Our dock here in Freeport is guarded by two UN units, one from Nepal and one from Bangladesh. They’re thrilled to have us here, and since the second day we were here they’ve been coming over to ask if we can come out and play, kinda like when we were 10 years old and would go over to the Bansals’ house next door to see if anyone wanted to build a snowman. A friend was recently telling me how intimidated she was by the armoured UN tanks that can be seen patrolling the area, until one drove by with guards yelling back at her to come over later for volleyball. Tonight we asked them if we could use their field for ultimate frisbee, but they don't know how to play, so they asked to borrow the frisbee for the night and practice so we can all play tomorrow.
The Bangladeshis plays volleyball mostly, but the Nepalese have a space big enough for a soccer field, so we’ve been going over once or twice a week to play them with some yellow uniforms that someone bought a few years ago for the ship (we're the No Mercy Team). It’s a pretty big deal. They’ve tried to fix up the ‘field’ by filling in the potholes and putting up fencing, and once when we didn’t have a ball I was escorted in a speeding UN vehicle on a mission back to the ship to get it. Spectators from both sides line the field and cheer, and news of the score circulates the ship in minutes. There’s even an impartial Liberian referee who I think may actually have a whistle implanted in his throat – it’s difficult to tell if he can breathe without blowing it, and he certainly can’t talk without whistled punctuation on every word.
I sometimes feel like I’m at summer camp, until something happens - like my ball goes out of bounds and gets popped on the massive coils of barbed wire surrounding the complex, or I fall lightly but get up looking as if I’ve been in a fight with a cheese grater because the field is covered with rocks – to remind me that nope, I’m still in Liberia.
The Bangladeshis plays volleyball mostly, but the Nepalese have a space big enough for a soccer field, so we’ve been going over once or twice a week to play them with some yellow uniforms that someone bought a few years ago for the ship (we're the No Mercy Team). It’s a pretty big deal. They’ve tried to fix up the ‘field’ by filling in the potholes and putting up fencing, and once when we didn’t have a ball I was escorted in a speeding UN vehicle on a mission back to the ship to get it. Spectators from both sides line the field and cheer, and news of the score circulates the ship in minutes. There’s even an impartial Liberian referee who I think may actually have a whistle implanted in his throat – it’s difficult to tell if he can breathe without blowing it, and he certainly can’t talk without whistled punctuation on every word.
I sometimes feel like I’m at summer camp, until something happens - like my ball goes out of bounds and gets popped on the massive coils of barbed wire surrounding the complex, or I fall lightly but get up looking as if I’ve been in a fight with a cheese grater because the field is covered with rocks – to remind me that nope, I’m still in Liberia.
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