Authentic Africa

The next time one of your children complains about their chores show them this picture. This little girl had just walked about a quarter mile from the creek after finishing doing the laundry. The washboard is in her hand.

We came to the village of Tomkollie-ma at the invitation of their local Christian church to see if we could help with providing drinkable water. During the dry season it's about a 1/4 Mile Walk down to the nearest Creek. Water then has to be carried.

She is giving a demonstration that the water she collected is drinkable. You can see the color of the water in the creek. Later on in the dry season this creek goes away and they have to go about a 1/2 mile for their water. Normally it's the children who collect the water.

We gathered with the community leaders to discuss the water problem. They asked if we could pay for boring a well in the center of their village. The water would then be drawn up by a hand pump. The biggest challenge is not providing the well but in creating a organization in the village that can maintain the well for years when we're gone. This structure requires some sort of assessment where villagers regularly pay into a fund to provide for well maintenance. This is usually a new concept for the village. Even with the fund the village then has to have people trained to do the maintenance. We will have to provide the basic tools for the repair staff to operate.

This is one of the poor villages in Africa. They cannot pay for cement blocks for their home. They used wood slats and then stuff the space between the slats with mud.

 The income in this Village is from sugarcane. That's all they raise. Once the cane is mature they cut off and replant the leafy top. The trunk of the plant is then harvested for the sugar cane.

They drag the harvested sugar cane down to the St. Paul River and float it down and across the river to the market.  The boat is a hollowed out log.

The villagers eat anywhere from no meals to two meals a day. There staple is white imported rice. They supplemented with cassava melon.

This village is contained within the city district of Clay Ashland.  The name Clay is after Henry Clay an American senator in the early 1800s and Ashland was the name of his estate in kentucky. Henry Clay was a member of the American Colonization Society that promoted the resettlement of free slaves back to africa. This resulted in the creation of Liberia. 

About a month ago we had gotten a request from a member of our church named Arda

Collins to ask if we could replace the local bridge that gives access to the school that she runs. Attendance at her school had dropped more than one half because the temporary replacement bridge could only accommodate motorcycles and pedestrians.

Sister Collins was born in Liberia and moved to the United States at the age of nine. She is now a retired educator and a widow in her'70s.  She Lives 3 months in Maryland and the remaining 9 months she spends teaching school in Liberia.  Her branch back in Maryland helps to fund her free school. The replacement bridge she wants will cost about $150,000. That is more money than we have available to spend on a small school such as hers. Members of her ward back in Maryland may be able to fund the bridge   Cheryl and I visited the bridge to take pictures. We also got one of our contractors to go and give and estimate on the completion cost.  The picture is of Sister Collins walking over the bridge.

What was remarkable is that our water project and this bridge were only a few miles apart. The bridge would be a great blessing to the community because it would bring road traffic through their village and allow them to sell more.

It is doubtful that we will fund this water project because it only benefits about 150 people. We try to fund projects that benefit 5 to 10 times more people than that.  But you never know.  Maybe we can tie it into a larger project.

This is President Singbeh who is over the Cotton Tree branch that we visited today.  He has 20 members of his branch that he is preparing to go to the temple. The challenge is that the temple is two countries and 1,000 miles away. The only way to get there is by Airline. The travel cost is far more than any of the members of his Branch could afford.

To make Temple covenants available to most people in Liberia the church pays for the airline tickets and the lodging for the trip. This would be of course for the entire family so that they could be sealed in the temple.

The other challenge he is currently facing is that several members of his congregation are part of a large community garden. The problem with the garden is that they cannot afford basic tools.  To help with this the church is initiating a humanitarian project for all of the branches in this area to provide basic resources, such as tools, to help with food production.

I just can't imagine what it's like to be over a congregation where aalmost everyone is needy and hungry. He is a very good man.