Abomey

This past weekend I went away for one night with a few friends to a town about 3 hours up country called Abomey. Abomey is a town rich in history and stories and interesting places to see. We left on Friday morning been driven by one of my new friends John, he is a day volunteer worker on the ship and is from Benin and he offered to help show us around and translate a bit for us. Once there we went and met John's sister in law at her house which is where John had organised for us to have our meals while we where away. Her name is Clementine and she has 2 sons Mike and Jeff, but her husband is away the Ivory Coast working. It was really easy to see how deeply rooted into society that women are worth less than men still just by the fact that John who is a Christian didn't even know Clementine's name and just referred to her as "Mama Jeff" (Jeff's mother).

After our quick visit we set off to see what we thought would be one of the main attractions of town, the old palace. Well I don't know how many places would class this place as a palace, it is an old mud building with a large courtyard and a big mud wall around it, but none the less it is the palace of the king of Benin. The king these days is more of just a figure head and hasn't really had any power in the country since the French invaded and took over. Even so we felt very honoured to get to met the king and have an audience with him that resulted in about a 45min conversation on the different countries the 4 of us were from as well as several other interesting topics. And was followed by a photo session with the King (which is apparently usually not allowed at all, but he liked us) followed by the exchanging of email addresses (so he can invite us the next time he has a big celebration). We said goodbye to the king and headed on our way and went off to see a big statue in the center of town, the statue is of one of the former kings named Behanzin and he was ruling the country at the time of the French invation. The way the story that we were told goes, the king stood up to the French as they tried to enter Abomey and he held up his hand and because he was so powerful everyone stopped, even the French. But he was eventually captured and the French took over. After that we went to see one of the few world heritage listed sights in West Africa, it is a very old large wall that used to surround the residence of a king and is made from mud and human blood. It wasn't that much to look at but after hearing the story behind it I was in awe and a bit shocked by it.

We then headed back to Clementine's house to find a ready made meal of delicious local style food. We ate and hung out for a bit and after working out which local hotel would give us the best deal we went and called it a night.

The next day we headed out with the aim to take it a bit easy and see an underground village in the area. Now this was a place that John didn't know so we went to see one of his Brothers who has a friend who is an English teacher in a local school and they came with us to help translate and show us around. The underground village was really cool to go and see although there was a definite Voodoo presence there. The way the village was set up is there are a whole lot of underground rooms with several other rooms connected on, but none of the main sections were connected so it was about 4 rooms together all on their own. They say that the underground village was only recently discovered when they were building a road along side where the village is and they think there are about 1600 small rooms but they haven't yet found them all.

So all in all it was a good weekend where I learned alot about Benin's history and a bit about its culture. And also it was great to just get away from the hussle and bussle of Cotonou and see a bit of the beautiful country side.

Back on the Ship

Upon arrival in the Cotonou international airport I was met with one of the new biggest challenges for me, the language barrier. I was however able to get through passport control and customs with no problems after finding workers who spoke some English as well as some made up sign language. I made it to the luggage pick up point and stood and watched the conveyor belt go round and round with luggage on it until eventually i was one of only a few people left in the room and they stopped the belt moving, my luggage had obviously not made it. I was then approached by a French man who's luggage had not made it either and he spoke some English and asked me about mine and then we proceeded to go and find someone to tell about our problem. After we found the right person he was busy with something else so we sat and waited for a while until he was ready then he took our detail we put in a luggage claim with the airline and he said it should be here on Sunday. After that because I had decided to come in on a flight arriving at 5.30am which is outside the Mercy Ships recommended travel time I had to sit and wait until 8am for someone to come and pick me up.

When I got to the ship it was great to see some familiar faces, although there are a whole lot of new people on board there seemed to be a never ending amount of people I would run into and have all kinds of different reactions of shock, surprise and happiness to see that I was back on board. I went to my new cabin which is actually next door to the one I used to live in which is great because some of my old cabin mates are still there. I am in a 4 birth cabin (a cabin for 4 people) and I have 2 American roommates and one Ghanaian roommate. The rest of my morning on the ship I spent walking around stopping in on peoples offices and saying hi and getting my legal embarkation papers signed by all the necessary departments. Then it came time for lunch time and well I must say meal times were always one of my favourite times on the ship. I mean sure I like food and all but that isn't the only reason, its because I always had some of the best conversations and catch up times at meals and some of my most memorable moments happened around the table. And at that point sitting back in the dinning room I am sorry to say to my family but I felt It's good to be home (which is a good thing because it is my home for at lest the next 2 years).

London

Well London Is the last stop on my round about way to Africa. After having a few problems with phones I met up with my friend Colin who I had just met at Gateway and we headed back to his place where I was staying. He lives in probably one of the nicest parts of London, in Wimbledon with a nice big part near by and almost like a smaller town sort of vibe. On Saturday we headed into town to Hide Park where we met up with some other friends of mine I had met on the ship, Grace, Hannah and Natalie. We had a picnic lunch together and then just hung out and walked through the park and stopped for a cup of tea (so British). We eventually headed our separate ways and Colin proceeded to take me on a quick tour of all the touristy sites. We went past Buckingham Palace, Big Ben (Colin's favorite), Parliament building, Trafalgar square, the London eye and a few others. We then walked down the south side to Waterloo, to this little hole in the wall cafe that Colin knew about where they were having an open mic night and had some really good musicians and singers there. The thing that surprised both Colin and I was the amount of Christians in this place, it seemed like almost everyone we met and talked to in there was a Christian. So we had a great night listening to good music and having some great conversations.

The next day we had a bit of a lie in and then went to see Colin's parents as it was mother's day in England, we then just hung out for the afternoon before going to church. Then on Monday Colin had to go to a course for his work all day, so I decided to head over to Gerrards Cross to a place called Bulstrode Manor which is where the office for the mission organisation called WEC my parents work for and also where some friends of mine used to live is. It was a bit wet out that way but it was good to be able to see the beautiful old building and the surrounding grounds again, the last time I was there was when I was 5 so I didn't remember too much.

On Tuesday I decided to go and visit my friend Jon up north in Preston and stay the night up there (Yes yet another last minute travel arrangement change). So I caught the bus up there it was a bout a 6 hour trip and then met up with Jon and just hung out for the afternoon/evening it was great to catch up a bit. That night we went to one of his friends houses who is a Film student and had access to some movie that wasn't even out in the Cinemas yet so we watched that. Its called Geneva and is a bit of a strange movie because as far as I could see it didn't really have any story line and no real ending, but you can't complain when its free I guess. The next day Jon roped me into helping him out with handing out some fliers at his university for an upcoming event the Christian university group was putting on. It actually turned out to be good fun once I got the hang of what to say to get people to take the flier, but defiantly a new experience for me. Then in the afternoon we met up with a bunch of Jon's friends and went to the local Chinese buffet and stuffed ourselves. It was pretty good food although I must say only in England with you find a Chinese buffet that does fish and chips.

I then caught my bus back to London and hung out with him for the evening. then this morning we said our goodbyes as he went his course and I stayed to start packing before catching a train to the airport, which is where I am now writing this so the next time you will hear from me I will be in Benin (well hopefully at lest).

Philadelphia

Well guess what I had yet another last minute change to my travel schedule and decided to go down to Philadelphia for the day after I realised how close it was to New York. I caught the train down and was picked up at the station by my friend Megan and she then set about giving me the Philly tour. Our first port of call was to a little local restaurant to get a real “Philly” cheese steak, which was actually the first one I have ever had and I must say it was very greasy but quiet nice. We then headed off and picked up a large soft pretzel (I could start to see a trend appearing involving me eating a lot of food) and some drinks before heading on into down town. We found ourselves a park and proceeded to walk around the old part of the city looking at some of the old buildings. We then found ourselves at the Liberty Bell, which for those of you that don't know is a big old bell that was rung when America gained its independence among other things. Once we had finished walking around the old part of the city we jumped back into the car and headed over the University area where we stopped at a small cafe type place and had some bubble tea which is cold flavored tea with these little bubble balls in the bottom. We then headed over to China town for dinner at this great Malaysian restaurant called Penang which I loved having lived in Malaysia before it was great to have some food of that style and I must say it was good food. After dinner we drove back to the train station and said our goodbyes, all in all it was a great day hanging out with a friend. :)

New York

New York, New York oh New York, its defiantly a place you hear a lot about see a lot of in movies but would it live up to its name? Well I arrived after my flight from Seattle and after waiting a little while was greeted by my friend Jay from the ship. We went back to his place and I got my first taste of New York food as we ordered a large pizza, and it was good. The next day we went on our tourist sight seeing tour around the City. We first headed out to go and see the Statue of Liberty which Jay had actually never been to before. It was cool to look around and see it up close and find out more about how it was made. After that we continued on the ferry and went to Elis island, which is were they used to process all immigrants before they came into the US. And that was also cool to see and find out about that whole process, even though I am not from the US its was cool to found out some of the history of the country. Also while we were there it was St Patricks day and they had a group of Irish dancers that did a show there so that was cool to see as well. After that we went to see the museum of natural history, which was really cool but unfortunately we only had a short period of time there before it was closing time so we were only about to see a small amount of the large 4 level museum. We headed back to Jay's place and had dinner and then decided to stay in after originally planning to go back out, but we were both really tired after a lot of walking all day. Then on Thursday we planned on getting up and going early but ended up sleeping in late, which for those of you that know me and/or Jay wouldn't find that hard to believe. Then after our late start Jay had to go to School for a few hours so I headed back into town by myself and went back to finish off the Museum. Its a great museum and I highly recommend seeing it to anyone that goes to New York, I did have to pay for entry this time because this time I was there while they were fully open and busy unlike the other time we went when they were close to closing. I managed to complete the whole museum before Jay came to meet up with me at 4pm, so then we headed off to see the Empire State Building. Another well known site that people say you need to see while in New York, although I would say if you are tight on time you can skip this one. The building is very nice and looks great on the inside, but it costs $15 just to take the lift up to the top and I wasn't going to pay that much just for an elevator ride. After that we headed for the ferry to Statin island where we met up with 2 friends of Jay's and we headed to this group that Jay found through his Church which helps Liberians learn to read and write. I thought it was amazing that Jay had found a group like this after all the time we had both spent in Liberia so when he mentioned it I jumped at the chance to go and help out. We were there for about 2 hours and were just helping out 2 people each with going through workbooks they had to learn to read and write. The 2 that I was working were an older man named Morris and he was from Grand Bassa county in Liberia, which I have actually been to and it was funny because he did not believe me that I had been there until I started talking about the area and the surrounding counties. The other person I was working with was a woman from Serra Leon named Alice and even though she wasn't from Liberia I could relate a little bit because I had made friends from Serra Leon while on the ship. It was a great experience and brought back some good memories hearing them speak in Liberian English. After that was finished we caught the train into the famous Times Square were we stood and looked at all the pretty lights for a bit and just hung out in some of the cool shops they have there like ESPN sportszone and the M&M shop.

The next day was an early start with me having to leave at 6am to go to the airport, but it was good to sit in the airport and reflect a bit on my time in the US and the fact that I was actually a bit sad to be leaving. It was quiet funny as I sat there and heard on the TV that it was officially the first day of spring and I looked outside and it started snowing, after all the good weather they had while I was there.

Vancouver

Well I had a great time in Vancouver staying with my friends Tom and Cindy and also hanging out with some other friends Niki and Chris. It was good to just hang out for a few days with Tom and I went with him to work one day(he is a truck driver) and did deliveries around Vancouver which was a really good way to see the city and it was also good to hang out with Tom. Then on the Friday Tom and I meet up with Chris and we went snow shoeing which was actually a first for all of us. It was a great day out and heaps of fun exploring one of the local ski hills. After snow shoeing Niki came and picked up both me and Chris and then they took me to a Hockey game! It was loads of fun I love sports of all kind and it was my first hockey game I had been to. It was a game in the WHL (Western Hockey League) and it was between Vancouver and Everett. Not that it really affects me either way but Vancouver ended up losing 5-3. Then on Saturday Niki and Chris picked me up again we went out for breakfast with Niki's parents and then went off to play paintball. It wasn't the best day for it because it was raining and the paintball fields were all muddy, but it was still heaps of fun. We were there all afternoon and had a great time and there was surprisingly a lot of people there playing as well. After paintball we headed back to Tom and Cindy's place where we got together and had dinner which was nice to then just sit around and chat. Then on Sunday Niki picked me up and and took me to her church where I got to see her parents again (they are great fun ) and then after that we went out for lunch and went bowling. After that we picked up Chris and went to see a movie, we saw “Watchmen” which I would have to say I am disappointed with.

Anyway well that pretty much sums up my time in Vancouver after that I caught a bus to Seattle and then a flight to New

My Time in Revelstoke

My time in Revelstoke was very good and relaxing which is just what I needed as I was coming down with a cold but with some good rest was able to get over it very fast. After Nathan returned we set about seeing some more of the local area. We went to the flats, which believe it or not is a large flat area that is occasionally covered with water due to a dam further along the river. It was beautiful out and we even managed to get really close to a young deer without it running away. Unfortunately we have no photos because it was so cold that Nathan's camera would not work and as usual I had forgotten mine. Due to the cold we couldn't go as far as originally planned so we headed back to the local Damn to have a little look see, but because of the large amount of snow on the side of the road you could not see very much from the lookout.

Anyway I left on Tuesday at 04.30am on yet another greyhound bus(and I thought I was done with them) and I am now back in Vancouver.