Not All Who Wander Are Lost: WE ARE FROM LIBERIA, WEST AFRICA

John(10), Grace(8), Maggie(7), and Sarah(3)

In February 2006 we were all adopted by an American family. Only two of us were brother and sister, but now we are all family. Our new Mom and Dad came to Liberia to 'carry' us back to the United States in a big airplane. We hadn't seen many white people and we thought our new Mom and Dad looked like they glowed. When we saw pictures of our new brothers and sisters in the U.S. we wondered if they'd like us. We were a little scared of all the changes that were happening in our lives but we were also very excited! Before we left Liberia we got to show our new Mom and Dad 'our world'...

A typical Street Market in Monrovia. We shopped for everything from food to flip flops at the markets. It wasn't a very safe place for children since there were people who wanted to steal our money and things we bought. We came here anyway to buy things we needed.

Our driver took us places in the car every day! We were used to walking wherever we needed to go. It was fun and we loved bouncing up and down in the back seat! American viewpoint: The roads, if in the U.S., would have been considered impassable being mostly dirt and full of holes and ruts. Traffic was usually bumper-to-bumper (mostly taxis), with lots of people walking around and between cars.

We got to go to the ocean twice with our new parents and everyone staying at The Guest House. The ocean had always been part of our lives since we lived close to it.

We felt safe hanging onto Daddy.

Sarah didn't like the ocean. She said it was "scarey" so her and Mom looked for shells instead. Mom and Sarah began to notice crabs about 5-inches wide coming out of the sand. Mom hollered at John to come see. Mom readied her camera to take a picture of the crab coming out of the sand, and as soon as it did, John hit and killed it with a board. John was proud and Mom was sad...until she realized that this was a way John helped provide food for his family and something to be proud of. Mom wouldn't let us eat it.

One of the huts at the beach.

This is where we ate at the beach. Mom and Dad bought us chicken! We ate everything, even the bones which everyone here does. We didn't know that in America we would have so much food that we wouldn't need to eat bones anymore (Mom didn't want us to anyway).

We got to take our parents to the orphanage, where we had lived, and introduce them to our friends. We were excited to show our new parents, clothes, shoes, and toys to our friends. Mom and Dad were happy to see where we had been living and to meet all the kids there. Some of the children were being adopted by Mom and Dad's friends, so they had special hugs to deliver and pictures to take. Mom and Dad said they adopted four children because they were approved for four. They knew that their hearts would break more if they came to the orphanage and knew there was another child they could have helped. We're all glad they did!

We celebrated Valentines Day at the orphanage. Gifts and candy had been sent from America.

This is the kitchen at the orphanage where these ladies cooked our food. They cooked us rice, beans, teas and bread, vegetables, baboon, pork, cacawa (oatmeal), and many more things. Here is a list of other food we ate in Liberia...bananas, coconut, mango, pineapple, plantain, oranges, limes, tangerines...cassava, cassava leaves, foofoo, sweet potatoes, bitter ball (like tomato), peppers, onions, garlic...bulgar wheat, corn...fish, crab, termites, goats, snails, lizards, monkeys, rats, large grubs, sardines...white bread, can milk, palm oil, beans. Our favorite foods...Jollof Rice with chicken, Pepper Soup, Palm Butter Soup, and Plantain Chips.
Our favorite foods in America...Daddy's deep fried chicken, shrimp, ice cream, any kind of fish, mom's cheesecake, brownies, and spaghetti. Our food in Liberia came from either the market, a relative's farm, gathered from the wild, from fishing traps, and sometimes we would steal food if we were very hungry.

We sang a lot at the orphanage. Here we're singing for our new parents. Singing and dancing is an important part of Liberian culture.

More singing! We learned lots of Christian songs at the orphanage.

This is the well at the orphanage. People in Monrovia got their water from wells like this. When John and Grace stayed with their Grandpa and Grandma in a village in the 'bush' they got water from a creek. Notice the woven wall behind the well...this is woven from plam leaves and what the outside walls of many homes are made of.

John got his hair cut while we were visiting the orphanage. Most guys in Liberia have very short hair. A straight razor blade against a comb is used for this so wiggling is a bad idea. "The first time my Mom cut my hair in America with electric clippers I couldn't sit still it felt so funny buzzing against my ear!"

Maggie getting her hair plaited (braided) by one of the Nannies at the orphanage. It is a lot of work to keep our hair looking beautiful. Some of the plaits with extensions take many hours.

This day we were saying good-bye to our friends. Some we will never see again and some we are still friends with in the U.S. because we know their 'American' families!

Friends...

Good-bye to friends and family.

At the Guest House we had so much food to eat!! We even had Plantain Chips every meal! We weren't used to having so much food to eat. We had plenty at the orphanage but before that we didn't always have food. One meal at the guest house, Mom left Sarah eating her supper at the table to go get something and when she came back a couple minutes later, Sarah's plate was empty. Mom asked Sarah what she did with her chicken leg bone and Sarah said, "I eat it". We all thought Mom was funny for asking. After we came to America, Sarah would cry in the late afternoon every day. Mom finally figured out that Sarah was worried she wouldn't have food to eat, so each afternoon Mom would sit Sarah on the counter and let her nibble on food while Mom fixed supper. Sarah still humms when she eats, even though we've been in the U.S. almost four years.

Here we're watching a movie at the Guest House where there was electricity that came from a generator. Some nights the generator ran so the air conditioners could make things cool. We'd never experienced that before! Most homes in Liberia don't have electricity. Our families used candles and lanterns for light, cooked over an open fire outside, and never had air conditioning! Liberia is near the equator so it's hot and humid all the time. We had two seasons--the rainy season and the dry season. Our temperatures were usually between 80 and 100 degrees every day.

Sarah didn't like sharing her Daddy's lap with this little girl.

These men work for the orphanage and sing good together. The temperature this day was about 100 degrees.

Some other things about our lives in Liberia...

HOMES: Homes are small and square. They consist of one or two rooms. They are made from either mud bricks, woven grass mats over stick frames, or stuccoed grass mats. The rooves were metal, sticks laid side by side, or grass.

FOOD: We had times of plenty and times of no food. In times of want, food was picked up off the ground at the market. John's Grandpa owned a farm that was two days walk from Monrovia. "Grandpa grew lots of fruit, vegetables, made palm oil, and had fish traps. I helped with all of this when I was there." John knows how to make snares to catch food and has caught rabbits in America with these.

FAMILY: The family structure in Liberia is different than America. It's normal for children from one family to live with different relatives and rarely see their siblings. It's also normal for many generations to live in the same home. Maggie's Grandma lived with them some of the time. John lived in the 'bush' at Grandpa's farm some of the time. Grace like living with her Auntie, who lived by the ocean, so she and her cousin could look for shells. Sarah was so young that she doesn't remember. We know that she lived in a village.

FUN: Jumping rope, killing lizards, marbles, rubber band game, hop scotch, dances, and playing in the bush.

CHURCH: Not all of us went to church. "Church was long. We took food, read from "The Good Book", ladies dances, and we sang songs.

HOLIDAYS: For Christmas we would put on our good clothes and make our hair fancy, go to a movie, and then we went from house to house and were given money. we did the same things for New Years Eve and The 26th. We didn't celebrate birthdays.

COMMUNITY: In the villages there was a party at harvest time. In Monrovia there was the GeoDeville Parade that had to do with voodoo and black magic. "That was scarey." American doctors came, dressed in blue, and gave children shots and medicine.

SAFETY: It was much safer in the daylight. At night we locked up so 'RORO' (robbers) couldn't steal our things or us. Kidnapping children happened a lot. Some of us had close calls. Girls and children weren't respected or treated well so we always had to be careful. Some of us saw people shot on the street. We had things stolen from us.

WAR: Us older three remember the war. We would hear 'pop-pop-pop' from guns and we'd run into the bush and hide to be safe. Soldier would burn houses and steal boys to be soldiers. We saw people be hurt.

SCHOOL: Only John and Maggie had a chance to go to school. They wore uniforms and took their own food. "Some teachers were mean and hit with sticks if we had an answer wrong."

CHORES: John had to fetch water, start the fire, use a slingshot to keep birds out of Grandpa's rice. Grace had to sweep, milk the goat, gather eggs, make cacawaw or rice for breakfast, and help watch her little siblings. Maggie washed dishes and hauled water.

LAUNGUAGE: Broken English is the main language. Bassa and Pele are languages we knew how to speak. Sarah had French background and used 'la' and 'le' in place of 'the'. Sarah has no accent left, while us others still have our Liberian accent.

AND NOW: We have lived in the U.S. for almost four years now. We love it here and have a great family! Our parents taught us about Jesus and now he's our Saviour too. We've got an education and can all read and write. We've traveled a lot and been many places, even Alaska! Even though we were used to hot weather all the time, we love the cold and snow! We are learning many new skills.
Some day we may go back to Liberia to visit and tell people about Christ and His love for them.

Every year in our area we have a Liberian reunion where we get together with all our friends from the orphanage. This is all the adopted kids with their families.