Inauguration run down...

Many people have been asking me about a report on the inauguration since I was lucky enough to be living here when this monumentous occasion took place so I took the time to type all of this out for the enjoyment of all (or at least the three people hat will read it.)

something or other, some Pete So My festivities actually began on the Sunday prior to the election. Well scratch that, they began the week before when Jen and I were chatting while we were supposed to be working (your tax dollars put to good work) and one of Jen's co-workers made manifest to her that there was to be a free concert on Sunday with no other than one miss Shakira (you may know her as the Colombian sensation that can swivel her hips so fast, and in seemingly inhuman directions, that she has pulled ligaments in her back, now is when i squeal like a 13 year old girl at an NSYNC concert) and her good friend the ever so beautiful Beyonce ( I know what you are thinking and no dad, beyonce did not sing her hit song "me so booty-licious"). There were some other people there too but who can really remember them I mean Bruce SpringstineSeger guy and some group from Ireland... U5 or something like that, who can really keep these things straight when Shakira and Beyonce are on the mind ( now is when you can make all the "hips don't lie" jokes you want). So Jen and I decided to hit up the first part of church and then (mom don't read the rest of the paragraph) went back to my apartment and changed out of church clothes and put on our Eskimo gear. It was cold, by my estimation it was at least -2000 degrees, at least.

So we hop on the metro and follow the mass of other equally bundled up people in what looked to be the million hobo march. Upon leaving the metro station we were immediately bombarded people selling every sort of ware that you could possibly fathom. No really, I mean just imagine something that might be related to Obama (an obama waffle iron/lamp/massage chair) and it was being sold. My personal favorite were the Obama condoms (1 for three dollars) that an extremely over caffeinited guy with an Obama bedazzled shirt offered me. I lamentably declined his offer, though i felt it quite nice of him. Anyway we walked the rest of the way to the National mall an cleared security (Jen was able to smuggle in a sandwhich the size of a bazooka in her back pocket, sneaky huh? well actually she really didn't but I wish that she had cause man was I hungry). We tried to find a spot that was unclaimed by the sea of people and their blankets. it was funny because some people defended the boundaries of their blanket like one of those red necks that sit in their lawn chairs along the US border and shoot at little kids and women trying to cross in, while others could have cared less. We had the unfortunate experience of first trying to stake a claim next to what turned out to be a rather militant family who was lead by their fierce warlord dictator (I think her name was Barb) who immediately descended upon us with vicious halitosis and informed us that we were not welcome there and that we needed to move on. She quickly called the attention of her surrounding neighbors who all joined in the growing cacophony of the mob calling for our beheading or that we keep moving... so in a brilliant stroke of sage like wisdom Jen and I moved about 10 feet in front of them and found ourselves in the sphere of influence of the my blanket is your blanket people. We had found our utopia... and even better was that this let me stand right in front of the people that had just yelled at us and let me block their view... that's what you get angrly little hobbit people!!!!

Anyway the rest of the concert was pretty amazing and after every song the entire crowd strained to see who wsa the next star to be performing since therre was no program and we were so far back that all you could see were little specks of humans up on the stage... even the jumbo tron was of little assistance. In the end we stood for about 6 hours only 1.5 hours of that was actually with music the rest of it was just sitting around trying not to be cold, waiting for the music to start and watching stupid people fall out of trees and off porta potties. Once the concert ended we all sort of mosied our way out into the rest of the city which had effectively been shut down by a bunch of baby faced soldiers that were apparently all deployed from Oklahoma or at least thats how wholesome and cuddly they looked.

Whew... that was just the concert. we haven't even gotten to Inauguration yet... good gracious... ok if you need to take a break I understand, but then come back and read the rest of this or the terrorists win and a bald eagle dies and you are not a terrorist are you?

Alright, so Tuesday finally arrived. Jen drove over to my place and stood in a parking spot and looked menacingly at everyone that drove by and tried to talk me out of the spot. I even had to steal cage fight an old grandma for it, don't be fooled though, she had crazy Brazilian ju jitzu moves that were nuts. Thankfully I am fat so i just sort of sat on her, anyway, i digress. We went to get on the metro but where I live is sort of the middle of the metro line, which means that by the time they got down to us they were completely full so we watched about 3 trains pass us before we decided that the next train to come we were going to get on. we spaced ourselves appropriately, hugged each other goodbye in case any of us were smothered by the crowd and or burst into flames from all the friction of wearing 10 layers and when the next train came we catapulted ourselves into the doors. We got out at Arlington Cemetery and walked across the bridge into DC. There were all of these volunteers along the way that were really peppy and happy and cheering and what not. It was quite nice. It started you smiling right off the bat. We met up with my good friend Cayla and her cousin who apparently comes from the molasses side of Cayla's family because i think she was walking backwards she was so slow. anyway. we started at the Washington memorial and then started walking towards capital building. For those of you that are un familiar with DC and its amazing grandeur, the national mall is three miles long. There is the Lincoln Memorial on one end, a mile later is the Washington memorial in all its phallic two toned glory, and then a brief two mile jog away is the capital building. This is particularly troublesome when you have friends come in from out of town and they say they want to walk to all of the monuments not realizing the long distance between them, you try to warn them but they just don't listen, freaking buggers, so you end up walking like 18 miles in a day to go and look at the monuments. If there has ever been a place that is in dire need of a moving walk way, it is the national mall. OK back to our story... so we start out at the Lincoln memorial and walk up to the Washington memorial and see that there is still space in front of that so we keep walking. this is where the crowd begins to slow down and things get all bogged down. We find our way to a jumbo tron about two jumbo trons up from the Washington monument and we hunker down. There is another militant family in front of us but in a stroke of luck, this family is marshaled by an ex panther dad who looks at me and sees my large stature and sees a potential ally. We join teams in a quick ceremony involving , chemical hand warmers and random American flags that are in copious supply and instantly become bffs working to thwart any attempt by any intruders to break through our inner ring of sanctum and cross in front of us. I realize that I have become one of those that i despise but I am ok with this cause my view of the Jumbo tron is kick ass, plus I am afraid to disappoint the guy in front of me cause i am fairly certain he will shoot me... and it will hurt.

We again arrive about three thousand hours before it starts and stand around staying warm and making jokes about the various political figures that are shown on the jumbo tron. Then finally Diane Feinstein that siren of the senate's voice comes through loud and clear telling us to please stand for the entrance of the dignitaries... this is of course the most absurd thing we have heard in our lives since we have no other option than to sit, unless of course we would like to sit on each other (I will admit that the thought crossed my mind but I decided that if is squashed Jen, then she wouldn't marry me.) so we just stayed standing. Aretha Franklin came on stage and did her thing and we were all mesmerized, there was a prayer or something in which Rick Warren pronounced the president's daughters really really weird "sASHa and MEEEEEEELia," freaking weirdo. After that, to give the event some culture and placate the smarter people in the crowd, yo yo ma and Isac Pearlman and some other people that were not nearly as famous as the other two there by not making them worth my time played a beautiful song, except not really. turns out it was just a tape of what they had done earlier but i didn't know that t the time and it was quite beautiful. After that Biden took his oath of office as Vice President at which I was relieved that even if Obama keeled over of a freak pancreas explosion that very moment that the vice president to take over power would no longer by Darth Va... I mean Dick Cheney (man is that guy evil. I know this isn't very christian and or charitable of me but I can't wait for that man to spend the rest of eternity burning in hell for all he has done).... and we're back... after that Barack stood to take the oath and he crowd held its breath... and then and then... Chief Justice Roberts totally messes up! its like all of 32 words and he couldn't even get them right? they are int he freaking constitution!!! you are supposed to be slightly familiar with the document if you are going to be the chief justice of the supreme court!!!!! anyway, Obama and Roberts figured it out and the crowd went wild. People cried, the kind of crying that only comes once in a life time when you see something so monumental and historic that you know you are seeing a miracle. It was an incredible well of emotion that just boiled up to the top. There was hugging and high fives for everyone around and the cheers continued forever. Obama gave his address which was nothing short of spectacular and the crowd responded with sincere intonations of agreement and hope. It was amazing. The feeling was palpable, you could have reached out and grabbed the feeling of change and hope in the air... and I am not talking about some sort of fuzzy campaign promise or a Hallmark gift card emotion kind of thing, I mean real hope that the many real problems that we have in this world can actually be overcome and we can make the world better for tomorrow than it was today...It was beautiful just beautiful. You all should have seen it I am so glad i got to be part of history.

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So this is good bye,

So I go home tomorrow... I know I know, time has flown by for all three of you my avid readers, thanks Mom, Jo, David and Jen. Ok so that is four not three but anyway, you know numbers arent my thing.

So I have learned a lot of things here in Liberia for example:

- If women have sex with a man with a large penis they will, not can, but will, get cancer.
- Eating too many peanuts will cause you to create too much sperm and your testicles might explode (this conversation was a whole lot of fun with my still patchy understanding of Liberian English, I was positive that I was hearing incorrectly... nope.)
- I learned that anyone that can walk can dance and a nice sunrise is reason enough to dance.
- I learned just how lucky and blessed I am and that because I have been given much in this world, much is expected of me and I too must give.
- I learned that some people would kill to have been able to sit through my, what i thought was boring, math and sciences classes in high school.
- I learned that meat is meat and worrying about pesky details like if it was bat or beef really didnt make much of a difference.
- I learned that I really do love this field that I am in and I can do it for a long long while and feel fulfilled, challenged, and happy.
- I learned that long distance relationships are rough and that I am much more broken than I ever thought I would be.
- I learned that there are a lot of good people out there trying to make the world the way they wish it could be but that its a lot easier to ruin everything then it is to try to fix it.
- I learned that simple unsexy things like roads can make all the difference for a country.
- I learned Malaria usually wont kill you, that is of course, unless you are already weakened by silly things like chronic poverty.
- I learned I really need to learn how to drive a stick shift. That will be my goal at christmas time to learn from zach.
- I learned that I don't need nearly as many physical possessions to make myself happy and that I am far too dependent on the ones that I have right now.

Well these are some of my thoughts right now, I think they are about to cut off the power so I need to go, I like this blog thing though and I am going to keep posting stuff along the way, although I dont know if my insights will be nearly as profound or interesting when I am no longer in such a profound and moving place.

Thank you all for your support.

Matt 1 Banana Snake 0

So it is Sunday. Here at DEN-L in Gbarnga Liberia that means that there is not a whole lot going on. That actually might be a bit of an over statement. There is nothing happening here at all. No one comes in other than a couple of the kitchen staff, there is no electricty which means no computer for movies or anything like that. Everything is closed in town. So I had developed a routine while here.

Usually I wake up, have my own little church service here at the compound (I get weird looks while singing hymns to me myself and I but whatever), then i read a while (today is Audacity of Hope, GO OBAMA!!!!) then I eat lunch and spend the rest of the afternoon sitting on the porch of my building making rings for different people out of coconut shell.

So today I was sitting there carving away at my coconut shell creation working on my masterpiece and Terese came out to talk with me (the intern from Ivory Coast). We were talking a bit when all of a sudden she started shrieking at the top of her lungs. Almost simultaneously, one of the kids that works here, Amos, starts smacking the ground with a mop handle. all this is of course happening behind my back so i dont know what he is doing. I jump up screaming something amazingly eloquent like "what the hell?!?!?" to see a three foot long green banana snake writhing on the ground about a foot or so from where my leg had just been.

I look for a second at the snake who is now hissing at anything and everything and quickly stomp on its head with my heart now pumping like crazy. First thing out of my mouth is "Amos you are my hero." second thing is "was that thing poisonous?" answer "yes, its a very bad snake. It kills many people." good to know right?

Thats my drama for now. So if you are the praying type, make sure to thank God for Amos for me tonight cause without him around I don't know that I would be typing this story now.

just one more week???

how did this happen? my time has come and is nearly gone and what do i have to show for it. well thankfully I think I have gotten a lot out of this trip. I read Jeffery Sachs' "The End of Poverty" this week and he was talking about the different levels of poverty. He mentioned the idea of relative poverty which is what we mostly have in the United States. I mean yeah there are poor people in America but the vast majority of them do not live in dirt floored mud huts and dont have enough caloric intake to sustain life at all, so relatively speaking they are poor compared to the rest of the affluence running around the US. Then there is poverty which is the people in the world that barely have enough to scrape by but they either make enough food that there is some sort of progress or they have some sort of financial income that allows them to at least be stable. This is primarily what I have dealt with before in Asia and in Latin America. Yes there are people in those countries that live in more destitute life shattering poverty but the vast majority are not in any threat of dying from hunger any time soon. Then it comes to extreme dire, one small injury from death poverty which is the vast majority of Africa.

I had realized when I got to Liberia that I had never seen poverty like this before but I didn't really know any of the numbers behind it. I had no idea that I was looking at a whole other ball game. So I have come to think that the lack of development and therefore crippling poverty in Africa comes from a few different things. first, the infrastructure is horrible. there is no running water, no electricity, no roads, one barely functioning airport, no telecommunications no nothing. This last week I was in Lofa. It is now the rainy season and the roads that before were bad bumpy roads are now giant mud pits that you go from one to the next pushing yourself out of. You can not move crops on the roads (85% of Liberians are farmers), you cant get to a hosptial ( as previously explained they are far far away from most of the people), you cant even get to a family members funeral before they have to burry the person because there is no such thing as a morgue or a freezer to hold the body in. You are basically grounded to your village or anything within walking distance. The lack of electricity cuts down of efficiency in other places as well. kids cant study at night or do anything else because there is no light to do it with so that means as of 7:00 pm you are done for the night and the sun doesnt come up again till about 6:30 the next day and you are close to the equator so that pretty much doesnt change all day long. No running water so you spend huge parts of your time looking for water to bathe, clean, wash clothes, cook food etc. and then there is no gas or electricity to cook on so you have to get fire wood which, depending on how long people have lived in your area and how thorouhgly everything is picked through means you are walking quite a distance to find some wood to cook on for the day. basically all your time is spent providing for the basics of life meaning you have no time at all to invest in your future by going to school, growing extra food anything like that.

the next thing I blame is the horrible governance of this country. It can be argued that Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (Liberia's president) is doing a fairly decent job provided with what she is up against but then again most people would argue the opposite. I just know that Liberia has had like 5-6% growth for the last three years which is almost unheard of post protracted conflict. But between the war and malicious rulers this country has been lead astray continually and this probably explains for why more of the wealth doesnt go into doing things like building the infratructure and investing in health care and eduction. This is one point i disagree with Sachs on. He lets off the leadership pretty blame free saying that its mostly the fault of health reasons and lack of infrastructure but I would argue that the reason there hasnt been money to invest in these areas is because its all going into the American bank accounts of Liberia's elite Americo-Liberian ethnic group.

Then there is health concerns. In liberia that means Malaria and AIDS. everyone gets Malaria all the time. by that I mean Sachs provides statistics that pretty much everyone gets it at least once a year. I thought that was excessive till I started asking everyone about it and they said that that was right on. everyone I have asked as had it at least once in the last year most of them have had it at least two times. Now, Malaria is not nearly as bad as we think of it when we hear it in the states. I mean yeah its bad, it will floor you but unless you are really young or really old its not going to be lethal. that being said it does kill millions every year of the young and the old and those that are already weakened by other things...for example aids, or starvation or any number of other maladies found in abundance here. So when i started thinking about what that means that everyone gets Malaria at least once a year. that means that thats about a week that you are out of commision (Malaria is like having a really really bad flu). So thats one week a year that everyone is out of school, not working on their farm, not able to take care of their kids. one week guaranteed, thats a lot of man hours. not to mention that if Malaria is not treated fast enough it can leave lasting side effects that will dibilitate for life.

So I dont know what that was all about but it was on my mind recently. Basically that I was blindsided that I thought I had seen dire poverty and knew what it was but now realize that i didnt have a clue what i was talking about and if i had a clue i didnt really have any sort of understanding what that clue was alluding to. And still, just because I have seen it close up doesn't mean i really understand. I mean I stop in the villages stay for a few days and then get in my giant toyota land cruiser (by the way, i have a testimony of the amazingness of that machine and what it can do, holy crap is it a powerful powerful beast!) and drive back here to the compound and take a shower, hop on the internet and get a cold drink... what do I know? I'm forced to admit that I know nothing.

BLESSED!!!!

So let me share with you how blessed I have been, besides my run in with the rebel lion volley ball team as mentioned in the previous post of oh so long ago as yesterday, I have been getting hooked up. So first off I am in Liberia having this amazing experience and loving it over here. I get to do wonderful interesting things like lead workshops, take ferry rides (read as: ferry = some logs lashed together with vines) across hippo and crocodile infested waters, talk with people whose lives have been forever changed by conflict, etc etc.

In addition to this, while I have been here I have managed to score an apartment a mere block or so from the metro and in a new ward at church so that I wont have to go back to that horrible one I was in last year. The best part about the apartment,??? its within walking distance of the kabob palace!!! oh yeah! score! The only extra cost that the apartment had was that I had to admit to Jen that she was right about sending a shout out on the Colonial List Serve... you were right Jen.

Then the latest news is yesterday I had a follow up interview for a position at the United States Institute of Peace, who even knew the US had one of those? I thought we only new how to make war but turns out we do indeed have a congress funded Institute of Peace. Well I nailed the interview, I had the lady interviewing me laughing the whole time. She tried dropping some names on me and I knew each and everyone of them and could tell her all about their theories and what they had done and all that jazz. When i finished the interview I hung up the phone and yelled "I nailed it!!!" The African Interns that were sitting across from me were like, wait that was your interview? but you were laughing and joking the whole time. You didn't seem stressed at all. And quite honestly it really was a very pleasant stress free conversation. So yeah, I am working at the United States Institute of Peace as a Research Assistant doing work on the Economics of Violence and Peace. I will get paid less money than I got payed working at Taco Bell as a high school student but oh well. Good thing I have two bachelors degrees and half way through a masters degree right? anyway, got a job and its a foot in the door.

So the way I figured it, I will be coming home to school already to go with a huge amount of my research for my final thesis already done, I will be coming home to a beautiful amazing girl friend who somehow still hasn't figured out that she is way too good for me, I will have an apartment to move into straight off the plane, and two days after I get back I will start work at my new job in exactly the field I want to be working in. Wow has heavenly father hooked me up.

Horror of horrors!!!!!!

So I have broken my foot, well not really but my ankle sure hurts like hell. I have thus been restricted to doing only office work which I will be honest and admit is not my ideal work place but it does give me time to sit down and write out another blog post. Before you start to worry, I am fine. I wish I could say that I sprained my ankle in a more worthy cause like defending a group of nuns and school children from being attacked by rebels or lions or even better,… rebel lions but alas I cannot. I hurt it playing volley ball yesterday after executing a perfect smash (well, actually, I don’t really remember what the play was but for the sake of my ego and posterity I will say that it was actually while executing the most perfect of volley ball moves.) . However, coincidently, we were playing the game against rebel lions so that has to count for something right?

To remedy my vicious sprain my co workers have been trying to persuade me to let them pull it. From what I gather they think that they need to pull and push my swollen softball size ankle all over the place and in so doing they will push it back in line or something like that. I have tried to explain to them that it is not broken or dislocated or anything like that that I just need to keep it elevated and ice on it (by the way, there is no such thing as ice in Liberia) and I will be fine in a couple of days. Since I have been reluctant to allow them to yank on my foot till I want to punch all of them in the nose and I also passed on having the local “herbalist” (read what the western world would call a witch doctor) so instead everyone (I am currently looking at four tubes sitting on my desk) has brought me different creams and ointments. The writing on them is not English, nor any other language I speak, and as best as I can tell from a close study of the writing on the various tubes the medicine comes from Mars. That or Cambodia but I figure either one is going to be hit or miss. So they have all insisted on putting the stuff on my ankle themselves so I currently have four different creams working on my foot. I half expected there to be some sort of chemical reaction and for my foot to spontaneously combust. So far all it has produced is a pleasant cool sensation which I am hoping is not in actuality just my nerve endings being melted by the various chemicals that they are being bombarded with.

Oh well… anyway, all you need to know is that my foot is fine and I will survive… unless the rebel lions come back to finish me off.

one more week in the books...

so a week and a half ago or so i went down to the airport because there was a new intern coming in and because the airport was the closest place I could go to get strategic American things like deodorant, root beer and ground beef for important fourth of july reasons. Anyway so after I purchased my booty we had to wait at the airport for a few hours as the girls plane was delayed. I had two feelings while sitting there waiting around and seeing a couple planes land and then take off again (as you might imagine the Liberia intl. airport is not the busiest place in the world). So first thought was man, if I got on one of those planes right now i could be home by this time tomorrow enjoying a burrito and sleeping in a nice air conditioned room and seeing my friends. The thought that I actually had it in my power to make that happen was a slightly freightening, I mean really I had my passport in my pocket and I had my credit card with more than enough of a limit to whisk me away without another thought had I wanted/needed to. It really would be just that easy, no one would stop me I have it in my means to just pick up and leave whenever i decide that I have gotten too tired of being here or just don't want to play developing world anymore.

And then that made me think of all my friends here in Liberia that did not have that option. When things got bad there, like lets say a 14 year civil war that killed 300,000 people in a population of 3 million, my friends can not just go to the airport and take the next flight out while rockets explode around their houses. When things get bad there, like perhaps when the man that I met a month before in the small rural village of Goyala had a small cut on his foot that got infected because he lived in destitute poverty and could not afford to go to the doctor, when I met him it was the size of a football and he was in immense pain, I talked with people from his village yesterday, they said he had is leg amputated when he finally got to a doctor, his fault for being born in a poor country i guess, foolish man. why didnt he just use his amazing blue passport and his three by five inch piece of plastic to jet himself off to some better place where he could get all his vitamins every day and have access to clean drinking water? Thats what he gets for commiting the egregious sin of being born on the wrong side of the water and on the wrong side of a few arbitrary lands drawn through the middle of the jungle.

I sat watching the kids walking around selling corn or dvds or knock off watches and thought how they can not escape Liberia, Liberia is their future and they will never even see the inside of one of those giant metal birds they saw land and take off every day. I realized how un-commited I was to the plight of not just them but of all the poor in the world. How can I pretend to say that I care when in actuality if a war were to break out I would leave this country. I would get on the helicopter that my embassy sent for me, I would take that to the airport and i would get on the plane and I would leave the country and all my friends behind not knowing what would happen to them. I sure I am glad that I made sure to be born in the right country. I'm sure glad that my country was able to achieve its status by exploiting my friends and their status.

oh well, in case you cant tell my "I love America" day is over and I am back to wishing that we would just live up to the ideals that we preach so much. Alright I am done for now, I'll make the next post happier I promise.