DC, the Blue Screen of Death, Liberia and The Gambia: Pretty much nothing like Ohio

In Dulles I got to check some e-mail before we left for the Belgium capital. Ruco let me borrow his gift card to use the internet… worst decision EVER! But anyway we’ll get back to that later… Oh and I met Marceo Balboa in the Dulles airpost... a blessing upon our trip.

Belguim, pretty much has absolutely nothing to offer the world. We touched down early in Brussels at around 6:35am only to have three of our volunteers padded down. Really though the flight was quite nice, I got very lucky. First off they gave all the Peace Corps volunteers aisle seats so that we would have a comfortable flight, we were spread out over the entire plane. I got the window-side aisle and the passenger intending to take up that window seat never showed, so I got the whole row to my self which was actually super amazing after the Dulles computer debacle. While I’m on the subject I guess I should explain what happened.

So Ruco helped get me on the internet to check my e-mail one last time. Minutes into checking my e-mail I catch the dreaded “Blue Screen of Death” virus, the one where your computer shuts down every ten minutes to the blue screen. So I was extremely pissed off that I was going to have to lug around a useless laptop through The Gambia. Thankfully though in Belgium it seems to have worked for a little bit of time in the Airport but maybe that’s just a fluke, hopefully not.

So when you think Belgium what comes to mind? Waffles… well I tried these so called “famous” waffles myself. I went up to the counter and first asked, “Do you guys take the great American dollar?” She laughed and proceeded to explain the “Euro supremacy”. Then I went for the kill, “alright so can I get one of your world famous waffles?” She handed me the most pathetic thing I have ever seen next to Anna Nicole Smith. It was about the size of my palm and wrapped in plastic. “This is the amazing Belgium waffle!?!?” “uhhhhhhh yes” “Look can you just tell me where the nearest IHOP is” *she looked confused*. A nice gentleman then came up and told me that yea he was very unimpressed too since this was his first time in country. I took it back to my group and we proceeded to poke fun at this waffle and all took turns taking pictures with it (I’ll post them when I can). We must have laughed at the patheticness of this waffle for 10 minutes, then, not wanting my 3 euros to go to waste decided to eat it. Actually, it was really good lol. I guess their waffles are more along the lines of a breakfast pastry or Danish than what we know as an “American waffle”. It’s really sugary but good.

OK off topic but the bathrooms in Belgium are rather pathetic also. People are insanely private and every stall is a concreted out room. That whole “foot tapping” incident on capitol hill would have never happened in Belgium. America has left it’s stamp on Belgium society though… just as graffiti in the stalls such as, “Korn” and “Snoop Dogg rules”. There were others though, “but plug” (notice the lack of the second t, stupid Belgium) and “Everton FC is awesome”

What I tell you now you might not believe, because in my wildest dreams I really had no desire to ever go to this particular West African country (which has been made famous by the movie “Blood Diamond”, well that area anyways). When we got on the plane to flight to what we thought would be Dakar, Senegal then a short jump to Banjul turned out to be a flight to the southern edge of west Africa to an old American country known as Liberia. That’s right, turns out one of the Brussels Airways planes died down there and they need spare parts quick, so we flew strait to Monrovia. Flying in through the clouds we were immediately stunned by the lush jungle, dirt roads, and crashing waves of the Liberian coast. Landing you could see the mountains in the background… but no landing strip. The runway turned out to be only paved thing in miles, and the “air control tower” had a thatch roof, and realize we were in the main airport. You could see a large number of troops mobilizing into a jumbo jet to go who knows, and a ground staff that was comprised mostly of teenage boys and girls it seemed. We ended up being stranded, there, in that hot sweaty airplane, in Liberia, for three hours; and to make things worse there was a group of giggling Irish high schoolers right behind my seat who I wanted to punch. Thankfully though after a lot of arguing we were able to get the parts off, refuel and start our trip back up to Banjul.

The airport was hectic but we all thankfully got our bags, as soon as we pulled away from the Airport in our rickety old van we saw them turn the power out at the national airport and the crew leave to their homes via flashlight. We were in Africa, in one of the poorest countries in the world. The poverty in some areas is overwhelming immediately (once you leave the tourist section where rich European women come to have secret African husbands). Signs on the road read, “Thank President Jammeh for his cure for HIV/Aids” and “Africacell, only 1 cent a minute”. We were all incredibly nervous, our minds raced with uneasiness and anxiety for what we had got ourselves into. Though thankfully I fell right asleep.

Trainings started, we received Rabies shots today and interviewed with our program leaders for projects we’d be interested in and our “tolerance level”. Every minute I stay here though I think my anxiety fades more and more, and a passion and excitement takes over… thank god, because we all I think were MORE than nervous the last few days. I believe there is niche for me here, and there is definitely something great my training class can offer to the corps. My class will be replacing another crew which has been here the two years, and they are counting on us all to pass language and cultural training, and that alone sometimes keeps you going. When you know that if you give up, another volunteers 2 year program may end up dissolving. Well I have to go, I hope to post this tonight when we go to Peace Corps HQ. We’ll all be purchasing cells at the end of training I think and will be able to receive calls from the US on them (it’s to expensive for us to call there). It doesn’t work all the time but sometimes you can get through for a few minutes or awhile depending. I love you all… Jared quit raiding my room for stuff Jared!