A Sunday out

Last Sunday I was off work and decided to go out to a church called Good Shepherd Baptist Church inn Cheesmanburg (yes that's a real place name!!). It is quite a drive from the ship, and requires landrovers as the weather her gets wetter and wetter. After a somewhat bumpy ride, and following a track through pretty thick vegetation, occasionally popping out into a clearing with a group of homes centred around a cooking area, we drove up to a small area of elevated ground just above a small village. A large white washed building protruding on the top, with it's initials GSBC laid out artistically in white stones in front of the building. We waited outside as the sunday school came to an end, then sat down on tiny little pews with desks, built for fairly small people!
The vast majority of the church were kids aged 2 to 8, but we were informed that a lot of the adults would be out and about harvesting their crops before rainy season began. As the service continued, the pastor occasionally slipped into the local dialect of Gola to make sure his local congregation understood his message of the prodigal son. As always, everyone was so welcoming of us from Mercy Ships, and we all had to stand and say our names.

I peeped behind me through the service (by which time I had a little girl of about 6 sprawled across my lap having a good nap, and radiating serious amounts of heat!), and at the back of the church, several of the mama's had spread out their lapas (large piece of fabric they use to carry kids on their backs). One by one the children began dozing off during the sermon, to be fair to them, they had been in church in the stiffling heat since 9.30am, and it was now getting on for 12.30. Each was subsequently hauled by one arm and laid out on the floor behind the pews to nap, a sea of little hot black bodies laid out on beautifully extravagant coloured fabric. I can't believe how quiet so many kids can be, sleeping or not! After the service we went outside to chat to some of the congregation and were mobbed by the inquisitive children.

After church our plan was to go to the beach for the afternoon, but this was preceeded by our adventurous drivers deciding we should check out some of the tracks around the area. So we went through some tiny villages with adults and children alike coming to wave and shake hands. We eventually ended up through a heavily wooded area reaching a river. The track appeared to come out the other side of the river, the local 'Grandma' that was there telling us it was not too deep. The men resisted the temptation to drive through it, but we got out to have a little look around. A young girl had followed us up the path and climbed up the river bank. She made a strange noise aiming over o th other bank. After a few seconds, we heard a 'reply', and in 5 minutes or so a gentleman appeared out of the bushes. He came down to the bank, and stepped onto a raft made of logs. Pulling on a rope strung between 2 trees either side of the river bank, he gradually pulled the raft over to the girl. On she hopped, and sat like the queen on a kind of chair at one end of the raft. It was so lovely to see more of life out of the city, quite a surreal moment!
The peace by that river was phenomenal. I am sitting in a cabin trying to drown out the sounds of drills and machinery working on the deck constantly, so that kind of peace was a little unusual for me!

By this time, 'Grandpa' had arrived on the scene, and Lee one of the drivers was chatting to him about his crops. He ended up agreeing to buy a sack of Casava, the traditional staple food crop here. as Grandpa went disappearing into the bush the word of our whereabouts obviously spread. By the time the exchange of a dollar (50 pence!!) for a sack of casava had been completed, the landrovers were surrounded by 10 or so kids and young men all eager to shake hands and say hello.

After that we set off to our afternoon at the beach. Just another random day in Liberia...!