Ma Ellen: 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Recipient!

What an exciting day for Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and the people of Liberia! She is one of three recipients of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize!  She really has done significant work for Liberia and and it warms my heart that she has been recognized in such a high profile way!

Here is an NY Times article that has a number of quotes from her and links to several videos of Ma Ellen talking about Liberia (videos are several years old, but do provide a nice history and summary of the challenges to Liberia and her presidency).

She is running for reelection and while it's not a given that she'll be reelected, I'm hoping this award might persuade Liberian voters who are undecided. Elections are October 11th with run-off election on November 8th if required.

Gilliam Family

Due to the recent tragic death of Thomas Gilliam, IV, I have noticed increased traffic on my blog from searches related to little Jude McKay Gilliam who died in 2007 from an accidental drowning. Tommy and Jude were cousins.

If you are looking for information regarding Tom Gilliam's life and death, his obituary is posted here.  There will be a memorial service held at Trinity Presbyterian Church on Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 3pm.

The local TV news outlets have stories here and here. The Daily Progress story is here.

I know the family personally and I know they would appreciate your prayers as they again find themselves grieving another tragic loss. Lord, have mercy.

I hope this helps those of you searching for more information.

I honestly hope you all have given up on this blog.

...because there is just not much happening here! Perhaps you are getting this blog post in your inbox because you are still subscribed to receive updates. Feel free to unsubscribe--b/c unless I change directions with this blog and start writing again about Liberia (or some other country of interest)...there probably won't be much activity to speak of.

I have started another blog, albeit very infrequent and not very interesting (yet). Definitely a weak attempt to chronicle my journey to (and perhaps through) nursing school. Yes. Nursing School. I won't go into details here, but if you are interested, you can catch up at http://joyinscrubs.blogspot.com/. It's always possible that if I get into school...that the nursing program might ask me to refrain from blogging about my experiences. I have no idea. I haven't heard any rumors like that--plus I found a blog a while back of someone who was in the final semester of the program that I'm seeking intro into. So maybe they won't care...or maybe they'll never know.

I will say that the intensive medical course I took at Equip International (Marion, NC) before I left for Liberia (check archives for May or June 2006) was probably THE seed that planted my interest in pursuing something in the healthcare field. Add to that my love of analyzing my own symptoms on webMD, donating blood and watching them insert the needles...AND of course....my adventures in Liberia (where preventative health and hygiene education would do a person better than the sub-standard care in the rare few hospitals in Liberia).

My mom is a retired nurse (RN), but honestly, I don't ever recall ever being thoughtful about a nursing career until the past couple years.

Okay, okay...so I'll give you a glimpse...I'm currently taking pre-nursing courses (prerequisites). I have applied for entry for this fall to the local community college --that has an excellent program. (So excellent that there were 400 applicants this year for 100 spots!)

I will find out mid-April if I've been accepted. For now, I'm focusing on surviving Microbiology! It's very interesting--but the memorization and taking tests is the down side. All my prerequisites (taken since summer 2009) have been online courses (or hybrid). Those details are on my Scrub That blog.

Well, that's it for now my friends (on this blog). I hope you are well. Please feel free to drop me a line, I'd love to hear from you. I'm on Facebook (but don't try to friend me unless you know me personally).

I will say that I've been gone from Liberia for so long (almost 2 years), that I'm out of touch enough to not have any current information about moving or living there...least of all starting a business there (and I'd never be able to answer that).

Go in peace my friends and maybe one day--I'll be your nurse. ;)

Joy

My 26 on You-o!

Today is Liberia's "Independance Day"--July 26.

Happy 26th to all my Liberian friends and all those who love Liberia!

This past week, a friend of mine from church brought me the article about Liberia from Sunday's Washington Post. It was written by William Powers, the author of The Blue Clay People. TBCP is about Powers' experiences in Liberia with CRS. Powers returned to Liberia recently and thus the article.

The friend who gave the article to me actually spent some of his twenty-something years in Liberia working with Texaco. My world is richer for the relationships that have come about b/c of a mutual interest/love for Liberia.

Below is a pick of Baby Joy #3. She is with her daddy Emmanuel. He was the student I sponsored for school while I was in Liberia. Like many in Liberia, he needs a job so that he can provide for his family. I'd love to go back for a visit--I do miss my friends there.


























Happy 26th!

I have over a hundred RSS feeds (mostly blogs) that I follow. One is Afrigadget. I was tickled to see they found an innovation in Liberia and posted it. Below is just to tease you... Check it out HERE! And I totally recommend you start following Afrigadget too!





The funny thing about this, is that I didn't read the article on Afrigadget until I saw the last line of the blog post...and saw it said Liberia. All I knew was that the photo was totally reminiscent of "ovens" that I saw in Liberia. How fun.

Banking in Ganta

Here's an article about banking in Ganta. LBDI (Liberia Bank for Development and Investment) was the bank I would go to get my Western Union money transfers...I recognize a lot of the people in the pictures! I never held a bank account, but I can attest that there was definitely money going in/out of that bank!

BBC has story and photos of women in Ganta!

The BBC has a story with twelve photos from Ganta (my home in Liberia!). It's a story on the group of Liberian women in Nimba County that formed a group called Concerned Women and their efforts to help women and children (cassava farm, education etc...). I was SO THRILLED to recognize women shown in photos no 10 and 11 from Tonglewein--a small community that I worked in (we had several malnourished kids there). I loved Tonglewein so much that my Betta fish is named after this community!

This is not my first time hearing about Concerned Women. When I was in Liberia, Shelby introduced me via email to Beth Iden (who I still need to meet!). Beth works with the Liberia Orphan Education Project that had connected somehow to a Concerned Women group in another part of Nimba County. That Concerned Women group was helping to distribute the Kindergarten-in-a-Box packages that LOEP had sent. So it's been fun for both Beth and me to see these photos of the Concerned Women IN ACTION in Ganta! I didn't realize there was a group in Ganta...so this is fun!



Above is an aerial shot of Tonglewein which I took from my first UNMIL helicopter ride! You can't see the school building here...it would be on the opposite side of the road, about 1/10 of a mile to the left of this photo. When I first arrived in Liberia, UNICEF was rebuilding their school building which I believe had been heavily damaged by a storm...but it was fully restored (along with new bench desks) for the 2007-2008 school year. Before I left I gave the school a new Liberian flag, which they were very happy to receive.

You might be interested to know why the roofs are red or white. It's not red...it's either rusted alumnium roofing OR either reddish-colored asbestos roofing (which ends up dry-rotting). The white roofs are actually newer sheets of aluminum roofing--which just reflects the sky and appears white. Most Liberians aspire to have aluminum roofs, even though the asbestos roofing is still available for sale. Aluminum roofs are definitely more expensive, but there are various degrees of quality available.

Here are some comments my dad made after reading my info on the roofs:

One point of information: Aluminum does not rust - it does oxidize but aluminum oxide protects the under lying metal. Rust is iron oxide, a reddish color substance which does not further protect the metal.

Liberian roofs must be "zinc" plated iron sheeting often called "tin" as in tin roof or tin cans (cans are protected some way but not sure just what). Zinc does not rust either and is supposed to protect the iron sheeting from rusting. A poor quality zinc job will in time rust - probably not too good a grade of zinc plated "tin" roof sheeting is available in Liberia or is too expensive.

Yep, the Liberians call it Zinc roofing...so likely roofs are zinc plated iron. They come in sheets about 3' x 8' that overlap. Then they use special umbrella looking nails which then protect the hole from leaking (right!) Thanks Dad for the info.

OT: Black Baby Dolls on Clearance at Kmart

I found these baby dolls on clearance at Kmart today for $4.80 each! If you look closely the clearance stickers say $6 and $10, but don't be fooled--use the in-store scanners and double check!



I bought five of them (think I left one behind) figuring I'd give them away to some Liberian sisters that I just met and to Charlottesville Abundant Life Ministries "Christmas Store". The Christmas Store is the culmination of the fall semester of tutoring. Kids spend "Blue Bucks" earned from good behavior on presents for family, friends, and themselves. Members of our church (and others I think) donate new items (scarves, balls, skateboards, CD players, dolls...) so that CALM can then turn and bless the children and their families with gift options. The kids work hard during the fall semester in the tutoring program so that they can in turn be generous gift givers at Christmas! Awesome. Kids want to give and sometimes need to be taught to give...they just don't aways have the resources to do so. I love CALM's program.

ANYWAYS... I know a lot of readers of my blog have adopted Liberian children....so I thought I'd just pass along this tip as I know black baby dolls are not always available or for a price like this.

So I was glad to pay the $25 or so for 5 dolls that I can share later. And I have a few lappas leftover from my year in Liberia...that I'll probably share with the Liberian sisters to carry their babies around in.

Not sure if available in your Kmart...but worth looking if you've got little girls in your family or neighborhood or church that would love a black baby doll.

Flag Day in Liberia!

Happy Flag Day, Liberia!



I hope you enjoy this little video I made in Gbuyee (pronounced Boo-eeee :)I took the video using my digital camera, so the resolution is not the best, but it was all I had with me.

Here are the lyrics to the Liberian National Anthem:

All Hail, Liberia Hail
All Hail, Liberia Hail
This glorious land of liberty shall long be ours
Though new her name green be her fame
And mighty be her power
In joy and gladness with our hearts united
We'll shout the freedom of a race benighted
A home of glorious liberty by God's command

All Hail, Liberia Hail
All Hail, Liberia Hail
In union strong, success is sure
We cannot fail
With God above our rights to prove
We will over all prevail
With hearts and hands, our country's cause defending
We'll meet the foe with valor unpretending

And Liberia's Pledge of Allegiance:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of Liberia and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.



















I gave the Gbuyee school a new flag and soccer balls that day --as my thank you gift as I departed. I worked with malnourished kids and their mums in this community. I was also good friends with many of the teachers at this school because Equip had a school health club.

Also my club-foot patient that had surgery on Mercy Ships was from this same community!

Liberia Olympic Update: Jangy Addy, post #3

After two full days of competitions, the Men's Decathlon is over. All ten events have been completed. There were 40 men who started the competition..but 14 competitors did not complete all 10 events. I'm very proud that Jangy Addy hung in there and finished every last event and did not give up (or injured!). He ranked 20th in the final results.

Over at Addy's Olympic page it's fun to read all the comments from family, friends, Liberians and strangers cheering him on.

I'm proud of ALL the Liberian Olympians. Even though they did not get any medals, they competed, did their best and represented Liberia well. What an amazing experience and privilege to compete in this HUGE international competition. I hope we will see Kia Davis, Siraj Williams and Jangy Addy in four years...along with even more Liberian athletes competing!

Tomorrow is FLAG DAY in Liberia...I'll be posting a video!