School was cancelled on Friday, due to the sports games being held at CH Dewey Central High School. Students from the kickball, soccer, and basketball teams, coaches, and teachers piled into vans and took a day trip to Bomi County to compete in the games.
Bomi Hills Highway is one of the only paved roads in Liberia. This highway runs all the way to Sierra Leone. We went through several checkpoints along the way. These were major checkpoints during the war, and now they are used by the United Nations Peace Keepers. The drive was beautiful. The roads were lined with rubber trees, rice farms, rivers, and villages. We went from flat land, to numerous hills and valleys. In Monrovia, the majority of the houses are made out of concrete, but the villages that we saw were not as developed. The houses/huts were made out of bamboo, reeds, and mud, with weaved leaves and branches as the roof. It was an amazing form of artwork that I would not know how to begin to build. This area was not nearly as populated as Monrovia. The villages were small, and had about 10-15 huts. When we approached a river, we saw women and children washing clothes, bathing, and getting water. The little naked children waved excitedly as we drove by. We past a few small markets, but none of them compared to the Duala Market. There were several women dressed in their beautiful native clothing, coming from the Baptist Women’s Convention. In the distance, we began to see a small town called Tubmanburg, named after president Tubman. CH Dewey Central School is also in Tubmanburg. After 1 ½ hours of driving, we arrived at the school.
As the students walked around campus, changed clothes for the games, and met other students from CH Dewey, Holly and I went with some of the teachers to Blue Lake. Some members of the Ricks staff are from Bomi County or have lived there at some point in their lives. They insisted that we go and see Blue Lake, where the Blue Lake mineral water is made. We drove for about 30 minutes, and arrived at the lake, where the water was so clear that you could see all the rocks at the bottom. We took several pictures, and walked in the shallow part of the water. It is the most beautiful place I have seen since we have been in Liberia. When the students found out that we went, they begged that we take them there. On the way back to Ricks, we stopped at the lake so the students could see it. We were also given a tour of the mineral water factory. We got to see how the water was filtered, and how the bottles were made and labeled. My favorite part was watching a tiny plastic tube expand into a water bottle as it was exposed to heat. It was very impressive!
The drive back home seemed really long, and everyone was exhausted. It rained almost all day, so the basketball game was cancelled, and soccer was played in the rain and mud. We got home around 7:00pm, ate dinner, and enjoyed sitting down after a day of standing in the rain.
No comments:
Post a Comment