After being in Monrovia from the 11th-22nd I finally got the go ahead to go back to site. At this point the only thing I knew was, the house was by the clinic, I had a palava hut (seen pictures of the outside) and that I was SO close to school. PC came and picked me up at Eco hotel and we headed to Gbartala. Ernlee told me my principle assured her the community was informed I was coming and we would have a group of people ready to help me pack my things to move over. What happened (he very clearly didn’t inform people) was we arrived, and everyone was shocked I was back. We went to the school to find the key to the new place, and saw surprise who rode back to the house with us to pack where John later arrived/ random porch kids entered to help. The poor PC driver Aliue wasn’t even informed that he would be helping me pack the car/hauling things from inside to the new place all afternoon. We spent about 3 hours (3 trips) packing the car and unloading to the new place. Once 99.5% of everything from inside was moved Aliue had to head back to Monrovia (getting dark), leaving the wires from the solar in the roof and one shelf in the bathroom (didn’t hand over keys so we just got it later).
The first thing John addressed after being moved in was the 3 windows that had no screen, only metal bars. As you can imagine with my mass spider hatred I was thrilled to see this. He said Morris (carpenter) was to come today to put the screen in, and shockingly (sarcasm) he never showed, so we attempted to do the best we could to blockade the area until screens were put in. John assured me it would only be one night, this was true, the next day Morris came to put screens in. However, he took his sweet time getting the gaping holes fixed in almost every other screen! It took a visit from Ernlee (thank god for her) for them to actually come and fix all the screens. I felt small bad as they were fixing my screens, all Morris did was cut up a mosquito net from the Ministry of Health distribution and nail them to the window frame. Although very effective, not the purpose of the net, but I also didn’t want spiders entering, so I accepted it. After the gaps in the screen were fixed we had to deal with the massive gaps the screen had from the actual window. Some of these gaps I could shove my entire finger in and have it outside. I asked Morris (earlier in the week) if he could seal it for me, he said he was coming the next day to fix screens and said the following day he would go around to cement the gaps, I even offered to pay him, he said no, that I was just to supply the cement. This was all lies and again Ernlee was clutch, the day she came and yelled at them for not having fix the screen/drain was the same days she asked why the screens frame hadn’t been sealed. They spewed some reason and she asked my counterpart John if he was unable to do the work himself (clearly saying it as- bro do it), he said he was able, she was like great, you will do it today ha-ha. John came over later that evening and we spent 3 hours sealing all the windows. THREE HOURS! The small job that I thought would take 1-hour max took forever! I had only been asking for days, yet when Ernlee gets involved shit gets done quick ha-ha.
The other welcome home I had to this new place was rats. I’m not saying one or two little things, I’m saying like a gaggle of them. I was waking up to like 100 new shits a day, and they were chewing on any plastic anything they found. I realized they were coming up from the gaping hole my 2nd bathroom drain had and told John/Morris we needed to fix it ASAP, me saying it meant nothing, of course when Ernlee yelled at them it lit a fire under there ass to fix it. The day Morris came to fix it I asked if he glued everything down, he said he had, I even specified the screen part (because it pops up to clean inside) and he said yes. Well, it was a lie, all a lie, I woke up the next morning, the rats had pushed the top off and went across the house to the kitchen to fu** shit up. I went to town that day, bought a pack of super glue, and glued that thing down and all around. I went to bed that night feeling confident they couldn’t enter anymore. WRONG. There was a gap in my back-kitchen door (had blocked with a towel) and they chewed apart the corner of my towel and entered. I went all over town looking for something to kill these little bastards, of course my town had nothing, so I had to go to Gbarnga. I went to Gbarnga and searched all around for rat traps and all I heard was, “rat trap fini now-oo”, an hour+ of searching I finally found a guy who had rat poison, so I bought 4 packs and was on my way. That night I knew they would enter, I also knew I had sprinkled poison all over the crackers I left them in the sink. Woke up the next day and they had eaten the crackers and some of my potatoes (which wasn’t expected/appreciated). The next day I made a death platter with crackers /peanut butter/potato and sat it on the floor. The rats didn’t touch it! They went to found other things to chew/eat. So (somewhere in this rat mess I found a rat trap) I knew I wasn’t dealing with any ordinary rat, these were smart rats ha. The next day I staged the food as if I just accidently left it out and waited for them to eat it, knowing it was all laced with death, I also set the rat trap. They ate the food in the sink, didn’t touch the trap- half success woo hoo! After a 6ish day rat war, I’ve come out as temporary champion, I haven’t had a rat in 2 days now. I’m basing this off the fact that I bought/poisoned/staged a pack of rat crackers in the sink and they haven’t been touched, nor have I seen new shits! It’s the small wins that count ha-ha. During the Aouate/Rat war of 2018 I even considered getting a cat to keep the rat population down. I don’t actually want a cat, but if rat business didn’t stop an outdoor cat would have been a must. I was telling Melissa about my rat issues and she thinks they are just staging a coup ha-ha, who know, Aouate/Rat war 2 might be coming soon. The real test in all of this will be if my theory that they are coming in from outside and don’t live in the house/walls pans out. I should know soon because if I’m wrong the house will start smelling soon… yum right. The last real issue of this new house was the gap in the kitchen door they were passing though. Morris said he would come fix it, since I can’t trust anything he says I asked my student Joshua to come put cement between the iron door/the wood door, so they physically couldn’t get through. He came yesterday (May 31st) and thankfully did that for me!
After a week+ everything in the house has now been fixed. No other major adjustments to the house need to be made. Issues aside, the house is quite nice. The inside is all tiled/painted, it has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, 2 porches, and 1 massive palava hut. There are 2 windows in almost every room, meaning I made curtains ASAP because everyone could see into my business, but also meant that there is constantly a nice breeze and the place doesn’t get too heated. When you first walk in you are in the sitting room, to the right is a foyer area, if you walk through that it’s the kitchen/pantry. To the left of the sitting room is my bedroom, which has a bathroom inside of it, down the hall from my room is the rat bathroom (2nd bathroom), and to the right/left of that are 2 other bedrooms. I have the clinic on one side of me and 2 houses next to me. A ma named Mary lives behind me and next to me is a Sackie and Benu with there two kids, a 2-year-old named Sam, and a 2-month old named Joseph. Everyone knows the community as the palm bush, if you ask someone inside the community, they call it Hollywood City. The community has size to if you travel deeper inside, but being I am on the outskirt it is EXTREMLY quiet. I’ll walk outside at any given time of the day and see no one, everyone is hustling to make money, on the farm, or selling. The only time I see people is around 5:30pm when they are coming back.
The adjustment to this new area has been extremely hard. It seems silly because how lucky I was that I got to stay at the same site/school, but the community is what makes a place feel like home. I’m basically taking it day by day, integrating into my new community and getting use to the place. Everyone in Gbartala City is VERY sorry for what happened/very grateful that I came back. I’ve been told several times that I’ve proven I’m really one of them (since I came back) and that color doesn’t mean anything. The entire town has been very supportive, so its just a matter of getting use to the new community now.
The first thing John addressed after being moved in was the 3 windows that had no screen, only metal bars. As you can imagine with my mass spider hatred I was thrilled to see this. He said Morris (carpenter) was to come today to put the screen in, and shockingly (sarcasm) he never showed, so we attempted to do the best we could to blockade the area until screens were put in. John assured me it would only be one night, this was true, the next day Morris came to put screens in. However, he took his sweet time getting the gaping holes fixed in almost every other screen! It took a visit from Ernlee (thank god for her) for them to actually come and fix all the screens. I felt small bad as they were fixing my screens, all Morris did was cut up a mosquito net from the Ministry of Health distribution and nail them to the window frame. Although very effective, not the purpose of the net, but I also didn’t want spiders entering, so I accepted it. After the gaps in the screen were fixed we had to deal with the massive gaps the screen had from the actual window. Some of these gaps I could shove my entire finger in and have it outside. I asked Morris (earlier in the week) if he could seal it for me, he said he was coming the next day to fix screens and said the following day he would go around to cement the gaps, I even offered to pay him, he said no, that I was just to supply the cement. This was all lies and again Ernlee was clutch, the day she came and yelled at them for not having fix the screen/drain was the same days she asked why the screens frame hadn’t been sealed. They spewed some reason and she asked my counterpart John if he was unable to do the work himself (clearly saying it as- bro do it), he said he was able, she was like great, you will do it today ha-ha. John came over later that evening and we spent 3 hours sealing all the windows. THREE HOURS! The small job that I thought would take 1-hour max took forever! I had only been asking for days, yet when Ernlee gets involved shit gets done quick ha-ha.
The other welcome home I had to this new place was rats. I’m not saying one or two little things, I’m saying like a gaggle of them. I was waking up to like 100 new shits a day, and they were chewing on any plastic anything they found. I realized they were coming up from the gaping hole my 2nd bathroom drain had and told John/Morris we needed to fix it ASAP, me saying it meant nothing, of course when Ernlee yelled at them it lit a fire under there ass to fix it. The day Morris came to fix it I asked if he glued everything down, he said he had, I even specified the screen part (because it pops up to clean inside) and he said yes. Well, it was a lie, all a lie, I woke up the next morning, the rats had pushed the top off and went across the house to the kitchen to fu** shit up. I went to town that day, bought a pack of super glue, and glued that thing down and all around. I went to bed that night feeling confident they couldn’t enter anymore. WRONG. There was a gap in my back-kitchen door (had blocked with a towel) and they chewed apart the corner of my towel and entered. I went all over town looking for something to kill these little bastards, of course my town had nothing, so I had to go to Gbarnga. I went to Gbarnga and searched all around for rat traps and all I heard was, “rat trap fini now-oo”, an hour+ of searching I finally found a guy who had rat poison, so I bought 4 packs and was on my way. That night I knew they would enter, I also knew I had sprinkled poison all over the crackers I left them in the sink. Woke up the next day and they had eaten the crackers and some of my potatoes (which wasn’t expected/appreciated). The next day I made a death platter with crackers /peanut butter/potato and sat it on the floor. The rats didn’t touch it! They went to found other things to chew/eat. So (somewhere in this rat mess I found a rat trap) I knew I wasn’t dealing with any ordinary rat, these were smart rats ha. The next day I staged the food as if I just accidently left it out and waited for them to eat it, knowing it was all laced with death, I also set the rat trap. They ate the food in the sink, didn’t touch the trap- half success woo hoo! After a 6ish day rat war, I’ve come out as temporary champion, I haven’t had a rat in 2 days now. I’m basing this off the fact that I bought/poisoned/staged a pack of rat crackers in the sink and they haven’t been touched, nor have I seen new shits! It’s the small wins that count ha-ha. During the Aouate/Rat war of 2018 I even considered getting a cat to keep the rat population down. I don’t actually want a cat, but if rat business didn’t stop an outdoor cat would have been a must. I was telling Melissa about my rat issues and she thinks they are just staging a coup ha-ha, who know, Aouate/Rat war 2 might be coming soon. The real test in all of this will be if my theory that they are coming in from outside and don’t live in the house/walls pans out. I should know soon because if I’m wrong the house will start smelling soon… yum right. The last real issue of this new house was the gap in the kitchen door they were passing though. Morris said he would come fix it, since I can’t trust anything he says I asked my student Joshua to come put cement between the iron door/the wood door, so they physically couldn’t get through. He came yesterday (May 31st) and thankfully did that for me!
After a week+ everything in the house has now been fixed. No other major adjustments to the house need to be made. Issues aside, the house is quite nice. The inside is all tiled/painted, it has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, 2 porches, and 1 massive palava hut. There are 2 windows in almost every room, meaning I made curtains ASAP because everyone could see into my business, but also meant that there is constantly a nice breeze and the place doesn’t get too heated. When you first walk in you are in the sitting room, to the right is a foyer area, if you walk through that it’s the kitchen/pantry. To the left of the sitting room is my bedroom, which has a bathroom inside of it, down the hall from my room is the rat bathroom (2nd bathroom), and to the right/left of that are 2 other bedrooms. I have the clinic on one side of me and 2 houses next to me. A ma named Mary lives behind me and next to me is a Sackie and Benu with there two kids, a 2-year-old named Sam, and a 2-month old named Joseph. Everyone knows the community as the palm bush, if you ask someone inside the community, they call it Hollywood City. The community has size to if you travel deeper inside, but being I am on the outskirt it is EXTREMLY quiet. I’ll walk outside at any given time of the day and see no one, everyone is hustling to make money, on the farm, or selling. The only time I see people is around 5:30pm when they are coming back.
The adjustment to this new area has been extremely hard. It seems silly because how lucky I was that I got to stay at the same site/school, but the community is what makes a place feel like home. I’m basically taking it day by day, integrating into my new community and getting use to the place. Everyone in Gbartala City is VERY sorry for what happened/very grateful that I came back. I’ve been told several times that I’ve proven I’m really one of them (since I came back) and that color doesn’t mean anything. The entire town has been very supportive, so its just a matter of getting use to the new community now.