Farewell Jeremy, welcome Andy.

I love being brought up to date with happenings on the Africa Mercy. Congratulations, Andy, on your recent appointment as Transport Manager, and well done for hanging on in there for 6 years, waiting for the position to come your way.

Photo below of the Africa Mercy Transport Department in Conakry, Guinea: Andy (standing) and Jeremy (outgoing manager, seated), with Mathieu in the black and blue shirt and Lamin in the blue t-shirt.

Photo below of Andy at my old desk. Funny thing is the office hasn't changed one bit since we left 18 months ago...

Photos courtesy of Andrew & Jodie Rothwell. Olly

More ship visitors

Earlier in December we received a visit from ship friends Murray and Candace, who stayed a few days with us en route from Guinea to Cape Town having just left left the Africa Mercy. 

It was lovely spending time with you, guys. Come stay again on your way back to Indiana. Olly

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all PeetBlog readers. 2012 wasn't the best of years for me personally: constant rain, no real summer to talk of, and no real job continuity or job security. Praise God though, that we have food, and a warm dry house, and health, and a generous welfare system, and honest cops, and free and helpful hospitals, and family close at hand, and a great church, and good friends all over the world. Olly

Book review: My Friend the Mercenary

I read this book a few months ago. James Brabazon, a British war correspondent, travelled with LURD rebel soldiers into Liberia twice - in 2002 and 2003 - as part of the battles to overthrow Taylor's government. He was accompanied by a South African mercenary, who acted as his bodyguard...

...an amazing story. You've got to read it. Olly

Happy Birthday Libby

I know this entry is late...but Libby was 8 on 22nd December. She continues to be a strong Liberian girl who is head and shoulders above the rest of her class mates. She's doing great in school and can read well and we're proud of her. Olly

TV show review: Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations: Liberia

I've finally tracked down Series 6, Episode 16 of Anthony Bourdain's TV show "No Reservations" on the Travel Chanel, about his trip to Liberia in 2010. Click here to watch it.

Mr Bourdain's blog entry about his trip to Liberia begins "I’ve been to what? Eighty, ninety countries? I’ve seen a lot of things. But no place has so utterly confounded me, intimidated, horrified, amazed, sickened, depressed, inspired, exhausted and shown me – with every passing hour – how wrong I was about everything I might have thought only an hour previous". Click here to read the full entry.

He spent time with my old boss, Dave Waines, who was one of the few aid workers to stay in Liberia for most of the war years. Click here (and open link in new tab) to watch Dave telling one of his stories on YouTube.

Mr Bourdain's comments reminded me of something a friend said, when she visited us in 2007 when we lived in Liberia. She was responsible for 17 countries on behalf of one of the UK's biggest aid agencies, and said Liberia was in the worst condition of any country she had ever visited.

Mama Liberia, we continue to pray for you every day. Olly

Book review: Chasing the Devil

I'm reading a brilliant book by the Daily Telegraph's Tim Butcher, about his journey on foot through Liberia in 2009, following in the footsteps of Graham Greene and his cousin in the 1930s.

If you are interested in Sierra Leone or Liberia, you MUST read this book. Olly

Liberia's prisons

Liberia's state radio yesterday reported that 60 inmates have just escaped from Zwedru Prison in Grand Gedah County (South East Liberia, on the border with Ivory Coast). I can't blame them. Liberia's prisons are amongst the worst in the world when it comes to overcrowding, sanitation, availability of medical supplies, and quantity and quality of food. I spent a few hours in Monrovia's Central Prison in 2007, and it has been at Number One in my "Top Ten Worse Places In The World To Go, EVER", since then. Click on http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14993991 to read the BBC article with photos about Monrovia's Central Prison. The prison cells I visited were so overcrowded that people were hanging from the bars in hammocks made from rice-sacks, whilst the other cell mates had to sleep in shifts. When they were unlocked, scores of desperate men charged to the stinking latrines to relieve themselves...

God bless the guys of the Prison Fellowship world-wide, as they visit prisons like this one every week! Olly

Pox of the Chicken

A couple of weeks ago, Anna came out in Chicken Pox. Inevitably, Libby came out earlier this week, and with no previous resistance she has suffered much worse than Anna, and has been awake until 3 or 4am every night scratching. So after a couple of visits to local pharmacists, we now have a cupboard full of anti-itch ointments and medicines, and a bottle of mild sedative which we hope will today knock Libby out for the night. Deep sleep here we come!

Anna's back:

Libby's face (with trade-mark cross eyes):

Olly

2012 Dutch Festival of Ice Cream and Pringles

We're just back from 2 weeks in Holland, where we house-sat for Sally's sister and had a great time cycling around, and eating ice cream and Pringles. We also met up with Dutch and German friends...the Samarawera's (ex-Caribbean Mercy and current Africa Mercy): Rick and Noah eating ice cream below):

...the Eveleens (ex-Anastasis and ex-Africa Mercy): Sally, Libby, Norah, Anna, Joyce, Danique and Annette eating ice cream below:

...and the Kronesters (ex-Caribbean Mercy, ex-Anastasis, ex-Africa Mercy and currently with Mercy Ships Germany): Jana, Anna and Kim Anna eating Pringles below:

Olly

Welcome to Holland...

Yes, we're visiting Sally's sister who lives just outside The Hague...

...where the Heineken is almost as cheap as bottled sparkling water!

4 litres = 5 Euro!

Olly

Liberia upgraded

Thank you, Matt Cramer, for this amazing photo of the junction of the two bridges on Bushrod Island going into Monrovia. Newly installed: solar powered traffic lights, and street signs! Wow! Olly

Flashback

There's a Settlers game going on in my kitchen right now...

...the likes of which we haven't seen for over a year. Another great Africa Mercy re-union! With the Szarek family, Tim Benson & Karin Larson. Olly

Old friends

Yesterday we visited our old friends and crew-mates the Roystons, at their beach chalet in Dunster. It was lovely seeing them again and spending the day in that fantastic location...

...with it's amazing views over the Bristol Channel to South Wales...

...and spending the first day of summer together! 

The highlight of Noah's day was a driving lesson in a real car! He did OK, although several of the traffic cones lining the route would argue quite the opposite.

Thank you Patricia, Tony and Elliott, and may God bless you as you return to the Africa Mercy next week. Olly

Upload Complete: Summer is here

Summer arrived yesterday! After weeks of constant rain, the ground has just about dried out and the river levels are sinking back to normal. Yesterday we visited Dunster on the Somerset coast, where Libby and Anna played in a pool left behind by the receding tide:

...and today,  as temperatures continued to rise, we got the paddling pool out!

Oh yeah! Olly

Well done kids

At Noah's end of year Celebration of Achievement, he was one of four Year 7s awarded an Outstanding Achievement Award:

Anna and Libby did extremely well too! Both achieved great marks in their end of year reports.

So, well done kids, for doing so well in your first year back in the UK, and for coping so well with all the change and challenges that we threw at you. We are very proud of you.

And thank you, all you teachers on the Anastasis, at the Congo Town Back Road School for Missionary Kids, and on the Africa Mercy. Olly

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