| | when to west point today with katie....the slums of liberia...its enough to make me cry....you can feel the danger, the sorrow and the longing for love. i have seen extreme poverty here but this is the worst i have ever seen. hundreds and thousand of ppl in tin, wood, and newspaper shacks. we are walking down the road lined with people just sitting around, braiding hair or sitting with blank stairs into space. children with runny noses run around. it is the lowest of the lowest.
i was introduced to a mother, her husband is dead and she doesn't have a job...she cant take care of her 8 year old daughter, the girl has never been to school a day in her life...probably will never go to school, will end up selling in the market or worse. the mother wants to take her to the orphanage, i tell her how to get to the office for more information, she is extremely grateful even though she loves her daughter and knows that she will never see her again if her daughter goes in the program she is ok with that because she said that here there is nothing here for the girl and that she wants more for her daughter, she cant give her anything.
we walk father down the road passing by shacks squished together. the stench of sitting water, poop, urine, and rotting things is over whelming.
we come to a football field where many children are playing soccer....they all run up to us and shake our hand and talk to us.
we end up taking with this father, he asks us to come and sit in his house....he takes us to this house that looks like all the rest, bits and pieces of tin, sticks, and paper.
we duck in the dark door way that has a cloth for a door...inside is packed with about 10 people, adults and children, the room is about the size of a Very Small bedroom.....not to mention the faces packed in the door way to listen to what is going on.
the walls are covered with old news papers and posters.
there is dirty dishes on a table in the corner but most of the space is taken up by benches, the sand floor is covered with rice sacks sewn together.
the roof was tin, it had a ton of holes in it. it rains here like nothing you have ever seen before...for Days! they would all be drenched in a matter of hrs.
they have no mattresses....there are rats.
the ppl in the house are so happy to meet us...the father introduced us to his family and friends.
i hold a little three year old on my lap.
the two women sitting beside me are drunk almost out of their mind.
a young girl goes into the back room and brings out a wee three week old infant and hands her to me, she looks like the size of a small newborn. she was dressed in a pink dress wrapped in a lappa, she has her ears pierced, and the softest black curly hair.
katie gets every one in the house singing a african song and clapping.
everyone is happy in the midst of their circumstances.
we say good bye to our new friends and walk down to the beach where the father has a fishing canoe, some days he will get fish, some days there is nothing...on a good day he catch enough fish to get 50 LD in one day (its 60 LD to every US dollar).
also on the beach are about 10 or 15 people pooping and peeing on the beach out in the open.
we attract huge crowd of children walking around...we kick a soccer ball around with them for a little bit.
we then start walking to the main road with huge crowd of children still following us, we have fun talking and teasing with them. i was walking holding the hand of the little three year old that i met in the house, her mother was the one that was drunk, she was walking with us too.
her mother took her hand and she wiggled her hand out of her mothers to hold mine.
the mother looked at me and said you like her dont you? i said yes she is an adorable girl i will come back and visit you ok? both her and the little girl where beaming.
i am supprised
the mother didnt offer her girl to me...it happens so often.
we have to turn and tell them that the little kids cant come with us any farther because they might get lost.
we turn and wave good bye and promise we will be back.
God, i cry out to you...save these little children.
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| | Posted 8/24/2007 9:27 PM - 55 Views - 6 eProps - 4 comments
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