After a tasty afternoon lunch, we decided to take a walk down one of the nearby streets. It was our first chance of seeing Amsterdam other than in pictures, but after a couple of hours of dodging traffic, the rain, and the stark depravity of the city in certain area, we went back to our room. Michelle and I took a warm bath, and then we headed down to the hotel’s French restaurant for dinner. Our littlest traveler was not impressed with French cuisine, and proceeded to lay down on the floor under the table for a nap. By 9:00 p.m., Amsterdam time, we were all sound asleep, but after only two and a half hours, Michelle’s internal clock told her that it was morning. She came over and said, “Good morning! Wake up!” She did not understand jet lag and there was no point in telling her to go back to sleep. Back into the bathtub we went, and after that, we colored, cleaned up the room, and drew some pictures. Checking out early the next morning, we had a wonderful breakfast again courtesy of the hotel, and were on our way back to the airport to catch our flight to Africa finally!
From the Freezer to the Frying Pan
When we embarked in Amsterdam it was 35 degrees. The pilot on our flight to Freetown, Sierra Leone, told us that it was 95 degrees in our destination city. A sixty degree temperature change can do strange things to a body, and even though it may seem strange because we were in a climate-controlled plane, once we started crossing over the Sahara Desert, I thought I could literally feel the cabin heat up slightly. My imagination? Who knows?
We left Amsterdam one hour behind schedule which put us too late to fly into Monrovia from Sierra Leone. Because of the enforced curfew still in place in Liberia, the airline was taking no chances. No matter what we thought, there would be another overnight stop in Sierra Leone. Airlines undoubtedly did that kind of thing all the time, but for us it was just another night away from our new home. The only positive thing about the change was that we would fly into Liberia during the daylight instead of late evening as was originally planned.
Because I kept such detailed journals in the first years of our African missionary career, I can tell you the name of the hotel where we stayed in Sierra Leone that night. It was called Cape Sierra Hotel. All the passengers on that particular KLM flight were put up in three different hotels. Believe it or not, we were shuttled across a large bay separating the airport from the city in a helicopter and because our little family was so slow in disembarking the plane, we were on the last shuttle and put up in the nicest hotel in town!
There was even an air conditioner in our room, carpet on the floor, mahogany wood fixtures, dressers, tables, and chairs. The only thing really missing in that beautiful Casablanca setting was...our luggage again. Because it was an unplanned stop, KLM did not unload any baggage from the cargo area, so for the third straight day, we did without toothpaste, toothbrushes, clean underwear, or clothes. I washed out Michelle’s clothes and some of our necessities, and Jeff rigged a clothesline from the a/c unit. There were only twin beds in the room, so we took turns sleeping with Michelle who was and still is a very active sleeper.
Early the next morning of December 6, 1985, we took the short flight from Sierra Leone to Monrovia, Liberia. Even though it was less than an hour flying time, it seemed long, possibly because we had been traveling for three days already. Though the Monrovia airport did not look much different from the one in Sierra Leone, the tension in the air was palpable and evident by the soldiers with guns walking purposely around the premises.
Our business manager, Brian Dickinson, was there to pick us up, and we were so grateful for a friendly American face that understood the endless maze of customs of that country. From the very beginning, Michelle’s red hair attracted much attention, and so it would be for the rest of the years that we remained in West Africa. However, she was not in the mood to charm those unfamiliar people and it remained my tedious job to keep her discomfort to a minimum while going through the lines of officers ready with stamps, demanding to see our passports, inquiries about the nature of our travels, and bag searches. It was indeed a strange, fascinating, but intimidating world in which we had entered. The fast clipped orders barked out by those in charge, the employees in uniforms laughing jovially, and the smells of unfamiliar foods mixed with the body odors of those around us overwhelmed my senses. Culture shock was little by little taking hold of me; that and the enveloping tropical heat that threatened to suck the life out of us!
It was a thirty minute ride to our Baptist Mid-Missions’ compound in Monrovia where we would be staying for a couple of weeks while becoming acclimated to our new country. In those thirty minutes, I reveled in the green riotous jungle that seem to wave its welcome to us as we zoomed past. Unexpectedly, we had to stop at four military checkpoints which was very unnerving for Americans who had never seen that before. Other than that, the short trip was uneventful.
As we neared the outskirts of the capital city of Monrovia, located right on the Atlantic Ocean, the scenery changed to include wooden carts being pushed by small children, roadside stands of charred meat and ripe bananas, and a perpetual bustling that surprised me for so small a city. The tropical humidity continued to grip us—like nothing I had ever experienced even though I grew up a mere twenty miles from the Atlantic Ocean near Wilmington, North Carolina. Michelle, as well as both her parents, was overwhelmed, exhausted, and succumbing quickly to the mercies of the sultry thickness. Our two year old felt no constraint in letting her feelings be known, but if the truth was told, I was echoing and amening her cries deep inside me!
A couple of hours after landing, we were able to put our hands on our precious luggage that had been elusive for three days! Surprisingly, we slept relatively well our first night in Liberia despite the heat. Who can’t sleep with clean clothes and squeaky clean teeth? I remember waking up our first morning in Liberia, surprised to feel a slight coolness to the air. It took me a couple of minutes to realize that it was the unfamiliar but yet beautiful singing of the African birds that had awakened me so early. What exquisite sounds they made! They whistled and sang with a rhythm, what I would learn later—a West African rhythm. Liberia was a land of beauty, rhythm, and the unexpected; I was ready to explore and learn.
Exploration
One of the first things we found out was that our container, shipped back at the beginning of November, had arrived in port two weeks earlier! Our belongings were already there! When we told Michelle that her toys had arrived, she wanted to go to them right away. Ah! Some things are learned the hard way. She would not see those toys for two more weeks, but we thought that in telling her that they had arrived, she would be happy. It was just too much information to be processed by her two-year old mind. Thankfully, the business manager’s children were generous in sharing their toys for the days we remained in Monrovia.
After four days in Liberia, we were beginning to really sense some of the bolder variations between America and Liberia and were thankful for veteran missionaries who cared enough to take the time for us, to remember what their first days in Liberia had been like, and never tired of answering our questions. To the small city, there was an organized chaos, an endless stream of people walking somewhere, small children scantily clothed playing in mud puddles as their mothers bartered their wares on the side of any given road, uncommon smells that both intrigued and perturbed me, the incessant blaring of horns and strange sounding words being spoken all around.
Our first Tuesday in the country, I went with Roxie Dickinson, the business manager’s wife, on a shopping extravaganza to Monrovia’s Waterside district. Waterside was the name given to the endless wooden stalls piled high with everything from plastic containers, dishes, cups, aluminum ware, cloth, food that looked strange to me, and almost anything else you could imagine. It was an open-air department store by the water. Street after street was packed with honking taxis, Liberians on foot doing their daily chores, garbage and human waste intermingled with street dirt and decay and the heat. The humid wave never retreated. However, Roxie walked bravely and confidently ahead, looking for a particular type of