Hi. Ivy here! I’m going to tell you some of the things I miss most about Zuannah Town. I must continue to write until I have finished answering the questions Andrew Dee Jones wrote out for me.
- I miss that place (I wrote “that place” because Zuannah town is too hard to write). I miss it because….. Because the cooking was really good.
- I loved the river too. I love the river because you can go swim in it, and you won’t get eaten by piranhas.
My life changed when we moved from the village to a private compound in Bible College because I had a lot more friends my age to play with (at the orphan home the kids were younger or older than me, but we were still friends). All of my friends at Bible College were really nice to me, except for Tina. But she was like, 25. Angela and Tina were the best Lappa players. Jaqualine was my friend too, but she left. She was very nice, but sometimes she didn’t wear a shirt! And she was a sort of grown up girl.
Lappa is a game you play with three or more people. You split into teams with an equal number on each side. If you just have three people in the game, then two people stand on the side and one person in the middle. That person is trying to line up all of the slippers while the other people on the sides try to throw and hit the person in the middle with a ball that is made from a sock filled with sand and plastic and then tied. If there are five people and you want to split into even teams, one team gets three people and the other team gets two. And the team with two people chooses the best person on the team to play for the last man. If you line up all the shoes and then scatter them, it’s called, “making a game”. If you make a game, then everyone on your team that’s out, can get in again.
So, all in all, I liked living in the private compound in Bible College better.
The way I grew and changed in Liberia….
- My dogs really made me happy. They made me laugh. I was the only one who took care of them. One time during a rainstorm, Cosmo was hiding in a corner on the porch. So I took a blanket and covered him so only his head was sticking out. I learned that dogs have a lot of energy and love to play.
The things I learned from making friends in the neighborhood is…..
That Angela is a very naughty girl. But she will always be my best friend there. I also learned that some Liberian kids will set their mind to something and then try really hard to do it, until they know it is impossible. Like, one time… Like, all the time… someone would kick the lappa ball onto the roof. And they really try to get it down until they do.