Day 5 It's 2013. This year has been intense. Today I finally got to experience Ethiopian food. We took a walk to Ken's favorite place and sat on the porch. He pretty much ordered for us since we had no idea what to get. We got some meat dish and a vegetable dish along with some ethiopian coffee. The coffee was different from the lebanese. Still good, but I think I loved the lebanese coffee the most.
Please enjoy this demonstration of how to eat Ethiopian food by Ken Harper:
It comes out on one plate and there are no utensils. You use Injera, a sponge like bread to grasp the different parts of the dish. We learned there's actually a lot of protein in Injera?
Step 1: Tear off a piece of the Injera
Step 2: Grasp the food. (Can't go wrong, it all tasted good)
Step 3: Make a small pouch of said food that is able to be eaten in a bite or two.
Step 4: Make this face as you enjoy the deliciousness. Welcome to Liberia's Ethiopian food.
It's distinct flavors and textures and overall it was an enjoyable experience.
After lunch, Jess, Jim, and I called David and asked him to take us to various points around the city to scope things out and to start gathering some b-roll. David picked us up and took us to the first place.
It was a little hike down a rocky passage and it looked right out onto the cliff. We enjoyed the view and actually started taking some photos of some people that lived there. We met a woman and her two children and we were able to photograph them. It was really incredible. I feel like all we have to do is just treat these people like they are humans. Living, breathing, real people. That's all they are. Just like myself. Just like your enemy, your president, your dentist. We feel the same things and we love the same way. So I don't understand how people can't see that. I also realized that I adore kids. I mean, look at his little face.
So we piled into the car and drove to David's second place: Westpoint. Westpoint is the poorest place in Monrovia. People live on top of each other all jammed into a section that borders the Mesurado River. There is only one road to get through and there are only a few strategic places a car can turn around. His little franken-car did incredible well driving over rocks and ruts.
David took us through the road and we were stared at mostly. The three of us are amazing at keeping our smiles up, encouraging people to remember that we are people too. Mostly we can get the kids to smile. They are excited to see us. We got out of the cab then and walked through some narrow allies where people were making bread, hanging clothes, washing babies and playing soccer. It's an area filled with the energy of kids and resilient faces on the adults. We walked to the edge of the river and the kids looked on curiously at us, not sure what to think. David climbed onto the colorful canoe that was tied up, floating in the river. Jim and Jess were a little more hesitant to step up there, so I of course climb up and start walking down it carefully balancing so my photo equipment didn't fall into the water and sink to the depths. The other two followed suit. I'm not sure if Jim let go of the mast the whole time we were on the boat, but I think we all enjoyed it because it was the first time Liberians wanted their photo taken. Two bold boys, maybe seven or eight years old, swam in the river and called out "FLASH ME."
We photographed them and they climbed into the canoe and started doing tricks and jumping off. I looked down into the water and drifting beneath us was garbage floating in the river; old tires, plastic bags, containers, just drifting silently under us only to be disrupted by the kids jumping and splashing into the river.
We shook hands with older guys and chatted with them. I laughed at the kids jumping in and was open with the people we met. As we walked off the canoe the kids on the land had warmed up and they wanted to be photographed too. So we all took turns shooting with our different lenses the different people. It was a crazy place and the kids were essentially playing in garbage, with garbage. They didn't care though. Boys swam naked still at an age where they are unapologetic to who they are. They gathered around for group photos and then raced to us to look at them.
We spent some time with young fishermen, one of which tried introducing me to his mother. She ran away when she saw my camera. they were goofy and posed on each other and with us. Everyone we met there made us smile.
I hope my pictures can give you some idea as to what it was like. But like I have mentioned before, there's nothing like the real experience. It's an assault on the senses, I couldn't open my eyes wide enough and take everything in.
Finally David took us to the beach. We wanted to record B-roll of the sun setting over the water. There were a ton a people around us and we tried our tactic of allowing them to press the buttons and take some photos of us before we made some photos of them. These kids were super excited to show off their talents to us and see the different photos of each other. We got mobbed by all kinds of young kids talking to us.
I walked to the edge of the water and I remember thinking it was the first day of the year 2013. I started thinking about the different things I've seen in the 23 years I've lived and the opportunities I've been presented with. It was an introspective moment for me and I was very optimistic for myself and for the project we had agreed to tackle in Liberia. It's only the beginning.
