How I can tell I am in Liberia:

10. When I am woken up by Joy either kicking me or elbowing me in her sleep.
9 When I am woken up by roosters crowing at 4:30am
8. When I am woken up by goats bleating at 6am
7. When I have to kill a cockroach that climbed on me whilst in the shower (there is also a very large spider that lives in the bathroom. He hangs out on the wall. He eats mosquitos, or at least he better be. I always get a little nervous when I am brushing my teeth, and I see him on the wall above the mirror, and I think, he could just drop down, and land right on me if he wanted, and have flash backs to Arachniphobia. I try not to dwell on those thoughts)
6. When Whiskers the cat kills a mouse in my room
5. Having people yell at me everytime I am out on the street
4. When we eat dinner by candlelight every night
3. When I eat rice at least once a day
2. When I get to grind my own meat for spaghetti sauce
1. When I get to roast my own peanuts for snack.

I know these things can occur in other countries, like I am pretty sure Canadians own both goats and roosters, but for me, it is purely a Liberian experience. And there really is nothing like freshly roast peanuts, or even home made peanut butter. I will be honest though, I wasn’t thrilled that Whiskers ate the mouse in my room, but I was glad that she got rid of it. It isn’t too fun having to clean mouse poo off the bathroom counter. I try not to think about my tooth brush. I might have to start sleeping with it under my pillow. This evening Josh came to my room and said “Aunty Bec comes see the fish the Boakai’s gave us” so I went out, and there was this giant fish. Onesimus and I took it out to the back porch and gutted it. The fish here are different. They have things in different spots. A salmon is much easier to gut.