Ricks

The trees are all new, and there were not nearly so many then. Any surviving old ones were cut down during the time this was a UN refugee camp. The roads have been regraded, and sometimes moved or abandoned. The bright red asbestos roof in the center looks as bright as it did when new--up close it is darkened by years of wear and grime and agressive mold. (Unless somebody replaced it.) The area above the classroom/administration/library/church building on the right used to be the parade drill ground where the boys of "military age" had to drill each week. My mother was the school nurse, and would always get plenty of "sick" boys that morning. "Our" house, which was also the mission office, is at the middle left.

The little white splotch in the middle was a pile of large, and at the time sharp-edged, quartz boulders dumped there after some pre-us foundation work. Children find strange things to play on, and to try and recite chunks of Julius Caesar from. The boulders subsided and softened their edges.

The image looks like it is more recent than the last time I was there: I guess there've been even more changes since we traveled to Liberia to bury my father at the seminary. Scrolling aound, it looks like somebody finally broke up the old foundation slab I used to wonder about back in '64, and I can't see where the "new" water tower is anymore, but the dormitories still seem to be there, and the dining hall and the clinic. And the old basketball court, which looks like still nobody is taking care of it. Soccer.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but sometimes they don't tell the story. Even the old ones don't.