After being in Liberia for two days, I know the answer to my blog’s title — “Do they know it’s Christmas?” — is yes. There are modest Christmas decorations throughout the city: garland on the gates of the presidential palace, Christmas lights roped through the barbed wire surrounding the Salvation Army building, pre-assembled artificial Christmas trees in the grocery store. Below, you can even see “Merry X-mas” chalked on the road outside MacDella’s apartment. (That’s a photo booth; you’ll see little booths like these on the street offering photo, cell phone, and beauty services).
But when it really hit me that Christmas is a recognizable, big deal in Liberia is when we were leaving a beachfront restaurant, where MacDella, the girls, Genevieve and I had lunch.
As we were leaving and driving down the dirt path, street children to the left and right of our SUV were waving and saying, “Merry Christmas!” with big smiles. One held a tattered cardboard sign with “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year” scribbled in lopsided letters. In an amazingly symbolic way, now that I look back on it, a Gloria Estefan Christmas classic, “Christmas Through Your Eyes,” was playing on the radio.
So to answer Band Aid’s song, yes, they do know it’s Christmas in Africa. But I think Christmas means something different here. It’s obviously not driven by presents and fancy meals, at least among the families who live in shacks. It’s not about fighting to get your kid the hottest “it” toy, or leaving cookies for Santa, or wishing for snow. Maybe it’s about hope. Because I do see a lot of hope in Liberia, especially through MacDella’s eyes. Even with all the obstacles she faces (orphanage directors who won’t distribute her donations, customs officers who rip apart her shipments of donated shoes and book bags), she perseveres because she sees what Liberian children could be like through the success of Belle, Leila, Hajal, and Marcie. I see hope in the hotels and restaurants where we are fortunate enough to eat and use the Internet — the insides are air-conditioned and entirely Westernized in décor. This could become the standard with the right economy. And I see hope in the billboards that line the poverty-stricken streets. Billboards say “Rape is a crime,” “Stop mob violence,” and “Protect yourself against HIV/AIDS.” My favorite pictures a woman wearing a stethoscope around her neck. The caption reads, “This could be you with an education.”
At night, we spent 2 hours packing backpacks with shoes to give to the kids on Christmas Day at the party. You’ll hear more about that later, because MacDella’s foundation is correct in believing education is the way out for these kids…because they’ll ultimately be rebuilding the economy when they’re grown up. More sponsorships are necessary, and tomorrow, on Christmas Day, I’m going to try to spotlight the kids who need our support most of all. Expect LOTS of great pictures next time!
I dedicated this weekend to PACKING. Yesterday, I hung the clothes I’m taking out on the clothesline, and then sprayed them with Permethrin (bug repellent) in the frigid cold. As you can see, fashion for Liberian travel consists of jeans, long and short-sleeved tops, plus a couple dresses that I didn’t spray…to wear out to dinner and to any government buildings we visit. I even planned the outfit I would wear if (big IF) we happened to run into Madame President, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf — the first woman president in all of Africa. Dream big, right? MacDella has met her a few times already.
Time to meet Genevieve Faust, my travel buddy, who is a senior at The College of New Jersey. I can breathe a huge sigh of relief knowing that I’m not flying into a new country–or bumming four hours in a Belgian airport–alone. Not only is Genevieve a talented web designer, but she’s also a budding documentarian. She will be capturing our entire journey on tape for her senior project and the MacDella Cooper Foundation. The college newspaper, The Signal, just published a story, “Not Your Average Winter Break,” about the trip; check it out 
MacDella sent me the week’s most adorable e-mail — an introduction to the little girls who live in her apartment in Liberia, where Genevieve and I are staying. MacDella took Belle, 3, Leila, 9, and Haja, 11, in as foster children because she saw a special spark in them. I remember MacDella told me that Leila asked her once, after Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was elected president in 2005, “Hypothetically, if you could vote (in the Liberian election), who would you vote for?” Hypothetically!
If you pick up the current issue of Glamour, you will find Cindi’s editor’s letter is all about her trip to Uganda. You can watch her on-location video on 
The woman who travels EVERY month to dangerous locales around the globe for Glamour is Mariane Pearl. If you’re not a Glamour reader, you might recognize her as the woman Angelina Jolie portrayed in A Mighty Heart- the wife of the WSJ reporter Daniel Pearl, who Islamic fundamentalists brutally murdered. 
These best friends traveled to Cuba to film a documentary called 
to tell a meaningful story. I’m really lucky to have that opportunity with Genevieve. I’d go nuts on a 16-hour flight (we transfer in Belgium) by myself.
Another example of a creative friendship: Jenna and Mia were UNICEF interns when they discovered Ana, a teenage mother who was HIV positive. Jenna did the writing, Mia did the illustrating. They tell her story in a work of non-fiction targeted to young adult readers. The book, 
