Greetings this warm Sunday afternoon,
Our guest room was finished in time to welcome our first official guest, Jim Perry from Raleigh NC, to our home. He has been with us for a week touring the Agriculture projects that our two specialists have been working with. This week they traveled to Ganta and brought back lots of honey for us to bottle and sell along with the moringa leaf. We are very excited to get this project going and want to have the first on the market within a week. We have a neighbor woman who is willing to be our test market seller. Timothy will be taking a cart with honey, leaf and seeds to another market nearby.
The pictures are of the finished guest room so you can see that we do live a slightly civilized life. Jim said that he was very comfortable with a fan for a breeze and a screen door to let the air pass through the room. It is quite spacious and in spite of several obstacles we made it in time for his arrival. It is now ready for other guests who will arrive in the future.
We also met our new grandson, Riley Kumeh,
who was born after we were here in February, 2011. He is a delightful child, smiling constantly and only fussing a little when he was sleepy. He is the son of Timothy Jr, aka Archie Boy. Archie Boy spends a lot of time away and loves to fish in the open sea. He scares Timothy because he doesn’t know how to swim, but we just take it all in stride for that seems to be his calling.
Christiana (Chris) is finished with her treatments and is now spending a month healing and for observation before she can come home. We are hoping that she will be able to be with us for Christmas. Her husband came back to Liberia on Friday so he could return to work. We have talked to Chris several times. She is very tired and depressed. It is hard to feel like you are healing when you have gone through so much hurt to the body. While it is normal, those of you who have had cancer understand, it still is not easy.
We planted 4 moringa trees in the yard and within 24 hours the children had pulled them out of the ground. We found two of them and got them replanted and now we wait to see if they will survive. Unlike the US, children here run all over the place without much supervision. You can hear your children’s voices and know approximately where they are. There is much dependence on neighbors to keep an eye on them when they see them. It is a crazy maker for me, but I am slowly getting used to it, while keeping track of Luther’s whereabouts.
Our tomato plants are doing well and I have one cucumber plant in the nursery that will be ready to put in the ground soon. It is better to start the seeds in containers here so that you can tell what is growing and where it is when it is planted. With the tropical vegetation, it is difficult to tell what is plant and what is weed when they are first coming up.
We are beginning to see signs of Christmas around town with trees and some decorations. Our tree is in the car which has arrived in port. We hope to be able to take possession of it next week and then will be able to have some sense of freedom to travel around the city. At the present time, we have to try to find a taxi and it costs $5.00 per hour. No trip to town is less than 4 hours. $20.00 in gas will go a lot further.
I made a bow from some Christmas ribbon that I had packed and hung it in the living room. I also made a red and white hot pad to put on the table to remind us at mealtime. We hear Christmas music on the radio and it is interesting to hear the carols and songs about snow when it is in the high 80’s with little breeze.
Son Alan sent some magazines and mail with Mr. Perry when he traveled here and it was wonderful read Midwest Living and Good Housekeeping even when there is little relavance to where we are now. We also read Time and National Geographic to keep up with the news and some mind stimulation.
In return, Mr. Perry has taken our Christmas cards to mail and I do believe this may be the first year they go out sooner than two days before Christmas.
May you all be blessed this Christmas season and live in the joy of Christ.
Peace and joy,
Anne and Timothy
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