Fall Reflections

Fall is my favorite time of year at home.

I love the chill in the air.

Everything is crisp and fresh.

You smell cinnamon and nutmeg in the air as you sip your pumpkin spice latte and crunch falling leaves on the sidewalk.

It always makes me feel alive.

It is hard to believe it is the last day of October as I sit here in the muggy 80+ degree weather everyday.

I have been in Liberia for a month today.

4 weeks already!

Amazing.

I can't wait to see what lies ahead.

Gifty's Big Day!

Wednesday was a big day for Gifty!

Our precious girl was finally discharged from the hospital. She obviously has chronic issues that are not going away until she can get the surgery she needs (keep praying!), but the doctor decided that she is eating well, growing stronger and infection free so she can have a little freedom. We picked her up from the hospital and drove straight to the feeding program for a weigh-in. She actually weighed the same as last week, but her belly is smaller and her checks are fatter so that is a good sign.

Gifty loves the Plumpy'nut!

After getting another week's worth of the good stuff we headed to the orphanage home to get Gifty settled in. All the other children were happy to see her back. Now we start a new phase in Gifty's care, keeping her healthy and getting her stronger. I will be checking on her daily for a while to see how she is adjusting. When I stopped by the orphanage today for a visit she was happy and fever free.

Blackboard

Ashley and I have been planning a workshop for some of the orphanage directors that ORR works with. "Workshops" are big here in Liberia. Call a group together, talk to them for a few hours, give them a certificate and the job is done. Our workshop is scheduled for next Monday, November 3rd.

It has been an interesting process- finding a place to have it (an almost finished church building without electricity, chairs or a bathroom), how to invite people with no mail service (make 25 phone calls with the help of your In-Country director and repeat the information 15 times per phone call and then still have 7 people show up the week before it is supposed to happen and ask where you are), plan a curriculum for 50 people (who may or may not read and probably won't understand a word I am going to say).

And then there is the blackboard. We needed a way to present the information we will be talking about. Powerpoint, over-head projectors, even dry erase boards are not available in Liberia. So we move on to the good old fashioned blackboard. We do not have a school supply superstore or Office Max to run to, so what do we do?

The following are the steps to getting a blackboard in Liberia. . .
1) Ask Momo, your Chief of Security to fetch Buckeye, the neighborhood carpenter.
2)Have an animated conversation with Buckeye about having a blackboard built, wondering the whole time if he has any idea what you are saying.
3)Have Momo translate.
4)Draw a picture in the sand with a lollipop stick. (see below)
5)Send Buckeye off with money to the market hoping that he really knows what he is doing.
6)Wonder for hours why it is taking so long for Buckeye to return with the building supplies.
7)Scratch your head in confusion when he returns saying it cost too much to come back in a taxi so he hired a cart to bring the supplies the couple miles back in the heat of the day for 60 cents less.
8)Ask Buckeye if he got everything he needs.
9)Look confused when Buckeye says yes and then you realize he only got wood. No nails. No blackboard paint.
10)Have another animated conversation (with Momo translating and at least 2 phone calls from the other side of the fence) about how tall the blackboard should be.
11)Hope and pray that you are not wasting your time and money.
12)Go out to dinner with you friends and try and not worry about it.
13)Return home and find a blackboard that actually looks like the drawing in the sand. (see below)
14)Order a desk.

Hopefully the workshop will turn out as good as the blackboard did.

New Do

A few weeks ago we stopped by to see our friends at Frances Gaskin's and Ashley and I left with a new hairstyle. We were attacked by girls (and a few boys) who were anxious to get a feel of the white ladies hair. The treatment included quite the head massage, painful hair pulling into "plaits" (braids) and a lot of therapeutic laughing.

Where's Waldo?

Where's Waldo - Liberian Edition.

Gifty's Field Trip

Today we took Gifty on a field trip.

Gifty is getting stronger and more alert. The other day she was sitting up on her own, this was the first time I have seen this in the 3 weeks I have been here. She is playing more and even waved goodbye to me as I left her room.

Gifty is still fighting it out in the hospital. Even though Her lung infection is responding to the antibiotics and the cough is much less, the pediatrician is not ready to discharge her yet.

Today we received the OK to take her to the local "Action Against Hunger" clinic to have her evaluated for their feeding program. Piko (one of Gifty's wonderful caregivers) and I piled into a hospital truck with Gifty and 2 other children, their mothers, a Liberian nurse and the driver. After a bit of a hard time finding the place (neither the nurse or the driver knew exactly where it was) we piled into a room with at least 20 other mothers and children.

Gifty (now 15 months old) weighed in at 5.2kg and a whopping 63cm long.

She definitely qualified for the feeding program. This is what we wanted because now she will be supplied with Plumpy'nut nutrition supplement to aid in her healing, growth and malnutrition. Plumpy'nut is a peanut butter type food that has vital vitamins, minerals and other nutrients added. Now Gifty will get to chow down twice a day on the good stuff and hopefully we will see her gaining more weight and strength in the weeks to come.

Who and Where

I had a request for some pictures of where I live and who I work with. . .

The Sunset from my front yard this evening.

The team ORR house.

Our new outside shower.

Laundry day.

The ORR team.

Jennifer, Ashley, Cramer, Andrew, Deb.

A new kind of popular.

I have never been what I would call "in the popular crowd." So having everyone notice me here in Liberia is a bit out of my comfort zone. Every where we go we hear whistles, Liberian grunts, and marriage proposals. Most of the time children wave or point as we are driving by, other times their jaws drop and we can read their lips "a white woman, a white woman." My personal favorite is when a child sees me and then bursts into tears and runs away screaming.
You can imagine the attention we have received this week with the 3 ORR women riding in the back of our Tata. One day Jen, Ash and I were in the back as we toured 5 orphanages. We felt like beauty queens in a parade waving to our adoring fans. One time Andrew had to make a "quick" stop so we waited in the truck. Instantly we were surrounded by dozens of children, standing and staring and laughing at us. It was particularly scandalous because Willemina (a Liberian woman) was in the front seat and the white women were in the back. As we drove away the children ran after us, laughing, as far as their legs would take them.
Friday we were taking a load of food to an orphanage about an hour away. (Another story about how the brakes went out in the truck again can be inserted here.) Cramer and Mary (our Liberian Ma) in the front and Ash and I in the back again. This time we were sitting on top of about 600 pounds of rice, beans and other food. This lifted us higher in the back and so increased our beauty queen status- more waving, smiling and pointing.
Ash, Cramer and I were walking to the beach the other day (another attention getting exercise) and talking about all the attention. Just walking down the road we get all kinds of greetings and kids run up to us to shake our hand or run away and cling to their mother or older sister and stare as we go by.
I never thought I would be popular, but if I was going to be I did not think it would be because of my skin color or because I am bringing food or medicine to orphans.
I guess this is a new kind of popular.

Baby Girl Gifty

Baby girl Gifty continues to fight for her life in the hospital. As I mentioned before, she has been back in the hospital since last Thursday. Her lung infection progressed into pneumonia and she is now on her second round of antibiotics covering a wide range of possibilities, including pertusis (whooping cough). She has also been getting breathing treatments as needed. I have been visiting her every few days. Despite her lung issues she is looking better and getting stonger. Yesterday was the first time I saw her sitting up on her own. She is eating well and gaining weight. Each time I see her I fall more in love, she is wrapping me up!


Gifty last Thursday, just before we had to get her readmitted to the hospital.


Gifty on Wednesday (with Uncle Andrew), looking better.

We continue to pray for a miracle for this precious girl. There are a couple families that have come forward, willing to adopt her. At this time it is just waiting for red tape and paper work to go through. (ORR is not personally involved with the adoption process. We are, however, supporting Gifty in everyway we can until that happens.)

Pics from the big clean-up.

Some proof that I really am working over here...


Boys sporting their new briefs, after the clean-up.


Slathering!


If you look close, this pic has a lot going on. Talk about action shot!


Checking for ringworm. . .my new expertise!

Clean, Scrub and Slather

Today we had an all out clean em, scrub em, slather em in goop day at one of our more needy orphanages. Ashley and I scrubbed about 30 children from head to toe and then applied medicine for either scabies or ringworm. There had been an outbreak of both. After the scrubbing and slathering all the kiddos were fitted with a brand new, clean pair of underwear. We also assisted in ridding them of their old worn and filthy mattresses from the floor with brand new ones that they had stacked up in the store room. Now with them clean and sleeping in a clean area I hope they will be more healthy and happy. I know I am. It was a very rewarding day.

Randomness

Tonight we fixed tacos for dinner, beef, beans, guacamole carrots and all. Veggies are the tricky thing around here and all we could find were red peppers and carrots so that is what we used and you know what? They were AWESOME!!! Yum. :-)

Yesterday our team mate Jen, was in a car accident. The brakes went out on our truck. The truck hit a van filled with 15 people and 2 of our guards were in the truck with Jen. The good news- no one was hurt. yeah! The bad news- that brings our vehicle total to ZERO. This will be an interesting week with 5 team members, 5 different projects and agendas and no vehicles.

The night club next door, Menitama, is hosting the Miss ELWA pageant practices. What does that mean for me? 7 nights a week of hearing the same 6 songs played at different volumes, incomplete and with a fuzzy sound system and dozens of cheering Liberians trying to climb our wall to watch. We all climbed up on the well to peak over the wall the other day and watched for a bit as 8 pageant princesses walked back and forth in front of a full length mirror. . .over and over and over. The rumor is the pageant finals are not until November 29th. That means 6 more weeks of Love is Wicked.

You have heard the line "Lions and Tigers and Bears oh my!" The ORR house version of that is "Mice and Spiders and Ants... oh fun!" There has been an ongoing mouse problem at the house for a while. That has lead to multiple creative ways to rid the house of them. I will save the details and just say "Mice hockey anyone?" The fire ants out in the yard have been becoming quite annoying. This has led to "Ants Death 1, 2, and 3." (I will refer you to Cramers blog for the play by play videos, the link to his blog is on mine as "Ave of the Cramericas.") I will leave you with the following picture of a spider in our house. It is on the living room wall and that is my size 8 foot in the pic for scale. (I think I should get some props for overcoming my fear and sacrificing my foot for the photo op.)

Until next time. . .

Keep praying for Gifty.

I was hoping that I would have a happy report about Gifty today. She was discharged from the hospital this afternoon. Her jaundice and abdominal swelling are better. But when we left the hospital she had begun a small cough. I spent a few hours at Fatu's orphanage with her caregivers going over her meds and watching her. She did not seem to have a fever so I decided to see how she did overnight and reassess her in the morning. About 3 hours later I got a call that she was not doing well. I went back over to check on her and she had definitely worsened in those few hours. Her cough was much worse, she was coughing so much she could not catch her breath , she was lethargic and burning up with fever. Back to the hospital we went. She was readmitted with bronchiolitis, which she probably caught from another child in the hospital while she was there. She is getting a different kind of IV antibiotics and is being monitored. Her little compromised immune system is having a hard time fighting off the bugs. I will go back and check on her tomorrow. Please keep watching here for updates and continue to pray with us for a miracle for Gifty.

The Road to Garmai's

Yesterday, I actually made it to an orphanage.
We went over to assess Garmai's orphanage. She has about 30 children in her home. Jen needed to check out the land for capacity building availability and I wanted to have a look at the kids. We are limited on vehicles right now and 5 of us were going so we, in typical ORR fashion, crammed into our little truck (affectionately called the Tata). Andrew, Jen and Willemina (our brand new team member working with Jen on CP stuff) were in front, Ashley and I were in the back under the cap sitting on buckets. It started to rain just as we were leaving, but we were not too worried about it because the orphanage is not too far from here. While we were bumping along on the way there, Ashley and I were minding our own business, in conversation on our buckets in the back when all of a sudden we were flying through the air. I honestly saw Ashley fly superman style across from me while I some how went from sitting on my bucket vertically to sitting on it horizontally. Apparently, Andrew was trying to find the best way across a drop off corner and at one point we were on 2 wheels. We survived however after a few screeches and a little bit more dirty but in one piece and arrived at the orphanage home a few minutes later.
Of course by the time we reached Garmai's there was a full Liberian style downpour going on. We were there a short time, many of the kids were still in school and with the rain Jen could not really get a look at the land.
So we headed off to our next orphanage, which I will tell you now, we never made it too. To spare Ashley and I (who had resumed our positions on the buckets) the excitement of another drop off experience, Andrew decided to go back a different way. (Not always a good idea on a rainy day in Liberia.) A few minutes into our journey we got stuck in a humongous puddle. It took Andrew and several helpful Liberians to get us unstuck while the rest of us stood by and watched in the rain (I am already thankful for that REI rain coat I bought on clearance before I left). After tipping the helpful Liberians we were back on the road. Ashley had her video camera and decided to document our rainy day Liberian road adventure.
(This is the point where I would like to show you the video, but we have been having problems uploading videos and so instead I will point you towards Ashley's blog, "Love in Liberia", to see it. The link is on my blog page. Please check it out we have watched it at least 20 times and laugh til we are crying every time.)
About 30 seconds after we were bouncing along road again we found ourselves flying through the air - again. This time Ashley had the video going. I laughed and screamed and found myself lying on the sandy truck bed while Ashley fought to keep control of the camera. This time we hit a rock while trying to maneuver another huge puddle and jammed it up underneath the bottom of the Tata. There were no helpful Liberians around this time. Andrew, with the help of a 2x4 he found and after fighting some dogs for his life, was able to use the jack to lift the truck off the rock and we were actually able to make it back to the main road and home.

Gifty Update

Last week I told you about Gifty, a baby girl from one of our orphanages who is very sick. Today I had the opportunity to meet her. She is currently at the MSF (Doctors Without Borders) hospital near by. This hospital only takes maternity and pediatric patients at this time. All the patients are required to have a care taker with them 24 hours a day to help with normal activities of daily living like bathing and feeding. We have 2 wonderful Liberian women who have been taking turns caring for Gifty in the Hospital. Gifty and her care giver share a small bunk in a room with 7-8 other patient/caregiver pairs with only enough room to walk between the beds. We went to visit her today hopeing to take her to her new orphanage home. After meeting with her doctor we learned that she continues to spike fevers and can not be discharged until she has been fever free for at least 48 hours. Gifty was diagnosed with Billiary Atresia, a congenital condition which in Gifty's case has resulted in a blocked billiary duct. Usually surgery is required to fix it within the first couple months of life. Gifty has not had this surgery. She has many other complications such as jaundice, an enlarged liver and spleen and increased risk of infection. After her discharge, our plan is to keep her healthy at her new orphanage home until an expedited adoption can happen and she can receive the medical care that she needs. According to research, Gifty's life expectancy is only about 3 years, without treatment. Gifty is a precious girl filled with spunk and a fighting spirit.

Please continue to fight and pray with us for a miracle for Gifty.

I made it!

Hello from Liberia!

I arrived friday night to the welcoming sticky wet air of Liberia. Except for an hour delay in Brussels due to a baggage handlers strike, all my flights went well. I breezed through customs and was anxious to see my team. I pushed through the crowd and out to the street looking around anxiously and saw no familiar faces. I paced the road as locals tried to convince me they could carry me to wherever I needed to go. No, I kept telling them, my friends are coming. But after 10minutes or so I started to doubt that myself so I found the MercyShips gang and asked to borrow a phone, very thankful that I had remembered to bring Cramer's phone number and praying that he would answer. He did. "Where are you he asked?" "uh- at the airport, where are you?" "At the airport." Ha! Somehow I had walked right passed him and Ashley as I broke through the crowd. They did not forget me!

When we pulled into the driveway at the ORR team house I was greeted by our very enthusiastic guards, Momo and Emmanuel, Andrew, Jen and One Love (the dog). We ate jollof rice (Liberian version of fried rice, spicey and yummy) and chatted. I slept pretty good, woke up a few times by the rain and loud orchestra of outdoor noises in the night, primarily crickets, frogs, roosters and the ocean.

I spent today resting and trying to get settled in- unpacking, organizing my stuff etc... This evening we went grocery shopping at the UN market, a very interesting and crowded experience in Liberia. Then we had dinner at an Indian place called Taaj near the store.

One more day of rest and adjusting until the craziness begins on Monday.

The Benediction

I leave in 32 hours!

I am going to make this my last blog from home, from here on out it will truely be- Deb in Liberia.

Tonight my church had a prayer/send off shin-dig for me and it was amazing! I am so blessed and humbled to have such a wonderful church family. Thanks to everyone who came to see me off this evening. Your prayers, encouraging words and hugs will bring me through until we meet again.

I want to share the words to a song that keeps coming to mind...

"My friends may you grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior.
My friends may you grow in grace and in the knowlege of Jesus Christ.

To God be the glory, now and forever, now and forever, amen.
To God be the glory, now and forever, now and forever, amen.

I pray tonight if we learned from one another, may we glorify Him.
And if the Lord should bring us back together, may we be in His arms til then."

"The Benediction" by Timothy James Meaney

Love you all. Good night.