for Monrovia, Liberia, 4,875 km from that point. Very cool.

Our experience in the city included a LOT more walking than we had anticipated... we didn't get back to our hotel until midnight... this is on our hotel shuttle... almost there! Our feet were KILLING us! But the boys did so well.

After we left Paris, we had a day and a half in Brussels on our way back to Liberia. Since we were there for a good chunk of time, we were able to meet up with my good friends Jeremy and Kimber Van Essen, who live in Germany!

Jer and Kimber were basically my family when I lived in Cedar Falls- they invited me over for supper my first week there when I didn't know a soul, and I basically never left! :) Jeremy works for John Deere, and is 2 years into his 4 year stint in Germany. I was able to visit them last year on my way back to the States, and now again this year! It is so great to have them on this side of the "pond", and that we are able to actually see each other with the ease of travel in Europe. Who knew, 8 years ago that we would be hanging out in Europe together?!?! It's awesome how God works.

We met in the cutest little city called Brugge... one of the most quaint little towns I have ever seen!

Grabbing something to eat! Can you tell how much I love food??? :)

Famous Belgium French Fries

Picture Perfect

Jeremy and Kimber have four kids, and the boys loved hanging out with them for the day.


We had to try a Belgium waffle while in Belgium... and let me tell you... it was the MOST AMAZING thing I have ever eaten! FRESH strawberries (another I miss), powdered sugar and whipped cream.... It's a party in your mouth!

The Belfry in Brugge... built in the 1300's!

One end of the city square in Brugge... doesn't it look like Orange City? ;)

Thanks Van Essens for a great day!

I figured this picture encompassed our vacation well.... Quick (with McDonald's fast food) Starbucks every day, Disneyland, and the airport. All in all, a fabulous trip!

Tuckered out little boys...

And on our way back to Liberia, thankfully, after every flight I went to check in for told me my ticket had been cancelled! But we made it!

"Nothing is easy in Liberia"

A familiar saying here in Liberia is, "It not easy-o"... just stating that nothing is easy here... Things that should go smoothly, rarely do. Things that take a few minutes at home, end up taking half of your day here. Let me just give you a few recent examples from this week:

1. Six weeks ago I went down to the airline office to buy my tickets for my vacation that I'm taking next week. I booked all four flights and paid for them... only to find that when I went to confirm the flights yesterday, I had none. No worries, as of today, I am on three of the four flights... for some reason I am on a waiting list for the final flight, but I'm not too worried about that since it is the flight back to Monrovia!

2. Driving to town to confirm those flights, my first turn is a left onto a small bypass. There is a pickup truck coming off of that bypass wanting to turn left onto the road I am on. Instead of yielding to me to turn left, he decides to just keep pulling out, and out and out... where soon there is barely enough room for me to take my turn left around him. As I am trying to squeeze by him, he is looking at me like I am the one who is in the wrong. I continue driving into town, which in itself is an adventure, with little to no rules for driving, much less people dodging in and out of traffic. My mission that morning was to find a store that could make a copy of our house key... since we have six people and three keys. Sounds easy, right? I go to the first store which advertises key copies on the window. I ask the nice man behind the counter if he can make a copy of my key, but he doesn't have the right kind of blank key to cut. So off to store number two, to find the same story there. Stores three, four and five... same story. So I decide to give up on the idea since I was running out of time and the vehicle was needing to get back to the office for the next person to use. As I was driving up to store number three, there was one parking spot on the right open... one that would need parallel parking. So as I waited for the truck to pull out and completely block all traffic as he turned around, I had made sure that my blinker was on. (I have learned the hard way to always use your blinker... even AFTER you turn the corner, or you may be pulled over for wreckless driving! LOL) So my blinker is on and I pull ahead to do my parallel park, to find that a taxi is right on my rear end, BLARING his horn, ticked off that I would even THINK about reversing at a time like this. Well, this is the only parking spot in the next 5 blocks, I am not giving this one up. So I sit and wait. And he continues to honk. I put the car in reverse, waiting patiently. Finally he figures out that I am not going to go forward, and backs up enough for me to do my parallel parking. As I park, I look to my left and he is stopped right next to me, looking at me as if waiting for an explanation. Tempted to say "this is what they call parallel parking. Try it sometime!" Instead I rolled down my window and said, "My man, my signal light was on." The blank stare in return told me that my explanation meant NOTHING to him, and off he drove.

3. Last weekend we decided to make the 2 hour drive up to Robertsport for a day of surfing. Corruption alway has been big in Liberia, but President Sirleaf has been working pretty hard at stopping it, especially in the LNP (Liberian National Police). We were on our way back to Monrovia, driving through a checkpoint that we have passed through hundreds of times, when the officer signals me to stop. I stop, take a deep breath and roll down the window.

"Afternoon Officer."

"Afternoon Ma. Do you have anything for me today?"

Deep breath by me.

"No sir, I don't."

Blank stare.

Looks in the car at all my passengers.

A hesitated "ok." he says and waves me through.

A similar thing happened just the other day after I brought someone to the airport. Usually I am driving our SP vehicle which has license plates with our organization on it. As soon as the police see it is a NGO, they wave us through. This particular day I was driving one of our rental cars, which license plate indicates a personal car. Any other time I pass through no problem. This time, I get signalled to pull over. I pull over to the right and wait for the imenant request. "Ma... it is cold out today. You have tea for me right?" I just looked at him and said "Not today sir."

That is just the tip of the iceburg of regular occurances over here... many times people around me will laugh and say "wow you get excited about the little things, don't you!" and I reply, "YES!" With that being said, most days its the little things that make my day, but at the same time, its the little things that can be so frustrating. So, I'm leaving for a week of much needed vacation this weekend to Paris! I'm praying for rest, fun and the hottest showers imagineable! :)

An Ordinary Sight

This is a very normal sight to see in our house, especially at night... all of us in the living room with our computers on our laps. Usually the internet at the office is so slow that we have little to no connectivity, and it is much "faster" at our house at night with only 6 of us connected instead of 60! Sometimes I wonder if we had a fast internet speed, if we would be on our computers less because we wouldn't waste so much time waiting for pages to open? I don't think that is a question I will have answered in Liberia unfortunately. But I am very thankful for the access that we do have on a regular basis!

This is what Liberian's call "Homework." Little thistles that stick to all of your clothes when you walk through longer grass... and you spend a LOT of time at home picking them out of your clothes!

This is not an ordinary sight! The other night we were sitting around with our computers (see above) playing music which led Emily and I to line dancing. It was great! Makes me miss wedding dances back home! We decided we need to have a line dancing party... so I better learn more than what I know now!

Making our mark

Most times as you drive down the bumpy dirt roads and look at the houses you pass, you see different paintings or patterns that the house owner will paint on his house. This past year, since we started working in the remote area of Bokomu, we found a new painting we had never seen before... a picture of our SP chopper, which is the only "vehicle" these Liberians see, since they are so remote and have no road that accesses their district! So in this particular way, we are making our "mark!"

Filter Drop

One of the things I love most about my job is that every day is different. I could be in the office one day, driving a team up country to show our projects the next, or photographing one of our 35 projects! This past Tuesday I joined the Water and Sanitation (WATSAN) team on a "Filter Drop" with the helicopter, sling loading 14 water filters into a village with no road access. The village is located on the top of a hill, surrounded by swamp land, with no roads and only small foot paths. With no real logical way to carry 14 heavy filters in, we used our SP Chopper to do the job in just a couple hours.

All of our supplies were on the soccer field ready to be packed in the nets.

Situating the filters on one of our four nets. Each filter weighs 300 lbs empty!

Picking up the first load

Off they go to provide an entire village with clean drinking water!

Usually when we do sling loading, the chopper has a good 20-30 minute turn around time, which lets the team on the ground have enough time to get the next load ready. This time, the village we were dropping in was a THREE MINUTE flight! So they had to be on the ball because Dan was back ready for the next load in 6 short minutes!

Making sure the load is ready to go

Incoming...

Ben, our Water and Sanitation Coordinator in Foya, watches his water filters arrive.

Quickly trying to move the filters off of the landing site before the next load arrived... Ben told me to go ahead and move this one... all 300 pounds of it... Yah it didn't go too far!

Once the filters are in the homes, they need to be leveled and installed with the proper medium.

This woman was so happy for the filters, she sang and danced the whole time we were there. She also took the initiative in her village to build a church! I love the Ellen poster in the back... Featuring our President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first female President/ruler in Africa.

Once the filters had arrived safely on the landing pad, they needed to be moved into the village and into each house. Both dolly's we had broke in the rush to get the filters off the landing pad, so the guys rigged up a "stretcher" to carry these heavy filters into the village.

Flying back to Monrovia, dodging quite a few rain showers. As long as you can see over the next ridge you are ok! :) Gotta love rainy season flying.

Just goofing around in the back of the chopper. I think we were laughing so hard that Dan (pilot) could hear us through his helmet in the front! He turned around to see what all the noise was about... and this is what he found!

Taya had her camera and took a few pics of me at work.

Yekepa 09!

Since everyone works non-stop, we figured it would be good to get all the girls to go away for a weekend trip- this time to Yekepa since most of them had never been there! So we loaded up two landcruisers with ten women and off we went!

Of course it wouldn't be a trip to ABC without having a snake killed... here is a black cobra, about 6 feet long that was killed in the generator house.

We took the ladies to all the "hot" spots of Yekepa.. one being the old train station... here are all the SP ladies, just missing two!

Hiking on the mountain.. in the clouds.

There is our landcruiser up on the left.. SO beautiful up there!

I think I need to wear a different shirt... I am realizing that I wear this one a lot!

Back at the house we all pitched in to make my famous pizza!

Here it is!

ABC Farm

Ladies picking rice to transplant. I love the vivid green color.

We were on our way to see a newly found waterfall, but with all the rain the bridge was washed away... next time!

No worries, we got out with no problem. These vehicles are amazing!

Monkey nuts!

So this is one of my favorite fruits in Liberia... Monkey Nuts. Or Litchi if you prefer. Just little red furry balls of goodness!


You pierce the skin and peel it away to find a large white grape like fruit, with a large pit in the middle. Pop it in your mouth and grind away the fruit and spit out the pit. It can be a bit sticky, but oh so good! Sometimes when we are traveling up country we will buy a whole bag off the side of the road and just dig in!