Punchured Tyre

This morning we were moving some missionaries to a new apartment.  I went outside to leave and discovered we had a flat tyre :(

One of the maintenance guys at our compound took me to a nearby tyre repair shop.  Here's the shop.

Working on the punchure.  Notice his foot wear.  Notice the iron, bottom right used to remove tyre from rim, it's homemade.

Here he is remounting a tyre.  He took off his flip flops and started working the tyre over the rim with his bare feet and a hammer.  I think he had muscles on his toes.

Cost of the tyre repair: $175 LD ($1.85). Size of the shop, 10' by 10'.  He was working 3 flat tyres at the same time.  A craftsman, truly amazing. He had no pressure gauge.  After he inflated the tyre I took it home and checked it with my pressure gauge, it was good.  How much equipment did it take to repair your last flat tyre?

Natural Umbrellas

What you can't see is the size of this leaf. It is about 3 feet from end to end. Children use them for umbrellas.

These beautiful pink and green leaves grow wild (like most things). Their leaves range in size from 18 inches to 3 feet.

A Daily Occurrence

Every day we see people carrying water from the local wells to their homes.  Sometimes it is in buckets, 5 gallon jerry cans, big wash tubs or whatever they can find.  We see young children to "seniors" ferrying the water home.  Consider the fact that the smallest bucket/tub/whatever that we see is 3 gallons.  Each gallon weighs over 8 pounds.  I have seen what appears to be 7-8 year olds carrying 5 gallons (over 40 pounds) on their heads.

New Fruit Find

Sister Berrett found this new fruit for us to try from a local fruit stand. It is good but the name makes you think it is "scary" to eat.  It is a MANGOSTEEN!

Birthday Serenade

The AP's (Elders Dahlin and Finau) sang to me on my birthday, complete with props.  At first I thought they were going to sing "Singing in the Rain" since it was raining but they broke into "Happy Birthday!"

May Birthday Party

The Birthday Kids

Front Row (L-R) Elder and Sister Dever, Elder and Sister Hezseltine   Back Row (L-R) Sister and Elder Miles, President and Sister Kirkham, Sister and Elder Berrett

Elder and Sister Dever, Elder Hezseltine and I (4 out of 10 couple missionaries) had birthday's in May. We had a party at the Mission Home and Sister Berrett served us the delicious Red Velvet cupcakes that she had made for us all!

For Mother's Day Sister Berrett  received the new Disney movie "Frozen." We were able to watch it and get a little caught up on what is happening at home. When talking to our grandkids they didn't believe us when we told them we  didn't know what "Frozen" was (other than the weather in Utah).

Furniture Row

Furniture shops on Somalia Drive. One shop after another all with what seems to be the same furniture.

Harbel to Kakata

Today we visited two church branches: Harbel then Kakata.  The weather was beautiful.  It has not rained for a few days so we decided to take the dusty road from Harbel to Kakata. We took our time to take in the scenery.  About a 50 minute drive of this:

Our Local Convent

This and That

This sign for a local motel looks like a tombstone.  Want to stay?

This GIANT door is supposed to scare you from going around it to get to the house

New Aviation building at the airport.  Creative cement work - the whole building is  cinder block and cement.

Local Furniture Shops

UN Building

Local Billboards and Signs

Really?

Buchanan

Roadside Village

Wood at the shipping yard

Large antenna in the middle of the city

The "main drag"

One day while in Cotton Tree we decided to go to Buchanan, the second largest port/city in Liberia.  You have to go through Cotton Tree to get there and we were half way there and we had the rest of the afternoon so away we went.  It was another hour past Cotton Tree making it a 2 hour trip one way.  Once out of Cotton Tree I was surprised at  how the villages along the road seemed more primitive. 

Buchanan itself is much smaller than Monrovia and not so urban.  We were not able to get very close to the actual port.  The city seems much cleaner than the rest of Liberia.

Arts and Craft Fair

Pincher Bug - Fun

Road to Kakata

We were on our way to church in Kakata this morning.  It's about 40 miles and takes about 1 hour 30 minutes, sometimes longer or as in today's case not at all.  It's rainy season and the trucks were sliding off the road and had blocked the road.  There are 3 trucks that had slid off the road.  The backhoe is pushing the 3rd truck up the hill.  Fortunately, this happened on the way, otherwise we could have been stuck on the other side on the way back.

Cemeteries

Cemeteries in town are enclosed by a tall wall. Out in the "bush" they are not.

In some places the burial sites of loved ones are in the yard. The small white structure to the right of the picture is a burial building.

These were alongside the road.  I think the village must be back in among the trees.