Elephants in Kenya

I was in Mombassa-Kenya Last February 2010. For 1 week holiday. I went for a game drive safari. It is the 2nd biggest national park around the world for safari after South Africa. It was breath taking seeing those animals gather in this huge wild park. I saw a few different kind of animals. Although it wasn't as much as i thought. I saw cheetah's, elephant's, zebra's, hippo's, and many more.

Unfortunately, more than 60 African elephants and hundreds of other animals have died, according to wildlife official in 2009. Some of the animals died of thirst, while others starved due to lack of vegetation or succumbed to diseases or infections due to weakened immune systems.

Don't waste water and keep your environment as green as possible would help fixing this problem.

Fisherman In Sierra Leone

This fisherman start fishing in the middle of the night until early in the morning around 8 o'clock. I was running by this beach when i saw lots of them cleaning the fishes. When you meet them here at the beach they will give you such cheap price. You can get a huge Barracuda, around 5 kg for only 40.000 Leone. That's around $6.00. Until they bring it to market the price will be a little bit higher. They have all kind of sea food... Squid, shrimps, clams and any fishes.

After all the man arrived fishing, their wives will meet them at the beach to help cleaning the fishes. And the wives will go the market to sell them. And their husband will go resting until they are going to fished again in the middle of the night. Amazingly they go fishing with this kind of boat, as you see the picture above. And once they come back from the sea, some of the fisherman that are waiting at the beach will pull the net full of fishes little by little. Until the net get to the beach from far in the sea. it's amazing the way they do it. This is what you call hard work!!!

Sierra Leone Beach & River

The beaches in Sierra Leone it's breath taking.
As you can see on my left, that is an ocean on your left hand side and on your right hand side is the river. When is high tide both water from the ocean and the river will meet and that sand in the middle will be covered with water. It just incredible when you thought about it. In some part of the ocean in Sierra Leone also get divided to two like this. But instead of divided to ocean and river it's divided by ocean and ocean because it's in the middle of the ocean. So when is low tide and you were going around with the boat sometimes you will have to wait until is high tide again to cross it or you just turn back. Otherwise your engine boat will stuck on the sand.

Check this link: http://www.visitsierraleone.org/Attractions/Beaches-and-Islands/Freetown-Peninsula.html

And on your right, it's a picture of white sand beach in Sierra Leone, they call it River Number 2. Most of the beaches here is connected to the river. That's why they call this beach River Number 2. It's interesting to look at. Sierra Leone is known of the beaches. It has any kind of beaches. Different type of sand. And it's right in the peninsula. It will take you a little long to get to the beaches from the city. And you will have to go trough the dirt road. It's kind of fun actually. Everything It's an adventure here. I love it.

Fresh Snapper

Look how fresh is those snappers. It comes straight from the ocean that day. It taste so good. One of the good thing about West Africa is the seafood. And the price is affordable. Yummy...

This is Linda, my African mother. She was my angel and my helper during my stay in Liberia. She's 45 year's old. She has 4 children, she also has 3 other children from her husband that he brought from his previous marriage. Linda and her family had to leave her country during the war. They were a refugee in Guinea for almost 25 year's. They finally came back to their country on 2005 when the civil war finally stopped!

When she first arrived in Liberia, she was struggled looking for her parents, sisters, brothers, cousins. She also had to look for a place to stay. After a while she found out some of her family are found death from the war. But she had to move on, for her children sake. Her husband is much older than her, he was around 65 year's old when i was there. He retired from his job, he was a police man.  So Linda started looking for a job to raise all her children.

We both were very lucky when we met. My husband found her first actually trough one of his staff in Liberia. She was very happy when she met us, She started to cried. It was tears of happiness of founding a job. We gave her a job in our house as my helper. She used to cook a lot of good food for us. She learned how to cook international food when she was in Guinea. She was working with a french guy as a cooker in Guinea. And turned out she was not only a cooker for us, she was very good to us, and very dedicated to her job, honest, discipline, humble, smart. She always do things from her heart. Never complain. She just everything that a mother has. She helped in any kind of situation i was in. She brought a bright light to our house.

She taught me a lot of things, she taught me to be patient, to be humble, to be wiser and to be a cooker. I've learned a lot from her. I was blessed to meet Linda.

Liberian Togetherness

Liberian love being together. They love sharing their food with their friends, family, children. They are humble people. If one the person in the family making more money than the others, that person doesn't mind to share it with their family even their friends. As you can see in that picture, my friend Flo is the one holding the little girl. She always asked her friends to come to her house to have lunch with her. She also raise her sister's children. One of them is the girl with her in the picture. She also helping children on the street to sell water, and give the profit to those kids. She is the most humble person i've ever met. I had a really nice time with her when i was in Liberia.

Thanks Flo, for letting me putting this picture here, I hope you don't mind.

Children in Liberia

As you all may know already that Liberia has been in civil war for such long time. The first Liberian civil war was in 1989 to 1996, the second civil war was in 1999 to 2003. And i arrived there in 2006. The country was still a mess. Not all the children can get back to school directly. They all has to start from the beginning again. They've lost everything they had  during the war. 

Initially these kids that you see on that image are street kids. They desperately needed someone to teach them how to write and how to read. I was in Monrovia - Liberia, for two year's. That's my picture with the children i had teach in Monrovia. I was volunteering my self to teach children that the parent's can't afford them going to school. They were very happy whenever they came to my class, they came every afternoon at 2 to 4 pm, Monday to friday. I've teach them to read, write, numbers, drawing, telling them stories. It was a good feeling to be able to help a little in this kind of places. I also feel the big different when they just started coming to my class until the day i had to leave Liberia. They had improved tremendously. It was a heart breaking leaving them behind. But at some point i will have to leave. 

I still keep in touch with one of the parents of these kids. And they are doing fine.