Water

Yesterday we went swimming again! This time at one of the supposedly best resorts in West Africa, Kendeja Resort which is owned by the guy who owns BET. It was pretty nice for Liberian standards. Expensive prices though. And I got baptized in their cross shaped pool!

Kendeja Resort, Monrovia Liberia.

So here are some observations on Liberia:

• It’s very expensive. Prices are similar to US stuff, or even higher, which in contrast to the wages within the country, it is terribly sad. Apparently it’s because they import almost everything.
• The sky is extremely hazy. It is probably due to a mix of humidity and smoke. A local told me that only in January you can see the moon and maybe one star. I find that pretty sad.
• There are tons of species of plants everywhere. The land is clearly extremely fertile, but they aren’t really farming that much. We’ve seen some small farms but I would think that corporations could put up some big farms and do some exporting.
• My fingernails have been extremely strong. Perhaps it’s being away from chemicals and not doing dishes and so forth, or maybe the greasy oil from my skin is coming down and conditioning them.

I got baptized yesterday at the beautiful Kendeja resort in Monrovia. I have been a Christian for many years and baptized as a baby. Not all Christian’s believe baptism is important, and many believe that as a baby is sufficient, but the people I am with right now do believe adult baptism is important. I’ve been wanting to do it for some time now. It was a great setting where I did it, in a cross shaped pool with palm trees and the Atlantic in view. It was a good experience and I’m glad I did it.

Our water tower has ran out several times! I don’t mind too much, I like the bucket showers! We’re hooked back up at the moment.

For drinking water we are only drinking bottled. It is widely available but in many places it’s quite expensive. Most of the bottled water is mineral water (with added salts and ions) which is fine by me but one of the girls is allergic to one of the additives so the kind of water she needs is harder to find. Very glad I’m not having that problem. My travel clinic said I could have boiled water but Saliha says that her and her family had boiled water in Malaysia and it made them real sick. So… I’ll just stick to bottled I guess. For now.

Tomorrow we are going back to the site to visit some other villages that we haven’t visited yet. I’m excited for this!