Giovi is back! ...reblogging, from the Monrovia times...

Dear friends,

I am officially back to blogging. After... how long?

So yes, from Liberia we drove west towards the Sierra Leone border, and after 3 or 4hrs reached the little town of Potoru. This is where the closest EFA office is to Tiwai Island, and where Momoh Magona, the project manager for Tiwai Island, lives with his beautiful wife Daneh, his sweet daughter Musu (14), the charming little sons Shiaka(8) and Abu(5) and the caretaker Alusine live. I confess I was terrified before and at arrival. No electricity. No one I knew very well anywhere close. A town I knew had been invaded by rebels in the times of war. Fear of getting sick again. Fear of bugs. Fear of the jungle... fear fear fear... If anything, this trip has showed me how terrified I am of so much... And how I should try to take things a bit more easy... because after a couple of days in Potoru, I would have paid to stay a week or two longer...

Its funny how one loses track of time when in the wild, when one does not have internet, when one does not have electricity, when its hard to charge the phone, or the ipod, or whatever gadget one "needs" in the day-to-day life...

...Its even funnier to realize after a couple of days how you dont need, dont want and dont care about all these things... I wanted quiet, and whenever people turned on their noisy radios I just went somewhere else...I enjoyed the sound of the rain on the trees and ceiling (rainy season is starting and, as we say here, it rains cats, dogs and pigmy hippos). I enjoyed being awakened by the rooster and birds at dawn, and sitting quiet on the varanda reading a book or listening to Magona telling stories about life in the country... I woke up on a sunday with the singing and clapping of the catholic service given in the school infront of our house, for sure some of the happiest cristians I ever heard... I spent my freetime (we couldnt do interviews after dark) sitting on the porch, reading or talking to people, the neighbouring children who came over to say hi, so curious about this "pumuy" (white person), teaching me Krio or Mende, bringing music to dance, and smiles to accompany it all... It was lovely. Being in Potoru brought me peace. I am really happy I stayed there half of the time. I am not done blogging about this little town, but I must thank Magona and his family, from the bottom of my heart, for their kindness, their open hearts, their tolerance and their protection. Thousands of kilometres from my family, without anything familiar close, with little contact with the outside world...they managed to make me a part of their family. For that I will be eternally grateful. I will be back. I will go home and cook what Daneh taught me of her tasty & soulful dishes. I will be thinking of those children and hoping that Musu turns into the nurse she wants to become and that Shiaka and Abu grow to be good men, like their father. I will always have them with me. I felt at home.

I have a lot in mind now, being that I have gathered massive ammounts of data in my interviews with the communities around Tiwai Island, so my blogging will be delayed and shorter than before (I still have to tell more about leaving Liberia, coming to Potoru, doing the interviews, living there & the people, then living on Tiwai Island with the german researchers and the monkeys, and of the adventurous way back to Freetown...) For now Im transcribing all the interviews to my laptop (A LOT OF PAGES!) so I dont have so much time to blog...and actually, I also realize that now I dont have so much internet time left, so I will leave you for now with pictures and blog later...

EFA staff Liberia!

Two beautiful "Bahianas" (women in Bahia, in the northeast of Brazil, dress like this...)

The adventurous travel methods of West Africa... Can you count how many people are on the car? Is there maybe some chickens and a goat there too? hehehe


AND THEN I CROSSED TO SIERRA LEONE.....The people...the forest...the silence...the darkness...the beauty of it all.

The beautiful children in Moala (the same river crossing where I met Thiange), going to Potoru. I then learned my first words in Mende: "Bania lui a pumuy. Njalaá Giovi" = "Dont call me white person. My name is Giovi"

...Im waiting for the rest of the pictures, of Potoru and the Magonas, to download, but I think I wont have time with the internet... If it doesnt work I´ll try later...

I wish you all a beautiful sunday, and HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!! (Im lost in time so my poor mom had to remind me)

Love,

Giovi