Cestos City- April 6-8th
Sooo I decided to travel. As we all know Zwedru was a huge fail in terms of actually traveling, so I decided to pretend that fail never happened and venture my way after the gender committee to Rivercess County- Cestos City.
Let’s back up a little- While sitting at my house in Gbartala before literacy training I get a call from Melissa saying that the weekend of April 6-8th we should do something before the roads get too bad/ we are stuck at our site. I agree. Flash forward to literacy training (where she attended as well) we decide to go to Cestos City and drag Nathan along with us (because he never been that way and leaves Liberia soon). Flash forward to the end of literacy and gender committee training. Reid (lives in Rivercess), Nathan, and I call a car to pick us up from Doe palace to take us to Buchanan. We got a stellar deal on that ride, typically the way to Cestos means taking a taxi from Kataka to Harbel, then Harbel to Buchanan, Buchanan to Cestos. We called a car, sat 3 in the back seat (that’s huge!), told the driver he could pick up whoever he wanted for the front seat, and went straight from Kataka to Buchanan, effectively cutting out the middle man. We got to Buchanan where we met up with a group of PCV’s, all piled into a car and made our way to Cestos. The ride in total (from Kataka) is about 5 hours, that’s assuming the dirt roads are pretty well packed, which they were.
When we arrived we were all famish so we went on the hunt for food. Let me tell you, Cestos must have had a meeting and decide not to serve food that day. We went to every cook shop they had and not a single one was serving food. We found plenty places serving drinks/plenty places that had snack like food, so we decided to sit down and make do with what we had around us, which was beer, corn, crackers and peanut butter. After our mid-day snack, we walked along the beach (its hella far) back towards Melissa’s place, stopping near the house to swim. After what felt like a forever, we reached our beach spot destination and set our stuff down to go swim. I had the bright idea to bring my yoga pants and shirt into the water, since we had been traveling all day my clothes were super dirty from the dirt roads, I figured I’d bring them in for a rinse. Well once I was in the water I didn’t want to go back out, so I decided I would just tuck them in my swim suit and once we finished swimming I would pack them away. Well, boy was that stupid. At some point while playing in the water/riding the waves I lost my yoga pants. Yep, totally vanished, gone forever haha. After our swimming adventure we went back to the house, all took baths, and prepared to make dinner. After going to the beach just one time I finally understand why Melissa produces sand. I joke with her all the time that she produces sand, now I finally understand it. There is no way to avoid this sand business. I had sand all over, even after taking a bucket bath I still had sand on me.
The next day was our adventure day! If you didn’t catch on by my beach and sand comments, Cestos is a beach town. The beach is beautiful, clean, and not crowded, it’s really a beautiful site. They also have a river, and across the river is a town called Neegba, this community is only accessible by canoe, we had a volunteer there, but he has since gone home. Melissa has been to Neegba several times, we (Nathan, Ali, and I) decided we wanted to visit the area (the sites tiny) and wanted to get some bush medicine (I’ll explain later). We got on a boat with about 30 other people and crossed the river. Once we got off the boat we followed a little bush path about a mile, until we reached. Neegba is TINY, remote, beautiful, quiet, and you can hear the waves breaking on the shore almost constantly. The site is vastly different than any other site I’ve ever been to.
After touring the area for a bit, we went to look for the bush medicine man. Bush medicine is something almost all locals have for different different reasons. The idea is, whatever protection the individual is seeking it is placed upon them by a town elder of some sort, people call it a bush tattoo, bush medicine, or a protection tattoo. Melissa went to an elder in Neegba and received bush medicine before, so we knew we had a guy who could do the job. We found our elder and he asked us what sort of protection we were looking for; different protection needs different medicine and he would have to fix the correct medicine. We decided to do snake protection (probably the most common type of medicine). He then went to fix the medicine and came back with it in a hollowed coconut shell. He said a prayer over the it (medicine is basically smashed up charcoal) and called us back one by one. Ali, Melissa and I decided the three of us would do the design L7, representing Liberia and the 7 being the 7th group. Melissa went first, me second, Ali third and Nathan last. It was my turn and I went to the back where he was standing with a crowd of Liberians. He confirmed the design I wanted (Melissa had drawn it in the sand), we cleaned the area, I handed him a fresh razor, he said a prayer, smacked the area he was going to place the medicine, and drew L7 on my arm. He then he took the medicine and rubbed it into the cut. That was it folks, I was officially protected against snakes! Protection against snakes is twofold, first it means if I get bit by a snake I won’t be affected/the snake will die, second it means if a snake sees me he will run away. I see that those together are strange, like if a snake sees me and runs away every time then why would it ever bite me… good question, but I guess for those unfortunate soles where the protection isn’t strong enough for a snake to run away they are still safe. After all L7 were placed it was Nathans turn. He decided to do a triangle, the idea is he wants to do 2 triangles to look like a set of mountains, but we told him because of the bleeding that it’s better to do a small tattoo so the charcoal sticks better/ the design could be clearer. His plan was to do the first triangle in Cestos with us and the second one, completing the mountain, at his site in Lofa.
After our bush medicine we headed back to the canoe spot to get a boat back to Cestos. We arrived and just missed one, so we sat down and waited some time for another to come, when one did we all hopped on, all excited to leave, until we realized it was the death boat. This boat could not stay even for the life of it. We had it as even as we could, pushed out to sail, and it would tip entirely to one side, even out, then go entirely the other side. It did this back and forth and back and forth, I was for sure we would all end up in the water, luckily we saw another boat coming our way and told the guy.. my man we want to get on that boat... this boat want to tip-oo, it not correct my man. We switched boats and had smooth sailing all the way back to Cestos, this is about a 5 min boat ride, but pending if they row or let the wind take us it can take anywhere from 5-15min.
Once back to Cestos we rushed to the fishing boats to pick up the catch of the day! We got there and bought this massive fish for 350LD (see pictures). Ali decided to tell us that she had heard of this fish before, that they had personalities in the water, this made me feel super bad, until we touched it... it had a snot like substance all over it and it got on me (any snot like anything grosses me out BAD WAY) and then I didn’t feel as bad. We stopped at a cook shop, got some lunch and headed back to Melissa’s house. No one knew how to filet it this weird long/flat fish, so we asked the Ma who lives next to Melissa to help. She knew exactly what to do, she sliced him open, pulled out the guts and was finished. This fish didn’t have any scales (hence the snot feeling), so we didn’t have to worry about that at all. Our plan was to build a fire on the beach, grill the fish over it while just chilling on the beach with a beer. All was going to plan, we even made tortillas so we could have fish tacos. We built a beautiful fire on the beach, our beers were opened, the fish cooking, and BAM it starts pouring. We packed our things as quickly as we could and started the 10min walk back to Melissa’s. We were soaked! Absolutely soaked by the time we got back! That didn’t stop us though, we lit the coal pot, put the fish back on (attempting to burn off all the excess water), all hung out on the porch eating fish tacos (the fish was DELICIOUS- top 10 best fish meals), drinking beer, and playing games/chatting. It may not have been the beach bonfire we initially wanted but it was every bit as fun and so so so much less sandy.
The next day Nathan, Ali, and I had to head back to site. We set up a car with one of her friends the previous day, for the first leg of the journey, so we all hopped in and we were on our way. The journey back to site takes me about 7 hours, we had pretty good luck with taxis, no break downs, and the dirt roads were well paved still. The weekend was a lot of fun, but I was defiantly excited to be back at site. I had been gone so long that to be back home was really nice.
Sooo I decided to travel. As we all know Zwedru was a huge fail in terms of actually traveling, so I decided to pretend that fail never happened and venture my way after the gender committee to Rivercess County- Cestos City.
Let’s back up a little- While sitting at my house in Gbartala before literacy training I get a call from Melissa saying that the weekend of April 6-8th we should do something before the roads get too bad/ we are stuck at our site. I agree. Flash forward to literacy training (where she attended as well) we decide to go to Cestos City and drag Nathan along with us (because he never been that way and leaves Liberia soon). Flash forward to the end of literacy and gender committee training. Reid (lives in Rivercess), Nathan, and I call a car to pick us up from Doe palace to take us to Buchanan. We got a stellar deal on that ride, typically the way to Cestos means taking a taxi from Kataka to Harbel, then Harbel to Buchanan, Buchanan to Cestos. We called a car, sat 3 in the back seat (that’s huge!), told the driver he could pick up whoever he wanted for the front seat, and went straight from Kataka to Buchanan, effectively cutting out the middle man. We got to Buchanan where we met up with a group of PCV’s, all piled into a car and made our way to Cestos. The ride in total (from Kataka) is about 5 hours, that’s assuming the dirt roads are pretty well packed, which they were.
When we arrived we were all famish so we went on the hunt for food. Let me tell you, Cestos must have had a meeting and decide not to serve food that day. We went to every cook shop they had and not a single one was serving food. We found plenty places serving drinks/plenty places that had snack like food, so we decided to sit down and make do with what we had around us, which was beer, corn, crackers and peanut butter. After our mid-day snack, we walked along the beach (its hella far) back towards Melissa’s place, stopping near the house to swim. After what felt like a forever, we reached our beach spot destination and set our stuff down to go swim. I had the bright idea to bring my yoga pants and shirt into the water, since we had been traveling all day my clothes were super dirty from the dirt roads, I figured I’d bring them in for a rinse. Well once I was in the water I didn’t want to go back out, so I decided I would just tuck them in my swim suit and once we finished swimming I would pack them away. Well, boy was that stupid. At some point while playing in the water/riding the waves I lost my yoga pants. Yep, totally vanished, gone forever haha. After our swimming adventure we went back to the house, all took baths, and prepared to make dinner. After going to the beach just one time I finally understand why Melissa produces sand. I joke with her all the time that she produces sand, now I finally understand it. There is no way to avoid this sand business. I had sand all over, even after taking a bucket bath I still had sand on me.
The next day was our adventure day! If you didn’t catch on by my beach and sand comments, Cestos is a beach town. The beach is beautiful, clean, and not crowded, it’s really a beautiful site. They also have a river, and across the river is a town called Neegba, this community is only accessible by canoe, we had a volunteer there, but he has since gone home. Melissa has been to Neegba several times, we (Nathan, Ali, and I) decided we wanted to visit the area (the sites tiny) and wanted to get some bush medicine (I’ll explain later). We got on a boat with about 30 other people and crossed the river. Once we got off the boat we followed a little bush path about a mile, until we reached. Neegba is TINY, remote, beautiful, quiet, and you can hear the waves breaking on the shore almost constantly. The site is vastly different than any other site I’ve ever been to.
After touring the area for a bit, we went to look for the bush medicine man. Bush medicine is something almost all locals have for different different reasons. The idea is, whatever protection the individual is seeking it is placed upon them by a town elder of some sort, people call it a bush tattoo, bush medicine, or a protection tattoo. Melissa went to an elder in Neegba and received bush medicine before, so we knew we had a guy who could do the job. We found our elder and he asked us what sort of protection we were looking for; different protection needs different medicine and he would have to fix the correct medicine. We decided to do snake protection (probably the most common type of medicine). He then went to fix the medicine and came back with it in a hollowed coconut shell. He said a prayer over the it (medicine is basically smashed up charcoal) and called us back one by one. Ali, Melissa and I decided the three of us would do the design L7, representing Liberia and the 7 being the 7th group. Melissa went first, me second, Ali third and Nathan last. It was my turn and I went to the back where he was standing with a crowd of Liberians. He confirmed the design I wanted (Melissa had drawn it in the sand), we cleaned the area, I handed him a fresh razor, he said a prayer, smacked the area he was going to place the medicine, and drew L7 on my arm. He then he took the medicine and rubbed it into the cut. That was it folks, I was officially protected against snakes! Protection against snakes is twofold, first it means if I get bit by a snake I won’t be affected/the snake will die, second it means if a snake sees me he will run away. I see that those together are strange, like if a snake sees me and runs away every time then why would it ever bite me… good question, but I guess for those unfortunate soles where the protection isn’t strong enough for a snake to run away they are still safe. After all L7 were placed it was Nathans turn. He decided to do a triangle, the idea is he wants to do 2 triangles to look like a set of mountains, but we told him because of the bleeding that it’s better to do a small tattoo so the charcoal sticks better/ the design could be clearer. His plan was to do the first triangle in Cestos with us and the second one, completing the mountain, at his site in Lofa.
After our bush medicine we headed back to the canoe spot to get a boat back to Cestos. We arrived and just missed one, so we sat down and waited some time for another to come, when one did we all hopped on, all excited to leave, until we realized it was the death boat. This boat could not stay even for the life of it. We had it as even as we could, pushed out to sail, and it would tip entirely to one side, even out, then go entirely the other side. It did this back and forth and back and forth, I was for sure we would all end up in the water, luckily we saw another boat coming our way and told the guy.. my man we want to get on that boat... this boat want to tip-oo, it not correct my man. We switched boats and had smooth sailing all the way back to Cestos, this is about a 5 min boat ride, but pending if they row or let the wind take us it can take anywhere from 5-15min.
Once back to Cestos we rushed to the fishing boats to pick up the catch of the day! We got there and bought this massive fish for 350LD (see pictures). Ali decided to tell us that she had heard of this fish before, that they had personalities in the water, this made me feel super bad, until we touched it... it had a snot like substance all over it and it got on me (any snot like anything grosses me out BAD WAY) and then I didn’t feel as bad. We stopped at a cook shop, got some lunch and headed back to Melissa’s house. No one knew how to filet it this weird long/flat fish, so we asked the Ma who lives next to Melissa to help. She knew exactly what to do, she sliced him open, pulled out the guts and was finished. This fish didn’t have any scales (hence the snot feeling), so we didn’t have to worry about that at all. Our plan was to build a fire on the beach, grill the fish over it while just chilling on the beach with a beer. All was going to plan, we even made tortillas so we could have fish tacos. We built a beautiful fire on the beach, our beers were opened, the fish cooking, and BAM it starts pouring. We packed our things as quickly as we could and started the 10min walk back to Melissa’s. We were soaked! Absolutely soaked by the time we got back! That didn’t stop us though, we lit the coal pot, put the fish back on (attempting to burn off all the excess water), all hung out on the porch eating fish tacos (the fish was DELICIOUS- top 10 best fish meals), drinking beer, and playing games/chatting. It may not have been the beach bonfire we initially wanted but it was every bit as fun and so so so much less sandy.
The next day Nathan, Ali, and I had to head back to site. We set up a car with one of her friends the previous day, for the first leg of the journey, so we all hopped in and we were on our way. The journey back to site takes me about 7 hours, we had pretty good luck with taxis, no break downs, and the dirt roads were well paved still. The weekend was a lot of fun, but I was defiantly excited to be back at site. I had been gone so long that to be back home was really nice.