100% 100% British!!!!!

Libby's British passport arrived in the post today. Now we can travel! 

And, bizarrely, it doesn't say anywhere on it that she wasn't born in the UK. Huh.

Thank you for everyone who prayed with us through this long process. Olly

PS Just found out that Noah and Anna's passports have EXPIRED! Aagghh!

Sports day...British style

Our kids have only ever experienced one Sports Day - in 2008 - held at a UN camp in Monrovia, where the kids competed on the baked red dusty drill-ground watched by Nepalese peacekeepers:

But this week sees their first British Sports Days, held not in Liberia's baking sun but in the cool drizzle of a typical green and wet British summer. The baked red dusty ground has been replaced with cool wet grass, and the sweaty parents and UN soldiers have been replaced by onlookers huddled under umbrellas...

Ahh. Olly

You can take the girl out of Liberia...

...but you can't take Liberia out of the girl. Anyone who has lived there will know that babies get wrapped up - I mean REALLY wrapped up - when they are unwell. Obviously Libby doesn't remember being a baby in Liberia, but last night she slept in her thickest winter pyjamas, socks and a woolly hat, despite it being one of the warmest nights of the year.

Huh. Olly

Liberian fish and greens

Today we made one of our favourite Liberian dishes. It should have been made with sweet potato leaves, but in their absence we used spring greens and spinach, and I should have chopped them finer (in fact next time I'll probably use a food processor)...but I must say, after all that, it wasn't half bad! 

The recipe said it should have served 14, but Libby ate bowlful after bowlful after bowlful, and now we just have enough for a light lunch tomorrow!

The only thing missing was the atmosphere: we lacked the sticky cheap plastic table cloths and chairs, the locally made aluminium spoons, the chipped bowls, the 30+ degrees temperature, and a cold Club beer.

(A Club beer:

 )

Ahh! Olly

Transition...complete!

This morning we attended Bournemouth County Court for the final hearing of Libby's UK adoption, and a charming judge granted an adoption order with no delay or concerns. So, please welcome Liberty Kiawen Peet as a British citizen. 

Thus ends a long 6-year adoption process. Olly

KLOVE from the Africa Mercy

This week, Amy from the US Christian radio station KLOVE's breakfast show will be reporting from the Africa Mercy in Togo. I love that station, and listen as much as I can via the internet in the UK. I really hope I can catch some of it. You can listen on www.klove.com. Olly

Libby's Court Hearing next Wednesday!

Yes, next Wednesday we are ordered to appear before the local County Court for the Judge to make (or not make) a UK adoption order for Libby. If successful, she will be recognised as legally adopted by us in the UK, and will immediately become a British Citizen. Please pray for us; that we get there OK and in plenty of time, and that we have a calm and successful hearing. Olly

Charles Taylor's Last Stand

Today, 26th April 2012, we will hear the outcome of Charles Taylor's war crimes trial. Click here to read the BBC's summary before the decision is made. Olly

Happy Birthday Sally

Sally and I have just spent the weekend in London to celebrate her 40th birthday! We went up by coach, spent most of Saturday walking around the West End, saw Les Miserables in the evening, and spent the night at the Marble Arch Thistle. On Sunday we attended a Sushi making course at Yo! Sushi in Soho, where we spent 3 hours learning the art...in fact here is Sally having made a roll before cutting it...

...and here is the end result:

Looks good, eh? We ate nearly as much as we made, and are heartily sick of the site of sushi now. Hopefully we'll learn to love it again soon, as our fridge has 7 take-away sushi meals in it which we dragged around London after making.

After the course we walked miles across London again, from Soho through the beautiful Royal Parks to South Kensington before catching the coach home. Below, us on the bridge over the Serpentine Lake at Hyde Park. Another beautiful but cold day.

Thank you Nanny and Grandad for having Noah, Anna and Libby to stay. Sorry they gave you the cold! Hope you both get better soon. Olly

Another brilliant BBC article on Liberia...

...by none other than John Humphrys. Click here to read "Forecasting Africa's future through Bong County" and other articles. Olly

Ellen Johnston Sirleaf says...

Click here to see what the President of Liberia thinks about gay rights in Liberia. She has shocked the liberal world, especially those in the US. A brave woman for standing up for what she believes in. Olly

Hilarious! Charles Taylor wants his pension!

MONROVIA, Liberia, March 8 (UPI) -- An aide to former Liberian President Charles Taylor says the deposed leader, on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity, is pursuing severance pay.

Taylor, on trial in The Hague, Netherlands, is allegedly seeking pension benefits from his years at president.

"Mr. Taylor has not received a dime from this government in terms of his pension benefits as former president," the aide told The New Dawn, Monrovia. "Taylor told me sometime last month that he was getting a lawyer to pursue it (the case)."

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2012/03/08/Former-Liberian-dictator-wants-pension/UPI-17781331253929/#ixzz1odRMOVjn

The real Africa

I love this. Click on Africa to enlarge.

I can smell it! Olly

Port of Monrovia update

Have a look at Google Earth. The image of the Freeport of Monrovia was updated on January 6th, 2012, and shows a lot of changes. Gone are the wrecks of the two sunken freighters in the middle of the port, and new pilings are being driven into the seabed to extend and reinforce the main wharf (6°20'39.12"N 10°47'43.83"W). Many of the old wharf-side warehouses have been demolished, leaving just the port offices where the hapless President Samuel Doe was captured by Prince Johnson prior to his torture and murder in 1990, at the beginning of the long civil war.

4 years on: CeCes Beach still has a river running through it - I guess it's now a regular feature of every rainy season.

The new old bridge looks great, complete with new road layout on the Island side.

And there are some great photos of the completed new Ministry of Health building in Congo Town. When we were last there it was home to hundreds of internally displaced people, who were cleared out before the Chinese moved back in to finish it:

And now it looks like this:

Amazing. Olly

New discoveries raise West Africa oil hopes

MONROVIA/FREETOWN, Feb 21 (Reuters) - Energy companies African Petroleum Corp and Anadarko said they struck oil off the coasts of Liberia and Sierra Leone, raising hopes for an energy bonanza in the war-scarred West African states.

By coincidence, an old friend of mine, Chris Wotorson, is on the very survey ship that has discovered the oil. Here is is, photo'd with the President of Liberia (the guy without a hat on the right of the photo). He was the engineering store man on the Anastasis whilst we were in Europe and Benin, 2004/2005. Jolly nice bloke, and the only Liberian I knew at the time. I did my Basic Safety Training with him in Rotterdam. Olly

Passports and birth certificates...

...arrived from the Child Benefit office yesterday, and went straight into another envelope to be sent to the court for Libby's adoption hearing. Praise God for such an efficient and reliable postal service! Olly

Big swing related Calf squash

Yesterday all five us went to the park, and all five of us managed to get onto the big swing. We managed to get some momentum going, and then I made the mistake of trying to stop it with my right leg. The movement buckled my foot backwards on itself, and the weight of us all crushed my calf. So today I'm still still in a lot of pain and limping badly, and can't drive. Huh. Olly.

Those nice people in the Child Benefit office!

After my complaint yesterday, I got a phone call this morning from a lovely lady in the Child Benefit office saying she had our passports and Libby's birth certificate, and will return them this afternoon in the mail. PTL! Shame I had to make 3 phone calls and a complaint to get this response. Now we can send the birth certificate to the court for the adoption hearing.

Adoption update update

Just before Christmas, the Child Benefit people asked to see Libby's birth certificate, which I sent them with a letter explaining we need it back a.s.a.p. because we have a court case pending.

Last week I sent the application to the Court for the adoption order, and today they wrote back asking to see Libby's birth certificate - and guess what - it is still with the Child Benefit people! Aah! So I made my third phone call asking for it back, and had to make a complaint as they have ignored all my previous phone calls. And still I didn't get to speak to someone who can send back to us the birth certificate! Apparently they have 5 working days to respond to this complaint before I get to make another complaint...

Systems!

Libby's UK adoption update

Libby became our daughter by a Liberian Court's Decree of Adoption on 30th November 2005, but as that adoption order isn't recognised by the UK we are having to re-adopt her now we are settled in England. We are having regular visits by a social worker, and yesterday I posted the application to the County Court for an adoption order. We are nearly at the end of a very long road, and hopefully we'll get a court date and the UK adoption order before her visa expires at the beginning of May.

All this chatting with Social Workers has made us dig through our old photos. In early 2007 Sally went to Libby's birth village with Patti, the director of Acres of Hope adoption agency & orphanage, and commissioned a new hand-pump that had been installed by AoH. Quakor Village in Grand Cape Mount County is a incredibly poor village, as you can see from the photos below. The people live in mud and leaf shacks, and try to grow and hunt as much food as they can.

Below, Patti and Sally at the newly opened hand-pump which will save hundreds of lives over the next few years (1 in 5 children die in this region from mostly waterborne disease).

Below, Sally at the village's old source of water. No wonder so many children died.

The new hand-pump, costing only a few hundred dollars, provides clean and safe drinking water, and will last decades if properly used. Olly