My More than Me Mission: Entry 5

Favorite moments in Liberia:

- spending time with Abigail, giving each other glitter tattoos and swimming
- doing home visits for 20 students
- hearing them sing and greet teachers in the morning
- hearing the girls tell me they will miss me
- driving on Cyrus's motor bike
- holding the girls on my last day during the group lesson
- having them show me where they signed their names on my tshirt
- dinner at Ali's house
- dancing on Tuesday night
- telling them about Jesus and making bracelets with them
- dancing with them and teaching them moves
- Giving Abigail a black Barbie and seeing her brush her hair and take pictures of her
- Giving my extra pizza to Albert with polio
- Goung to the beach for 10 minutes with Cyrus and seeing the huge waves
- Seeing West Point from the best view at Ducon Palace
- having a mother who was speaking another language sincerely thank me personally for what I am doing for her daughter
- receiving cards and a dress from Cyrus and Macintosh
- going to a private gym in a compound with Katie and running on the sidewalk at night
- finding out that I was getting driven to the airport by the chief of intelligence for the Liberian police
- helping the girls spell words in writing class
- seeing Jesus bumper stickers and paintings on cars everywhere

Funniest moments:

- dancing with a 70 year d grandma and seeing her shake it to Beyonce :)
- having 3 babies cry when they saw me because I'm white
- realizing Eve's name was not Eef because of her accent
- realizing that the gia were trying to spell "friends" not "France"

Saddest Moments:

- Seeing Victoria cry after me asking her about her granddaughters' parents that both passed away and what her biggest hardship was (having bad legs). This helped me realize that they are not numb to the struggles they go through even though they are often faced with unfavorable outcomes in their lives
- having a student tell me that she will get beaten by her mom when she goes home because the other girls broke her food bowl
- seeing a neighborhood girl's finger be swollen to twice its size because she hurt it and had nothing to go about it
- hearing about how Abigail slept in the video club
- walking past a brothel for little girls
- hearing that girls mothers were dead or prostitutes
- not having enough toys for the kids in West Point
- having Cyrus tell me that he got in a fight with his ex and got so mad that he threw a cell phone at her and made her lip bleed

Interesting Moments:
- having all the gina ask me "is that America" when shows with white people were on tv
- seeing a car accident between a man on a motor bike bleeding all then the side of his face and a government car fighting with him. Cyrus says the government does not respect citizens with no money
- seeing and learning that the President of Liberia is protected by all women soldiers

Thanks for reading about my More Than Me mission!

Photo courtesy of http://www.givology.org/images/user/1315_2397200566848764926.jpg