Happy 2025 from Liberia!

My New Year on You-o!

We have heard this phrase one too many times over the last week. Before this it was, “My Christmas on you-o.”

When visiting Liberia around the holidays, you better act fast to spit this phrase out first when encountering friends or randos in public. If that guy on the side of the street tells you his “New Year is on You,” that means he is expecting you to give him money or some kind of gift for New Years. If you tell him that your New Year is on him first, well, you’ve won the proverbial word battle and he owes you a present. If you really want to get meta, you respond to “My Christmas on You” with “Well, my New Year on You,” and the whole thing sort of cancels out.

Word battles aside, we were excited to celebrate our first Christmas here in Liberia. We woke up early the morning of the 25th and prepared at least 75 plastic bags of homemade popcorn (a commonly enjoyed treat of Liberian children). By 9am we were out on our front porch playing Santa and Mrs. Claus as we handed out popcorn, lollipops, and water to the children of our community. The children came at an exponential rate; it turned into a small mob of hands waving in the air for treats, and we were all out in less than 30 minutes.

After we handed out our Christmas presents, we headed over to Jackie’s Guesthouse (the nice hotel with a pool and basketball court in our city) to meet 2 Peace Corps friends for our own small Christmas celebration. To our surprise, Jackie’s was PACKED and full of families and people swimming, drinking, and enjoying treats from the restaurant and mini-mart. Usually you only see a few NGO or government workers here, so this was quite the surprise.

Anytime Therese and I see Liberians taking time away from the hard work of their daily lives to enjoy a bit of “normal” fun, it makes us smile. When we saw the giant crowd at Jackie we really couldn’t stop smiling. We’ve never seen anything like this since arriving in Liberia.

Our Christmas was made extra special thanks to the time we spent with our great Peace Corps friends Dee and Ben. Dee and Ben started their Peace Corps service a year ahead of us, live about an hour away from us, and have been a blast to spend time with. Like us, they too are a couple experiencing Liberia together, which means we share a lot of relatable experiences and empathy towards one another.

Before Christmas we really didn’t realize how much we needed an excuse to recharge and enjoy some familiar games and great conversation. At Jackie’s we got to enjoy some amazing American food, pickup basketball, Spikeball, swimming, and lots of board games; it was exactly what we needed.

We had so much fun celebrating with Dee and Ben that we decided to take our first vacation in Liberia over New Year’s. Dee and Ben met us in Ganta and we took a taxi up to the Nimba Ecolodge, a 2-3 hour drive Northeast of Ganta.

Spread across Liberia there are a handful of “eco hotels” immersed in some of the beautiful nature of Liberia. The Nimba Ecolodge towers above the small iron ore mining town of Yekepa and overlooks the Nimba mountain range and beautiful Blue Lake.

At the ecolodge we got a chance to hike and summit Nimba Mountain (~4,000-5,000ft peak), kayak in the lake, play ping pong, swim in their frigid pool and the lake, hike into a bat cave, eat some delicious food, and enjoy a big bonfire as we rang in 2025. It was just about the best way we could’ve celebrated the start of our first full year living in Liberia.

We were really missing all of you back home as our first Christmas approached in Liberia. This was both of our first time spending Christmas away from America and our families, so there were definitely some sad days in the lead up to the holidays. Special shoutout to everyone who we got a chance to quickly call with or who sent us a care package over the holidays; we are so grateful for all of you!

Love and miss all of you. Hope you had an amazing Christmas and New Years. Catch ya soon,

Bobby and Therese

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Faces covered due to privacy reasons. Any photos with faces revealed, expressed consent by person/guardian. The content of this website and blog is Therese Joffre’s and Bobby Housel’s alone and does not reflect the views of the U.S. Government, the Peace Corps, or the Liberian Government.