Our house

The view from our porch... looking out on the mission school grounds.




The safety features are a bit lacking, but hey... at least there is seldom power flowing to the outlet, so the odds are in your favor!

Our bathroom.

See the blue cup on the ledge? That's what we used to shower. The small white bucket was for flushing (unless you needed more power... like for #2... then you used a 5 gallon bucket partially full). The large barrel of water on the left held extra water for both flushing and showering.

Brenda's room.

The boys' room... we slid an extra mattress into the middle during the night, so all 3 could sleep in the same room.

The girls' room. I have to say that the mosquito net served to keep me calm about all the critters I knew were around. I knew none of the gigantaur spiders could crawl on my face if we made sure to tuck the net under the mattress tightly. The creepiest part was getting out of bed at night to head to the bathroom... but we just did what we had to do, and we were just fine. :)

The mattress that Matilda died under... which Anika and I slept on.

The Dead Matilda.

Bathroom #2; we didn't intend on using it, but bathroom #1 was not flushing (with buckets of water) well, and so we made a rule... Go #2 in bathroom #2... go #1 in bathroom #1.

The room we used to store all of our things. We were given a lock for the door, as well as a lock for the front door of our house. None of our things were taken during our stay... unless you count the peanut butter and the snacks that Matilda pilfered.

Front view of our house.
Notice the cool papaya tree!

Though not a view of our house, it was one of my favorite scenes in Liberia. As you walk from the school building back to our house, this is your view. See those trees way off in the distance? They are enormous. They are so amazing, just towering above the huge palms that are out there with them. Those palms you see are the really, really tall ones... so you can imagine the sheer size of the larger two trees.