We de-board this giant aircraft by staircase, straight onto the tarmac in the dark, and straight into being drenched by the humidity. It was sickly sweet and sticky, and unbelievable foreign.
I'm not sure if it's my exhaustion or my state of shock that has me dizzy and in some sense of surreal reality.
We line up in the tiny building, were it smells strongly, but not necessarily horribly, and we slowly file forward along with the crowd. Customs/Immigration is simple enough and we find ourselves in the baggage claim where EVERYONE insisted on helping us, in hopes of some consolation prize. Then back outside to load into taxis. So far half a dozen people have introduced themselves to us, yet I still don't have a clue any of their names or relations to us.. apart from.. Tsneh? He is our head of security... I think... and perhaps I could recognize him if I had to.. just maybe.
Toni, Chadio & I are loaded into a small car with an abundance of luggage piled onto our laps. We don't know the drivers, and we can't see where anyone else is... this is were FAITH comes to play ;)
After waiting a long time, we are finally off for our hour or so drive. THIS is our first experience of Liberia.
The black night hosts the loudest of symphony's by bugs and birds alike. The humidity is very uncomfortable, but somewhat comforting- like a big blanket. But I'm soaked to the bone, already - and trying not to freak out as the driver swerves and blindly passes the vehicles in front of us at alarming speeds.
People, especially women with loads balanced atop their heads, walk along the road - with only passing headlights and the sporadic flashes of lighting to guide them. The lightening storm is beautiful! Whenever we come across homes or gathering areas, loud rhythmic music plays, and people are doing some sort of really cool dance or relaxing on porches.
It starts to rain hard as we pull into the main part of Monrovia, and make our way through the streets to the Sinkor school. We can hear the crashing waves next to us, and the lightening sometimes makes the whitecaps visible, but we are still very disoriented.
With the help of our Liberian drivers/everyone else that we do not yet know, we drag all of our luggage out of the rain and up four flights of stairs into a large hallway area, where people await to greet us.
Many hugs, handshakes and name exchanges later, we make our way into the dining room for prayer and a much needed dinner.
We were served, by Martha and the rest of our cook staff, rice with some spicy soup/stew over it and some fried plantains - our first experience of Liberian cuisine!
The stew had huge chunks of fish in it, not so fun to pick out the spinal cord among other things, and it was spicy enough to burn my throat all the way down. I couldn't eat the rice, dang allergies, so it was a lot harder to tone down - but overall the taste was great.
After, everyone busied themselves with mosquito net hanging, unpacking, and organizing - I didn't quite.
I sat on my bed, for what must have been at least 10 minutes, in utter shock.
Just plain confusion, how could I now be on a different continent? In a different country? With a different culture?.. and what in the world was I doing there?!? Mind boggling, and waaaay too much to comprehend. After some journaling, I came to find that the wonderful men of our team had already graciously hung my mosquito net - and so after four days and less than ten hours of sleep total - I SLEPT!
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