{"id":3964,"date":"2015-09-26T10:45:11","date_gmt":"2015-09-26T10:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/?p=3964"},"modified":"2015-09-26T14:49:46","modified_gmt":"2015-09-26T14:49:46","slug":"the-adventure-of-my-voyage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/2015\/09\/26\/the-adventure-of-my-voyage\/","title":{"rendered":"The Adventure of my Voyage"},"content":{"rendered":"

My trip to Liberia was not without adventures, but I am thankful that they were all good adventures. \u00a0So here is a little of some of the adventures and experiences I had during the trip.<\/p>\n

\"We<\/a>
We flew into their village on a in a helicopter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"We<\/a>
We flew in since there were multiple bridges broken down on the path to their village, making the drive not possible.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Since<\/a>
Since it was my first helicopter ride, they let me ride co pilot.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The<\/a>
The view was amazing. So much more green than we get in Senegal<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"As<\/a>
As we came to their village the people all ran out to greet us<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Life there is really simple. \u00a0It was a good reminder of how doable simple is. \u00a0They have no refrigerator there and so what Amy cooked for lunch, we would eat again for dinner and then sometimes even again for breakfast. \u00a0The first two days we ate local food made by villagers to welcome us to town. \u00a0We got the pleasure of trying, fish, porcupine meat, bird meat, and deer meat. The food was pretty spicy, but had good flavor.<\/p>\n

The second day there we went to meet the village chief. \u00a0He welcomed us with some cocoa beans and chili powder that we ate and “wisdom” water to drink. \u00a0I was put on the spot to say something and realized that I always had relied on Joel for such speeches.<\/p>\n

Amy and Aaron get their water from a nearby well and walk it to their house. \u00a0For the first time since they had been in the village, there was a water shortage, and so they only unlocked the well at certain hours of the day to keep it from drying up. \u00a0The heavy rains are expected at anytime which would solve that problem.<\/p>\n

\"One<\/a>
One of the wells, though this one was dried up<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"When<\/a>
When it rained we put out buckets to try and catch the rain and stock up on water<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One day I traveled out to Aaron and Amy’s field. \u00a0Two years back they planted rice on the field just like the villagers, however the past few years they haven’t been around enough to plant and have stuck to the veggies in their garden. \u00a0They still however had fruit trees planted and so we went out to see if anything was ripe.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The hike in the woods out to their field<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"We<\/a>
We stopped for a snack on the way<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"These<\/a>
These were our two little helpers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A<\/a>
A baby pineapple<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Bananas<\/a>
Bananas – not quite ripe<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"One<\/a>
One of the tress that had fallen down that they were using for lumber<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The way back to Monrovia was on my own. \u00a0However Aaron came with me out of the village to make sure I made it and to bring supplies back in. \u00a0We rode 2 motorcycles out driven by two youth from the village. \u00a0The trip out was 2 hours. \u00a0Some of the “road” had been cleaned by the villagers and was clear, other sections were being taken back by the forest. \u00a0We drove through huge puddles, soaking my feet, and across bridges that are in desperate need of repair. \u00a0However despite the youth of our drivers, I could tell that they had navigated these paths many times and got us to the airstrip safe and sound.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The motos we road into town<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"I<\/a>
I then flew back on a small Samaritans Purse plane back to Monrovia to await my flight.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"I<\/a>
I got to sit co-pilot again and hear countless stories from a very experience pilot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In Monrovia, I stayed with a family who had been in Liberia during the war. \u00a0She had quite the stories to tell from the past 10 years. \u00a0The airport in Liberia was small – to say the least. \u00a0There were no computers there that I could see and so they hand wrote out a boarding pass for me. \u00a0We were greeted in Casablanca by people in hazmat suits, and had to be scanned by some machine before we could pass into their airport. \u00a0Because my boarding pass was hand written, I had to go to the desk and get my next boarding pass and the lady there put me up in a hotel for my 12 hour layover. \u00a0So what seemed like a hassle ended up being a blessing in disguise. \u00a0At the hotel they feed me and I even got to take a full pressurized hot shower, it was AMAZING!!!<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The hotel was beautiful. God sure does spoil me sometimes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I arrived back tired, but so glad that I went! \u00a0God blessed me beyond belief and things went incredibly smoother than I thought they would \u00a0We have 3 weeks at home before our next trip which will take us down to Guinea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My trip to Liberia was not without adventures, but I am thankful that they were all good adventures. \u00a0So here is a little of some of the adventures and experiences I had during the trip. Life there is really simple. \u00a0It was a good reminder of how doable simple is. \u00a0They have no refrigerator there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":830,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2545],"tags":[448,637],"class_list":{"0":"post-3964","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-updates-and-news","7":"tag-ethnos360","8":"tag-new-tribes-mission","9":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/830"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}