a week in Foya

We are implementing a women's integrated agriculture program from USAID right now in Lofa County.  I haven't been able to see the project yet this year and was finally able to stop by when I was in Lofa last week!  Part of the program is swamp rice, piggeries and fishponds for the women to operate.  These women are coming with the rice seedlings to transplant into the swamp.

It's a lot of work, but a great project! 

I was able to see a few of my adult literacy classes that week also.  This beginner class was learning the letter "c".

Here is an image of one of our beautiful fishponds!

We had a team visiting from the UK, here to work with our WASH (water and sanitation) projects.  I really just felt led to hand the camera off to Bev and get my hands dirty in building a water filter for the first time!  I have photographed and used these filters for 4 years now and have never built one myself. Well, the time finally came and I had a blast doing it!

While we waited for our filters to cure, we moved on to another important aspect of sanitation- latrines! Think about how many times you use the bathroom in your house or at your work place.  Now think about what it would be like if you didn't have a toilet to use... where would you go?  Do you realize how much "stuff" flies can transport and land on your food?  Gross, hey?  Well we also help communities build their own latrines, so they have a place they can go and can also become healthier.  I was able to help the team construct a latrine for a family in Yengbemi-- well at least the first half of the construction!  I had a blast chucking the 'country plaster' between mud bricks!

Here is our structure!

The UK team with our WASH staff and their completed, brand new filters!  Thanks team, for all of your hard work!

the hard stuff

One particular event happened this week that I cannot forget.  A seventeen-year-old beautiful girl named Faith.*  Faith is in the final stages of life as a result of suffering from HIV-AIDS.  Unfortunately this is a common occurrence in Liberia, but not for reasons that you may think.

When the Liberian civil crisis was going on, rebels felt the freedom to rape and gang rape women of all ages in Liberia.  The result of that has been a huge increase of HIV-AIDS.  With little or no education on HIV-AIDS, it continued to spread to all ages.

But Faith's story is a bit different.

Faith was also a victim.  Not a victim of rape, thankfully, like so many Liberian women are, but a victim of a poor health system.

Faith's mom passed away in 2005 from a common disease in Liberia.  A few short years later, Faith came down with malaria.  She went to the hospital for treatment, where the health staff told her she was short of blood (a common problem in Liberia- I've never heard of this problem before, but I'm not a medical person.. still makes no sense to me at all).  As a result, she needed to have a blood transfusion.

The blood that she received was HIV positive.

This beautiful 17 year old was completely innocent.  And now she is toothpick thin, giving all of her energy to staying healthy and continuing to go to school.  Yet, she still has a big, toothy grin on her face.

What can we do at this point for Faith? Our staff continue to visit her weekly, making sure that she is taking her meds, and getting the nutrients she needs.  When I was visiting with her, our HIV/AIDS program manager asked her what her favorite meal was.  "Fufu!" was her excited answer.  Love reached into his pocket and handed over enough money for her to enjoy fufu every day for the next week.  We can't take away the disease that she has contracted, but we can do little things like making sure she is eating well with the proper nutrients.  We can continue to be Jesus to her.

Please pray for our HIV/AIDS staff who deal with difficult situations like this daily.  Please pray for Faith as she fights this awful disease.  Pray also that she can continue to be a light to the other children she encounters who are also sick.


*Name has been changed to protect her identity.

Nimba County Adventures

The first week of September I traveled to Nimba County to see the work that SP has been doing with WASH (water and sanitation) and also with the host communities who have taken in refugees from the Ivory Coast situation.

Rainy season roads are not easy-o.  This particular day was no different.  The recent rains made the roads muddy and slimy.  It is the equivelant of driving on ice covered roads in Iowa!  Our first encounter at 7 AM was a truck that had jack knifed itself across the entire road, leaving only 8 feet on the side for other trucks and vehicles to pass. What resulted was many, many stuck vehicles in the rut that continued to deepen on the side of the road.  Here is Justin observing our stuck land cruiser.  It took us about an hour and a half before we were able to make it through!

This is the water source from one of the communities we are working in along the Ivory Coast border.  It is an unprotected spring with stagnant, dirty water.

This is their water now after we dug a hand dug well and installed a hand pump!

These kids couldn't get enough of the camera!

Clean water.  Something we take for granted in the western world. Just a simple tap to turn on and there it is.  For this little girl, she has been sick most of her life from diarrhea because of her lack of clean water access.  Not anymore!  SP is able to service her entire community with this new hand dug well!

Besides muddy/slippery roads, we also encountered a massive tree that had fallen during the storm the night before, blocking the road to our last community to visit that day.  We encountered this tree after driving through 4-5 feet of water- over the hood of our land cruiser!  We were not going to turn around without delivering clothes for the refugees, so we parked the car, and carried the clothes by foot until we reached the village. I love taking pictures, but sometimes its more important to give the extra hand in accomplishing the job.

Justin and his new little friend.

Clothes and non-food items for the refugees!  These clothes were all donated by Liberian churches in the area.  The members of these churches were once refugees in Ivory Coast merely ten years ago.  Now with the opportunity to return the favor, they are helping meet the physical and spiritual needs of these hurting refugees with Samaritan's Purse's assistance.

Election fever!

**the views on this post do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer**

It is election season in Liberia!  Tuesday, October 11th will mark the first nationally led elections in Liberia in over 20 years.  Six years ago,  elections were held, but were lead by the United Nations.

It is definitely an exciting time to be in the country, as campaigns are being made and political debates are everywhere!  

Most of you probably know that Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is the current president of Liberia, and is the recent co-recipient of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize!  One of her fellow recipients, Leymah Gbowee, is also a Liberian woman, known for mobilizing the women of this country to stand for peace.  They prayed (and are still praying)  daily for peace and also blocked the doors of the peace talks in Ghana before the war ended, to insure that the violence was going to stop.  I am proud to be working in this country where these two women are making a difference!

With elections early next week, the country is inundated with billboards campaigning for the SIXTEEN- yes sixteen, different political parties for Liberia's next president.  It definitely makes driving through Monrovia more entertaining! 

Here are a good number of them-  I'll let you guess who has more funds for campaigning!

 I love the use of Liberian English in a lot of the sayings-

Unfortunately, this still happens quite often.  Traveling through-out the country the last weeks I heard many conversations about how certain parties will offer cash for votes.

"Monkey still working let baboon wait small" has become one of Ellen's slogan for 2011- meaning, she is still working hard for Liberia- let the others candidates wait until she has finished what she set out to do!  As you can imagine, this has also created much stir for the "baboons"...

And my absolute favorite-- I'm not sure if its the Liberian saying or the photoshop job of putting captain hats on Ellen and Joe!

As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, Leymah Gbowee mobilized the women of Liberia to stand for peace.  Prior to the end of the war in 2003, these women could be found praying for peace- rain or shine, on the football field in Monrovia.  Some of them were able to travel to Ghana to barricade the doors of the peace talks that were happening there- pushing the warlords who were enjoying a nice vacation to actually end the war and the atrocities that were happening back in Liberia. (If you want to know more about these amazing women, check out the film Pray the Devil Back to Hell.)

In the past few months, the women have been back on the football field daily praying for peaceful elections.  They have been praying in the form of the cross, with the Liberian flag in the center, asking God to hear their pleas.

"The Daily Talk" is a news board found on the main road heading into Monrovia.  This was today's headline:

It is my prayer that Liberians do think before they vote- and vote for the rightful candidate.  It is also my prayer (and the prayer of my co-workers) that no matter what the results are, they will be accepted.  The last thing this country needs is to go back to violence.

As far as my safety and security are concerned, SP has been planning out our evacuation plan in case of  violence for weeks now.  In fact, I have packed my first "go bag" to be ready at any time in the next 6 weeks.  It is not something I intend to use.  We are prepared, but we are not anticipating anything out of the ordinary to happen.

These are exciting times in Liberia!  It is a great time to be here and to watch history unfold around us.  Will the first woman president of Africa be voted for a second term?  Will the former Liberia football star be the next Vice President?

So, as of today, three more days until elections.  Please pray with me and the women of Liberia that peace will reign over all.

photos from east africa

If you would like to see the photos I took in Kenya with the famine, and also in South Sudan with the refugees from the Nuba mountains, the links are below!

Kenya- Horn of Africa Famine

South Sudan- Nuba Mountain refugees

Child Screening

Today I went to a community with the Nutrition and Hygiene team to visit a dispensary, meet with the women, and screen their children for malnutrition.

I’ll admit I was excited to see this process and the results, but I was more nervous than ever to try and photograph it. In no way, shape or form do I want to embarrass or offend someone we are trying to help. I never pull my camera out unless the chief says it is ok, and don’t take pictures of anything going on that isn’t a part of our projects directly. Women appear to be more afraid of the camera than anyone else. Unfortunately, in this culture, women are looked at as third class citizens. They are always covered from head to toe, and rarely speak unless the men are not around. So knowing I was going to a project where 98% of the people there were going to be women, I was a bit nervous. I want to be able to show and tell what God is doing here, but to do it in the most sensitive way possible. To my surprise, the elder of the town said it was no problem to take pictures. I was happy to hear that, but he didn’t discuss it with the women, so I was still wondering if it was going to be ok. Thank you Jesus for answering my prayer! The women were very welcoming to having their picture taken (within reason- you don’t just stick a camera in their face!). But I also tried to be as sensitive as possible as not to make them feel ashamed if their child was severely malnourished.

As the women entered the meeting place, I noticed an older woman who was carrying a newborn. I knew that our screening was for five years and younger, but I wasn’t sure about new borns. I walked over to her, saw the tiny baby, grabbed her hand and smiled at the woman. The child’s name is Izidra.

Ten minutes later, it was time for Musa, our Nutrition Program Manager, to perform the MUAC on this little baby. (The MUAC is a measurement taken around the left arm of the child. Depending on the measurement, it tells us if the child is at risk, moderately malnourished, or severely malnourished).

As Musa approached the woman, he asked her how old Izidra was. “Eight months,” she replied. I looked at Gabby, our Hygiene Program Manager, and both of our eyes went wide. Eight months old- and this little girl was the size of a newborn baby. Smaller than most newborns in the States. Next to this woman was another 8 month old- a twin brother- more than twice the size of his twin sister Izidra.

After the MUAC, each child is weighed. Children all over the world hate this part the most. Some stranger puts them into a harness where they hang free from a scale- I can imagine the fear of some of these children! Most screamed in terror, and a few sat calmly and enjoyed the ride.

It was time for Izidra to be weighed in. With much screaming, the final weight measured was 3.3 kilos, or 7.7 lbs. The same weight Gabby and I both weighed when we were born.

Little Izidra has a long road ahead of her. We were able to send them home with some supplementary food, to assist in getting her the proper nutrition in order to grow.

As we were leaving, someone approached our leader about Izidra’s mother, who was also very sick with an infection. We stopped at the house to see her, and assisted in her transport to Garissa, where she could get medical attention from the Red Cross.

The team screened 83 kids under five today, with 15 of them registered as malnourished.

I’ve never known what it is like to be hungry. I don’t know what it is like to go without water for extremely long amounts of time. I can’t imagine what it is like to be a mother and to feel helpless in providing what my child needs most. It isn’t easy for them. The people here value two main things: their children and their livestock. With no rain for years, both are extremely hard to sustain.

As a photographer, I want to tell their story to help them- not hurt them. I pray that every encounter I have while I am here, is one that is blessed and ordained by God- so that they, even for a short while, feel that love through me and my team.

Horn of Africa Famine

I realize I have been out of communication for quite some time. I feel like I have been all over the world- because I have! I was able to enjoy a fantastic vacation to Alaska and British Columbia in July. I returned to Liberia to soon find out I had the opportunity to come to Kenya to help with the communications to our response to the incredibly large famine. So, here I am, on the opposite side of the continent. Boy, is it opposite of Liberia! Liberia is so lush, receiving over 200 inches of rainfall each year. It is mostly tropical jungle, and very humid. North East Kenya is dry. .. I mean really dry. There hasn’t been rain in over 2 years, and has caused a very large famine for not only the Kenyan people in this area, but for Somali refugees who have fled into Kenya for assistance. SP has a DART (Disaster Assistance Response Team) team deployed to this area to bring relief to the starving, sick victims of this drought.

It is downright dry, windy, and dusty. Everywhere. You drive down the road and there are caravans of camels and donkeys carrying jerry cans full of water from the nearest source. If you are one of the fortunate ones, your community has a working bore hole, or a river. But the majority of communities do not. Water pans that would hold massive amounts of water in the past are now bone dry. The Kenyans have tried digging 10-15 feet holes in these watering pans, hoping to find water. What they do find is only a few inches of extremely dirty water. So what do you do when your main water source- a source that has never gone dry, is gone? You spend you days looking for water.

Most of the women are spending their days looking for water. Many times, they have to walk 20-30 km to find water, load up all of their animals and make the journey back to their settlement camp. Sometimes, when a bore hole is dug in their community, the water is full of salt and undrinkable. The conditions are dire and I haven’t even seen the worst areas. Malnutrition is every where, animals need water, as well as their owners.

Thursday and Friday I was able to tag along with our Water and Sanitation staff as they provided six nearby nomadic settlements each with 20,000 liters of clean water. Here, water is life. It keeps your animals alive, which keeps your family fed. Right now, a typical Kenyan or Somali refugee in this area only has 2 liters of water per day to use. I also heard someone say today that the water problem is so large, they only have enough water to bathe once a week. Knowing that this is an immediate response, we fully understand that trucking water isn’t the best for the long run. But it is best for now, until a more sustainable intervention can be made.

We serve a big God. Nothing is impossible for him. Please join me in praying for rain.