This is a tree we have enjoyed watching on our journey to and from Kenema for the past year.  During this time, the start of the dry season, it is covered with coral flowers.  Very pretty.  After taking this picture we realized it is very representative of the road between Bo and Kenema, nice paved road, hilly with dense vegetation, palms, rice fields, a small pineapple plot, a variety of houses made of stick and mud or block with metal roofs (tin coated with zinc), and a few wood houses.  Small huts like these are everywhere.  Along the road people spread their grain on the asphalt (in the foreground), wash their clothes and lay them out to dry on the asphalt.  The bags are casava leaves (to sell and eat), and the wood is harvested to burn for charcoal.

Farther down the road we saw a man climbing a coconut palm.  Some areas have many more palms than are in this scene.  There are schools, churches, and villages all along the way.

Our new high-speed internet office.  We have had very slow internet while in Bo... many times as slow as 5 to 10 kbps, but sometimes around 100 or a very few times up to 200.  Elder Schlehuber's computer needed to download some anti-virus updates and it was taking a loooonnng time.  We ran out of time because we had to go down the road to a new rented chapel to do some training.  So we left the computer on and took it with us.  When we got to the building, suddenly the internet was faster than we had ever seen it here... 700 to 800 kbp!

We have not been able to Skype much because of the very slow connection but in our new high-speed internet office, we can!  We were parked in front of the chapel compound, about 20 feet off the Bo-Kenema highway and about 15 feet up.  A lot of people walk along the road.  I'm sure they wondered what we were doing, standing there talking to a computer on the hood of the truck.  The smaller girl came by with a huge tub of something on her head.  After watching for a while, she went on, then suddenly she reappeared with her older sister so that she could see what was happening! 

When we first drove up, I walked around the side of the compound to check things out.  A little boy about 4 waved and called out "Pumwe, Pumwe" (white person).  Then he ran into a hut and brought out about 6 or 8 more little kids all waving and calling "Pumwe, Pumwe".  I think we provided local entertainment!  (These pictures were taken in the early evening.  It looks like night because of the flash.)

New high-speed internet office in Bo!

 

Bo has 1 garbage truck but it doesn't go as far east as our apartment is.  Not sure how it works anyway.  I think it gets trash from the market area and that's pretty much it.  Everyone just burns everything.  But in the rainy season it's too wet too burn.  We pay someone to come and brush the grass (whack it down with a machete).  Then, in a couple of weeks everything has grown back... and the June grass grows to 6 to 8 feet tall.

Now that we are into the dry season we can clean up and burn!  The farmers burn the fields to prepare for the rainy season.  There are unattended fires all along the roads.  I used to worry about fire in Arizona and Utah, but here... no wahala (no problem!)  There is always so much water in the air fire won't get out of control.  So we burned our back yard.  It wouldn't keep burning across so Elder Schlehuber had to carry fire using papaya fronds.  Sometimes we see people carrying fire in a metal dustpan from one house to another.

The rainy season has blue skies, but the dry season is mostly white skies due to the dust and the smoke.  The dust is from the east, the Sahara sands.

Contributing to the smoky skies.

Elder Schlehuber carrying fire to keep the burn going.

Generator building in the back, broken step ladder to the right.

The fire burning around the plantain and the mango.  It burns quickly and doesn't harm the plantain, mango and papaya trees.  Strong (overripe) papaya in the foreground.

The senior accountant at the bank in Bo where the missionaries do business invited the missionaries to a Christmas lunch prepared by her (a member) and 5 assistants.  It was a huge spread!  Wonderful food and Christmas music.  The missionaries were well fed that day!

Awaiting lunch... Elders Walker, McDonald, Jest, Flament, and the right half of Elder Weller

 Waiting with anticipation...  Elders Symons, Stewart, Burton, Nichol and Jones (right foreground)

More waiting... Elders Lokpo, Nwosu, Assumang, Coffie, and Rochester

Part of the spread... fish, kabobs, breads, soups, stews, vegetables, cakes, beans, rice, African dishes, cold soft drinks, juices, water

  The Christmas Cake

 Elder Opuene showing his first plate

Elders Turner, Opuene, and Ngerem

Elders Stewart and Burton, the Bo East Zone Leaders who live in the small apartment in the rear of our compound... after lunch!

Cookies for coconuts

Our kitchen windows are along the walkway the Elders use to go into their apartment.  Here's how we exchange things... Elder Stott on the left and Elder Iheanacho on the right.  This evening when the Elders came home Elder Stott said he could smell the cookies I was making as they came in the front gate.  When they got around to the back (where these windows are), he called out "I smell happiness!"  We gave them cookies thru the window and a few minutes later they came back, slid it open and gave us a coconut with a cute little face.  Great exchange!

Cookies out...

Coconut in.

Where we grocery shop...

Yes, we have an Albertson Supermarket!  The sign says so!  Right now they are remodeling.  And that is our truck parked in front.

We've been in twice but haven't found anything to buy at Albertson's.

A lot of our shopping is done here at Bo Mini Market

and some of our shopping here at Sabbagh's.

Average size of cucumbers.

Bell pepper

Produce is rarely at one of the above stores.  It is sold in the market.  The cucumbers may be small but we really enjoy our yogurt-cucumber-garlic with chicory root for sweetener.  We make yogurt once a week using powdered milk from Holland.  It works great!  I even made some ice-milk (no vanilla or cream for ice cream) and with a little juice or jam it tastes good too!  We are making more of our bread now.  Flat bread is plentiful in Freetown but quite unpredictable in Bo.  It's easier to make it than try to find it!  The loaf bread is small so we are making that also, along with corn, peanut, and oatmeal muffins.

Produce is not very plentiful in Bo, pretty much limited to onions, garlic, potatoes, cucumber, cabbage, peppers.  Tomatoes look very poor and haven't tried them.  There are leaf veggies but except for cabbage we don't eat those either... too questionable on getting them clean.  We have been grateful for the papaya and plantain in our yard but that season seems to be over.  We did harvest 1 small pineapple and a couple of coconuts but there won't be any more for another year.  Mangos are in season now and they are delicious!  We have 1 mango tree in the yard but only a few fruit so far.

We see people planting seeds now.  The farmers pretty much burned the growing areas in April in preparation for planting.  There has been a little rain so we know the rainy season is coming!  It will be interesting to see if the produce availability changes during the rainy season.

Our first trip to Liberia 23 Feb 2012

On 23 February 2012 we made our first drive to Liberia.  We understood that it is a 5-6 hr each way trip so we were to leave at 6:30am and be home by 6:30 pm... best of all be home by dark!  Markus was leading the way with one elder who had completed his mission and was going home to Liberia.  We had 3 sisters transferring to Liberia, and the back of the truck loaded with luggage, mail, and unit supplies for 2 branches.

Well, things didn't go quite as planned!  We didn't get away from Bo until 7:30am.  Markus needed diesel so we went into Kenema to fuel up.  We looked for fuel for 1 hour before finding some at this hand operated pump.

Markus on the right.

Diesel hand-pumped from left gallon glass to right, then into the hose stuck into the tank.

We are now 2 hours behind schedule.  We know we'll be driving back in the dark some but figure that 1 hour of that will be on the good road from Kenema to Bo... not too bad, but we'll hurry!

As we travel the road we realize the truck is not performing as it should.  Markus is okay but ours has no acceleration... we can't keep up with him even on the "good" stretches.  At about 2100 rpm regardless of gear it starts to hesitate.  The road is rough and the light is flat which makes seeing the potholes difficult.  It's the dry season so there is dust...

On the way back we crossed this bridge in the dark.  Before we started out we saw a large semi on the other side... we each blinked our lights at each other.  He turned his out so we assumed that meant we could go first, which we did.

Traffic jam on the road to Liberia.

The pothole diameter is the width of the road. Can you see it?

Markus waving us into the lead 'cause we can't keep up with him!

Big dips + short wheel base + speed = hmmm, yep, rough ride!

Town of Zimi.

         The town of Zimi is 27 miles from the Liberian border.  It takes about 2 hours to go those 27 miles.

This is the main road to Liberia so there are big trucks.

And taxis... with "stuff" on top, including people and goats.

Melima, Sierra Leone, border town.

We made it... Bo Waterside, Liberia.

4 missionary trucks to make the exchange. 2 from SL, 2 from Monrovia.

Elder Tims transferring to Kenema (then home on the next transfer in April).

Eagerly going thru the mail sack!

Elder and Sister Kikham, Elder Krumm in back, all in Monrovia.

Everyone transferred and ready to go!

We took about 30 minutes to quickly talk, transfer everyone and information, load up and head back.  We were 2 hours late at the border which meant the Monrovia couples had waited there 2 hours for us.  They were worried maybe we were motion sick with the road... not so.  The road is no worse than many backroads in southern Utah.  However, the speed is greater!

Elder Schlehuber drove all the way to Liberia.  Sister Schlehuber drove all the way back.  She drove as fast as she could to get as far as possible in the light.  But... we had issues at the border which delayed us some more.  The truck could hardly make it up some of the hills, although it seemed after hitting one particular bump that it did perform a little better!  We tried to get a run on the hills but that is difficult when the road is rough.  Marcus had us go in the lead since we were having vehicle problems.  Even so, it was like a horse heading home to the barn, and the closer we got to Kenema the faster we went.  Maybe that was an illusion since we were in the dark about 4 hours prior to reaching Kenema.  One advantage of the road in the dark is that the holes and gouges are visible because of the shadows.  The flat light in the day camouflaged the holes.

The only wild animals we saw were bats and very large insects jumping in front of the headlights.  But there are plenty of goats and dogs around the villages.  We even saw 2 cats cross the road in our headlights.

The next day we had the fuel pump replaced on the truck and it runs like a charm now!  Ha, ha, we also discovered that we have no tools in the truck, not even to change a tire.  But Markus was there and he always carries tools!  (We will get tools, don't worry!)

The next transfer is 10 April... another trip to Liberia???

P- day

Some recent P-day activities... Elders Bennion and Stott trying on hats with Elder Schlehuber, having a mock fight, and then going off to play football (soccer, I think).  This day Elder Bennion reported that he scored... the first time on his mission (23 months)!  After that they went to the Internet Cafe, and then went to work proselyting.  It was a good day!

Another p-day activity.

This is the fuse that is on the electric water pump circuit.  Notice the burned, melted plastic from overheated wires, but the fuse never blew!