Visitor

Hello once again. My first week and a half of being back is in the books and I am on my way to closing out this deployment. I am all caught up with the current events and have an idea of what has been going on. There is still no changes in Ivory Coast and we are still receiving refugees by the thousands every day. Things at the team site are still pretty slow and uneventful. We received a new team member from Pakistan and he moved into the house Im living in. Our other housemate, the team leader from Paraguay, is still away on his leave and will be returning in a few weeks. Speaking of new housemates... I was watching a movie on my computer before I went to bed the other night and saw something moving in the corner of my eye... I look over and see a little black scorpion moving across the room. I grabbed the camera and snapped a few picks before going outside to ask one of the security to assassinate it. Johnson came back with a club and killed it. Creepy! I now make it a habit to shake out boots and clothes before putting them on in the morning. Who knows what crawls into them at night while I am sleeping. I had something funny happen to me today... I went into town to buy bananas and a boy that was there kept wanting to hold my hand. This is nothing new to me because a lot of the kids come up to us to talk and touch us. They all like to touch the white man. They play some sort of game of double dare or something... they run up and touch you and run away. Well, today this boy kept wanting to touch my hand and finally he looked over to his friends and said "he is really soft." Then the rest of the kids came up and had to touch my soft hands. Crazy kids. Oh, and the UN is hosting a "UN Idol" in Monrovia next week. Anyone wanting to participate can come into town for the competition. I have been practicing all my Justin Beiber songs so I can impress the judges. Here are some photos from this past few days:

This is the County court in Lofa county.

Hanging with the locals

Okay, so maybe it wasnt a little scorpion. This thing was enormous! (The tiles that you see in the picture are 12" long). Crazy. It took a pretty hefty whack to kill the thing too. After Johnson and I returned to the room, we couldnt find it. So we had to move some bags and things around and finally he reappeared.

This was minutes before his execution.

This is to give you a little perspective of the size of this thing I put my mobile phone next to it. I think the body of the beast was at least 5-6 inches.... and then the tail was another 5-6 inches. We had to circumnavigate this bridge that was in poor shape. When the rainy season arrives, this bridge is notorious for being washed out.

Hanging with some more locals.