Joseph

"...So, would you like to go to church with me tomorrow?"
"Sure" I responded. "Where is it again?"
"Down in Monrovia."
"Will we take a car, or a taxi?"
Joseph laughs. "No, I don't have a car. Looks like we'll take a taxi unless you have one."
I look down at my bicycle and gently shake my head. "No car here. Looks like it will be a
taxi. So, when should I come over?"
"We need to leave by seven, so before then."
I swallow hard, dismayed, and try to hide my surprise.
"How about six forty five?"
"Um, sure. Sounds good. I'll see you then." I learned another lesson in this moment yesterday afternoon: ask what time a church service is before you commit to it!

I met Joseph a Saturday afternoon a month go in a Food Is Ready Now 'restaurant'. The one I was familiar with did not have food-ready-now as I walked down Jamaica Road with Lauren, so we kept on walking. Soon enough, we found another, smaller, Food Is Ready Now place (a convenient and catchy name for a food joint) that has become my favourite restaurant here in Liberia.

This Food Is Ready Now place is a small establishment that is half house and half restaurant. There is one small wood table in the corner with a wooden bench on each side where people sit. The table can comfortably accommodate four people by American customs or six or seven people comfortably by Liberian standards. The eight by ten foot room also has one more bench and a few pots and plastic bowls where the food that is ready now, is kept. There is no menu, because you simply ask what the special is for the day. At this location, there is a sauce of the day with rice, or an uber-spicy sauce to accompany fufu. After trying both, I prefer the rice. Sometimes the sauce is potato greens with little peppers. Other times it is cassava. Sometimes it is simply red.

On our first visit, Lauren and I ate rice with red sauce, or soup as the people here call it. We ate the delicious rice and sauce, leaving the meat behind. It's not that we don't trust the people, it's that we don't trust the meat. The rice and sauce were made with unclean water that has boiled for a long time making it ok. The meat: well, we've seen the market that it comes from. No thanks. It won't be wasted anyway. Someone will eventually eat it after we leave.

While we ate we talked with some of the people that were eating beside us. They were friendly and enjoyed talking with us. One of the men present, Joseph, was sitting on the bench behind me. He was warm, smiled a lot, and spoke clear English. (Sometimes the accent here makes it challenging to communicate clearly. The last syllable it often left unenunciated, t's sound like d's more often than not, and it is fast! I mean no disrespect here, but it sounds kind of like talking with a toothbrush in your mouth, minus the lisp, and on steroids.)

We talked for a while, and in particular, about his eyes. He has small cataracts in each. Last year, when Mercy Ships was in the same port, Jose-ph saw the team that works on eyes, but did not come early enough to make a slot for a surgery. A fifteen minute procedure could offer clear vision in one eye, but the precious spots fill up so quickly. We are at seven to ten such procedures right now, and will work up to a pace of twenty such operations a day in the coming weeks. Joseph asked what he needed to do this time so that the same thing wouldn't happen again. We replied the he needed to see one of the eye clinics that take place throughout the town every weekday. We also shared that we didn't know which day the crew was at which location. So, we promised that we would come back soon with a piece of paper stating this precious information. Before walking back to the ship (purchasing monkey apples on the way) Joseph wrote down his name, a friend's cell phone number he could be reached on, and his address for me.

Two days later I returned to Food Is Ready Now with a piece of paper the size of my thumb with the locations of the vision team from Monday through Friday. Joseph wasn't at the restaurant, but one of the people inside walked down the street to find Joseph. A few minutes later I could see Joseph's walking down the dirt road in my direction with a large grin on his face. We talked, I gave him the paper, and all was well. I urged him to go to a clinic soon before the slots filled up again.

A week came and went, and I found myself walking towards my new favourite restaurant with Josh, my roommate (who just flew home to South Carolina this week.) When I poked my head in the shop, there was only rice ready, no sauce or meat. We were just turning around to go to one of the other five similar places on the half mile stretch of road we had just walked, when sure enough, Joseph was walking by. I asked about his eyes. He said that he hadn't gotten around to making the trip yet. I then asked for any suggestions for food. With this, he insisted that we go to his house. So we did.

Josh and I sat with Joseph and some of his extended family on his cement porch in the shade. After a few minutes Joseph had inquired from his neighbours what all was cooking. And then, we had a small feast of different delicacies. We each had a glass bottle of pop that walked down the street on top of someone's head. Josh's donuts with some kind of surprise meat inside arrived the same way. Our rice and delicious sweet pumpkin 'soup' came from next door. (Well not next door, because there are few doors on this road, just doorways, but you get the idea.) To date, this has been my favourite Liberian dish yet. My bottle of Coca Cola was 20 Liberian dollars. The rice and pumpkin was 30 Liberian dollars, even though I offered 40. You can exchange 61 Liberian dollars for a single American dollar bill on the street here.

I talked with Joseph and his friends for quite a while as I ate. We talked about our faith understandings (it is as natural as talking about the weather here) our homes, our family size and locations, our perceptions of America, and the like. As we chatted into the afternoon, Josh decided that it would be more fun to play with the twenty or so little children who had showed up to stare at the white people. He played with the gleeful children while Joseph and I continued in our discussions. Soon after, I was invited to go to church with Joseph and his family. I had to decline because I was scheduled to work that Sunday, but said maybe later.

Yesterday, I rolled down Jamaica Road on a bicycle to quickly check in with my friend to see if he had visited the vision clinic yet. I rolled to a stop in front of his house to see a few familiar faces, but not Joseph's. He soon emerged having just taken a shower. When we shook hands, I was half expecting a warm hand, having come from a hot steaming shower that fogs up the mirror in the bathroom despite the efforts of the ventilation fan. Well, it was a cold hand that had emerged from the cold buckets of water that had just been dumped over it. Anticipating my question, Joseph informed me that he hadn't been out for a week because he has been down for the count with Malaria, a wicked disease. Despite this, he asked if I would like to go to church with him. I was eager to head to a church without a large contingent of fellow Mercy Shippers, because despite trying desperately to fit in, we don't and can end up being a distraction to the worship. I was also looking forward to going as a guest. So, before I knew what I was getting into, I said "sure".

I, Scott the Not Morning Person, hiked down the gangway this morning at 6:29am by myself. (It was a tough sell to my crew mates to ask them if they wanted to go to a church that I didn't know the name of, or exactly where it was, at a splendid seven in the morning.) I walked down the port entrance in the quiet of the morning looking up at the sunrise. There were men running up and down the main road for exercise, and no honking of taxi horns! It was peaceful. Although it stayed quiet, this peace ended abruptly for me when I noticed the still water in the small swamp next to Joseph's house. I had never noticed the swamp before. There was no breeze. A few moments later I was greeting Joseph as my eyes followed a few mosquitoes floating about the porch. It was good to see Joseph. It was not good to see abundant Malaria mosquitoes in the early morning. Only my feet, hands, and head were exposed, but these mosquitoes can kill. Mosquitoes like these kill three thousand people every day with Malaria...

Eventually Joseph, his friend, and I left, walking back down Jamaica Road to the main road to catch a taxi. Soon enough, I was crammed in the back of a tiny car with three others in the back seat. Our hips didn't come close to fitting, so we all turn to our side, half spooning, as we thump and thud down the pot hole-filled road. I was amused when someone would depart our back seat, instigating a process of shifting around. Once they are free, someone else will begin to cram in, often on the other side. On two occasions, the new passenger would go to slam the door closed to lock us all in place, to no avail, the door bouncing open off of their hip. On both occasions, it was not the second, but the third attempt that was successful. I kept my amusement to myself.

At the church, surprise!, I was the only 'white man' (properly enunciated "why-mon" with no space in between, and repeated rapidly with growing excitement by little kids as they wave frantically.) But, I did sit with two familiar faces. This ceased when the pastor asked for any first time visitors to stand up. I offered a questioning look to Joseph on my right. He encouraged me to stand up. So, I did, with about four others. We were clapped for. I was relieved because I thought that this was the end! I can endure a little applause. Then, I was asked to come forward. I shot another questioning look down to Joseph who was still sitting like almost everyone else. Maybe no one noticed the six foot tall white giant towards the front and I could casually sit back down? Nope. Not so much. I walked up to the front in the center with four others where there were special chairs awaiting us. We got front seats! No more wooden benches for us, we were in nice plastic patio chairs, with arm rests! This had its perks. There was 'plenty, plenty' space for leg room, for my arms, and for seeing everything that happened. The only downside was that everyone was now watching the back of my head... for the really long service... that was really early in the morning... that as time went on, became harder and harder to stay awake for. With only a few slight bobs of the head, I made it!

After the service, we left quickly so another congregation could meet in the building, and we entered another taxi to take us home. Outside of the port entrance, we hopped out and paid the taxi driver. It cost us 75 Liberian dollars for the three of us to go about five miles through town. I talked with Joseph for a little while, shaking hands many times as we said goodbye. A few minutes later, I was walking back down the port road, and up the gangway at 10:45 as most of my crew mates were leaving to go to their church services. It was an early and unique morning.