a day in the village

my goal for today was to notice in particular all the little details which really do make up each and every day. and armed with that perspective, i headed out to face the day. so what did i notice? i noticed how riding in the land rover along back country roads was similar to riding a frisky horse. i noticed how the red of the iron-rich earth of the dirt road contrasted so beautifully with the green of the plants and the blue and white of the sky. i noticed how beautiful was the workmanship which placed the mud onto the walls of the huts in the villages we visited and laid the dried palm fronds on the roof. i noticed how the hot items of the liberian market are mosquito nets and tarpaulins. i noticed a unhcr bucket full of rainwater. i noticed the detailed faces of the little children which clung to my legs and my fingers. i noticed the domineering attitude of the young teenage guy who professed his love for me, asking for me to take him to the united states and care for him. i noticed the change in his face when i reminded him of his sisters and brothers who need him to care for them. i noticed the young girl who was nine months pregnant, and i wondered if she has a birthing plan or if she will become a future vvf patient.

you see, i went today with the community health education team to distribute chemically laden mosquito nets. they’ve been working in the area of cheesemanburg, which is made up of a chain of seven or eight villages. today we were in kosoh town, a grouping of seven or eight homes whose inhabitants comprise one extended family. we went into the homes, counted how many people sleep there and proceeded to hang the nets. one for the bed on which this husband and wife sleep. one for the children who sleep on a mat on the floor. two more for the brother’s family in the other room, and one for the grandparents who sleep in the third room. according to jen, the team coordinator, one can really only home that at least by taking the nets out of their plastics and hanging them up that it will be enough to prevent the recipient from taking them down and selling them, which has apparently happened quite a bit in the past. there were heaps of people to hang everything up, so i spent the better part of the day playing with the village children, who were so incredibly cute. i’ve only seen children at the opc, the outpatient pediatric clinic, the one day with sandra and annekoos, and i forgot how much i miss children. i met emmanuel, tony-boy, angel, homer, and infa. they were beautiful children, and i was flattered by their attention. according to one woman in the village, normally they all just cry and run away from the white people. :)

we ran out of nets fairly quickly, though, and were heading back to the ship by a little after twelve noon. we got back to the ship a little after one. climbing out of the car i met ann, jutta, and kate all going out to hopefully meet with a man who had some rabbits to sell for the micro-enterprise project. at their invitation, i climbed out of the one land rover into the next one. we went to one of the local supermarkets and waited for nearly half an hour before we were able to contact him by phone. his car was having trouble, he could meet on friday at the same time. with no real other choice, we abandoned the hope of getting some rabbits and proceeded to cross a few other things off of the to-do list, like placing an order for bamboo so that one of the other women in the program could have the materials to build her rabbit hutch. apparently, once the woman can demonstrate that she had an appropriate hutch built, then she receives the pair of rabbits. anyway, we drove out on the same road which took me nearly a week ago to white plains. it was really fun to recognize something, i must say. :)

and now i am back, once again, on the ship. it’s funny, with all of the wonderful amenities of life available here on board, i must say that i couldn’t help but look a little wishfully at some of the homes that we went in and out of today. they were really beautiful. beautifully constructed, beautifully kept up, beautifully simple. mud floors, mud walls, palm frond and tarpaulin roof, but i found myself wishing for more than half a moment that i could live there, with these people. honestly, i know that this desire is one of theory and born out of the luxury of choice, but still the desire remains, much to my chagrin. maybe someday...