EPISODE 37
November 10, 2022
Introduction
Landis Wyatt is from the ‘bread basket’ province of Saskatchewan, Canada. Though she considers herself conservative and somewhat cautious, as an avid outdoors woman and adventurer, she has repeatedly faced her fears, and as a young adult, she learned to ski, rock and ice climb, and more recently she’s learned to surf. Her travels have included destinations that could be considered ‘risky’ for a woman, however, she and her partner, Kent, also an avid adventurer, have been a team for more than 20 years now. And perhaps their biggest adventure to date, has been their joint decision to live and work on Africa’s west coast in post civil-war Liberia, one of the world’s poorest countries. There they’ve been working since 2008 for a foundation that Kent’s family set up, the Universal Outreach Foundation, and where they’ve been busy providing clean drinking water, developing new industries, building schools and much, much more …
TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Louise: Welcome to Women Who WaIk. I’m Louise Ross, writer and author of Women Who Walk the book, the inspiration for this podcast. And just as I did for the book here, I’ll be interviewing and unpacking the journeys of impressive, intrepid women who’ve made multiple international moves for work, for adventure, for love, for freedom – reminding us that women can do extraordinary things. You can find a transcript, with pictures, to each episode, and my books on my website, LouiseRoss.com. Hello, listeners. Welcome to Episode 37 of Women Who Walk.
[00:00:52] Louise: My guest today is Canadian Landis Wyatt, from the farming province of Saskatchewan. Landis describes herself as conservative, from a family that plays it safe and prefers the road well-traveled over the road, less-traveled.
[00:01:10] Louise: Yet as a young adult, she set off on her first big adventure, and that was to Banff National Park, where she lived for the next eight years and where she learned to ski. She also became involved with the climbing community, learning to rock and ice climb, which, she says, often evoked in her a sense of fear. But she learned that fear doesn’t mean stop.
[00:01:36] Louise: When she met Kent, her husband-to-be, he was a ski guide and carpenter, and Landis was one of his students in an avalanche course that he was teaching. Her next big adventure was a seven-month road trip with Kent driving from Vancouver down through the US, and down through Central America. It was while traveling along the Mexican coast that Landis learned to surf.
[00:02:05] Louise: The trip cemented their relationship, and the couple married. Not long after Kent had an opportunity to work with Food for the Hungry in East Africa. This was followed by an invitation in 2008 from Universal Outreach, a humanitarian organization, founded by his family, to work on a project building a school in post, civil-war Liberia.
[00:02:33] Louise: Landis’s next adventure involved following Kent to Liberia, despite feeling that it was out of her comfort zone. However, she says, she couldn’t resist once again stepping into her fear and into the unknown. But after six months, she jumped at the chance to return to Canada, and then after eight months back in Canada, she decided to try again, and so in 2009, she and Kent made a more permanent country move to Liberia, where they’ve been working for Universal Outreach for 15 years.
[00:03:13] Louise: Landis commented to me that there were times when she thought she just couldn’t do it. That hot, tropical Liberia, not long out of a civil war, was just too challenging for her. But facing her anxieties enabled her to grow and she learned to do things she never imagined she was capable of, everything from accounting to program development to photography.
[00:03:40] Louise: Today, Landis is the Board Chair of Universal Outreach and its Communications Director. And her leisureliest adventure to date is developing her love of surf photography.
[00:03:54]
[00:04:05] Louise: Welcome Landis, and thank you for joining us from Liberia, where the, um, internet connection is not great. So listeners, we’re recording this on What’sApp. It might be a bit fuzzy …
[00:04:18] Landis: Thank you for having me on your show.
[00:04:20] Louise: Thank you too. Now you are Canadian from a farming province in Saskatchewan. I love that, that, uh …
[00:04:27] Landis: Saskatchewan.
[00:04:28] Louise: Saskatchewan. Can you tell us about the province? Paint a picture for us of the landscape in which you grew up, because it’s vastly different from where you are now.
[00:04:38] Landis: It is. Saskatchewan one is a beautiful place. It’s the bread basket of Canada. And as they like to say, when your dog runs away from home, you can watch it run for days. So it’s flat, but it’s beautiful. And I think as a young person, I didn’t necessarily appreciate that beauty. And when I finished high school, which was in ’89, all people could think about was leaving Saskatchewan.
[00:05:05] Landis: It was a farming community. It’s a really down-to-earth province. Young people wanted to spread their wings and get out of there. The big thing was to leave Saskatchewan. I’d have to say though, now as an adult, I really appreciate going back there. It still is a different pace. It is a different vibe. It’s friendly, it’s relaxed.
[00:05:27] Louise: Mm-hmm. You pursued a degree in Physical Activities Studies. Is this similar to physical education? And then what did you hope to do with your studies?
[00:05:38] Landis: I started off with psychology and First Nation Studies and then at that point in my life I discovered exercise and I really got into running and working out and I transferred into Physical Activity Studies. And most people when they left the program anticipated working at a place called the Paul Schwan Center, for rehab patients. So it wasn’t to become phys-ed teachers, it was actually like a university degree in personal training. And then working with challenging clients like heart rehab clients and things like that.
[00:06:13] Louise: Mm.
[00:06:14] Landis: When I was done, I suppose my vision was to be one of those people working at the Paul Schwab Center for Cardiac Rehab at the University of Regina. But I went on a trip that summer and that changed the trajectory of my life.
[00:06:28] Louise: Ooh, tell us about that trip.
[00:06:31] Landis: For my degree, I actually had to do courses in physical activities. And so I did a camping, canoeing and orientation course and we went on this wonderful canoe course and I met some people from other province that had been on lots of adventures and they really inspired me and they also encouraged me to consider exploring outside of Saskatchewan and doing more things.
[00:06:54] Landis: So I finished that course and then signed up for rafting trip in Alberta. And then went on to Banff National Park to connect with some friends I knew from Saskatchewan that were living there.
[00:07:06] Landis: Now at some point along the way here, you met your husband to be, when he was teaching an avalanche course that you took. From some background notes you sent me, you also had a very big adventure or some amazing adventures together, in particular, a road trip from Vancouver down to Costa Rica. You were doing a lot of surfing and you were surfing along the coast of Mexico. And what are some of the best memories from this trip and what did you learn about yourself?
[00:07:34] Landis: Yes, I met Kent, I was living in actually Canmore, which is a bedroom community to Banff National Park, and I took an avalanche course. He was the instructor and he also happened to be, friends with some of my best friends, but I, I didn’t know him very well. We were in that program together and, um, I thought he was pretty cute. And at one point he, he pulled me over as he was checking our beacons and he leaned into me and whispered in my ear and I was so excited thinking, Oh yeah, I’ve got a date, and he whispered to me, ‘You have your skis on the wrong feet.’
[00:08:09] Louise: Sorry. That is, that’s good.
[00:08:12] Landis: So I thought, well, he noticed me, just not for what I was hoping he’d notice me for. So from there, Kent and I started dating and our first date was to the climbing gym. And then our next date we went ice climbing together and, um, ski touring together. And just both shared this love of the outdoors.
[00:08:32] Louise: Yeah.
[00:08:32] Landis: Kent lived in Whistler, I lived in Canmore. And eventually we found ways to spend time together. But at some point we decided that we wanted to go on a big adventure together. Kent worked as a guide and a carpenter and he always had this seasonal work that allowed him to travel in between. And I was always working full-time. So I got a seasonal job that would allow me some time to travel. And he and I decided to go on a trip to Central America and we were gonna fly down and we were gonna surf. And at this point, I’d surfed twice, but I thought, well, what a great opportunity to learn to surf. As we looked at the logistics of getting to the different communities without a vehicle, it seemed really difficult. At that point we had a van and we decided to camperize it and drive down.
[00:09:19] Landis: That trip took, we were gone for seven months. We drove through the states, obviously, and then into Mexico. We went halfway through Mexico and ended up on the Coast by Ixtapa , and that’s where I learned to surf.
[00:09:33] Louise: Could you repeat where you landed on the coast? Near where?
[00:09:37] Landis: It was just about Ixtapa
[00:09:39] Louise: Okay.
[00:09:39] Landis: The western coast. We were surfing in an area called La Saladita.
[00:09:43] Louise: Okay. Okay.
[00:09:44] Landis: It was really quite fortunate that there was a family from Iowa or Idaho, they were passing through on their way to Central America where they teach people to kayak and they always would stop here and connect with a group of clients and do surf lessons. And their clients hadn’t arrived yet and they were just getting ready for them. So I had them as my personal instructors for a week and it was amazing. They set the love of surfing in me and got me out in the water confidently, and we had a brilliant time.
[00:10:11] Landis: And then from there, Kent and I took off on our own and continued to work our way down the coast, all the way to Costa Rica. Eventually we worked our way back. So it was a long surfing trip.
[00:10:21] Louise: It was indeed.
[00:10:22] Landis: I learned a lot.
[00:10:24] Louise: What did you learn?
[00:10:26] Landis: Well, I learned that you don’t just go on a surfing trip as a beginner and get to surf every day. I meant that’s in regards to surfing only I’m referring to here. It was quite naive to go on a long surfing trip and envision, day after day of surfing and realizing that the water changes, conditions change. Sometimes it’s just too big. There is surfing and then there’s also a lot of time spent in a hammock.
Landis points out her ‘first place’ in a surf competition in Liberia
[00:10:49] Landis: But one thing I learned, which I thought was really interesting was every time you’d pass through a country, when we left Guatemala, they said to us, Oh, be so careful in El Salvador, the people there are dangerous. And you get to El Salvador and it’s fine. And then you leave El Salvador and everyone warns you. Oh, be careful when you get to Honduras, the people there, it’s very dangerous. We get to Honduras and it’s fine. I’m a firm believer in the idea that it’s more, I think, in how you engage with people that has results in your experience with how your time in a country might go.
[00:11:19] Louise: Mm. That’s really nicely said. Thank you. I just had one small reflection. You’d only surfed twice before you took this trip. Do you think your ability with skiing helped you with surfing? Cause it’s a similar kind of rhythmic movement, isn’t it?
[00:11:35] Landis: But it’s so different because you’re on a much less stable medium and it’s the waves coming to you and they have their own character, versus on a hill when you’re looking down, you, you have your line. I actually feel, when I ski, I feel a much greater sense of control, versus when I surf, I definitely know that I’m always at the mercy of the ocean.
[00:12:00] Louise: This trip must have been profoundly bonding for you and Kent, um, because then you did go, then you did go on to marry. But it sounds like he had a vision for what he wanted and where he wanted to go and in some notes you’d sent me, you mentioned that he’d always wanted to work in Africa, something you say he hadn’t mentioned to you previously. Did you have any feeling of foreboding about the possibility of living and working in Africa or were you open to it because you’d had this kind of bonding, almost year-long experience with Kent exploring and traveling and surfing.
[00:12:43] Landis: I guess you’re right. It was a good preparatory experience because when you’re with someone 24/7, you certainly bond and you can certainly get under each other’s nerves and you certainly have to figure things out together, and you have to have each other’s back. All of those things happened on our trip to Central America. And then when he asked me to marry him, he said, ‘You know, if we could survive that, I feel like we have a good chance at going forward in life together.’
[00:13:08] Louise: Yes, I think so.
[00:13:10] Landis: Yep. You’re right. But when he did mention Africa the thing that struck me about it was that he had never mentioned it before. It was just one day we were out in Canmore and he says, ‘I’d love to go work in Africa at some time.’ And that was it. That’s all he said. And I remember exactly where we were. I remember the shock I felt thinking, he’s never mentioned this. I have a feeling he’s really gonna do it.
[00:13:31] Landis: I think of Africa, and I know this is a silly comment, but I just think of it being a really hot place. And the one thing I learned on my trip to Central America is that I’m not a hot weather person. I’m not one for living close to the equator. And I had never actually heard of where Liberia even was. It wasn’t a country that I had heard much about in the news, so it was all a big unknown. I knew it would happen and I was quite nervous about it, but I, I also thought, well, it’ll be in the future and I’ll deal with that when it comes.
[00:14:02] Louise: And you did?
[00:14:04] Landis: Well, future came faster than I expected. We ended up married and just after we got married, Kent was invited to go to East Africa on a Food for the Hungry trip. So Kent went over with Food for Hungry to East Africa.
[00:14:16] Landis: At this point, Universal Outreach Foundation, who we work for, they had finished up their work in Honduras and they were looking for new projects. We had this really amazing community of people behind our work, and they were keen to continue giving. Universal Outreach invited Kent to come to all the way across the country, to West Africa, to Liberia. And Liberia was just out of a long civil war. He felt like Liberia was in the worst shape. So he left. And he came back to Canada.
[00:14:45] Landis: And then we got the invitation to come to Liberia for one year to build a school. I was really nervous, cuz I just envisioned heat, I didn’t know what kind of place I’d live. My initial reaction was no. And then once I sat on it for a while, uh, I had a really hard time resisting an adventure. I thought, well, I can continue living my life in Canada exactly how I know I’m gonna live my life in Canada, or I can open myself up to something new. And so I opened myself up to something new and followed Kent here.
[00:15:14] Louise: That was a really difficult decision as a newly married, that you were making a choice, I either stay in Canada. What? And leave the marriage? Or pursue this adventure with Kent. Is, is that what was going through your mind?
[00:15:28] Landis: It was more, it’s only a year I’ll stay in Canada and um, we’ll figure it out. But having said that, after my first year in Liberia, it was more of a, I’m leaving Liberia. I feel like this is for you and maybe it’s best you pursue that without me.
[00:15:48] Louise: I see.
[00:15:49] Landis: It was hard that first year. It was a lot of unknowns. There was a lot of challenges with getting the job going and then there was a lot of construction going on. I don’t really do construction works. I mean, that was Kent overseeing a team of librarians doing that work. I didn’t really feel like I had my place and the people that we’re staying with wanted me to live a very cautious life, so I felt quite confined. I went back to Canada and then when Kent came back, I said, you go for it. This is so good for you, but I don’t think I’ll be joining you on this journey.
[00:16:18] Landis: I thought he might be elated, but actually he was quite upset and ended up wanting to discuss ways we could make it work. And so here we are, 15 years, I guess we, we figured it out.
[00:16:29] Louise: Indeed. So what did you figure out? What precipitated this move that resulted in you creating a life, and working with a foundation, in Liberia for 15 years? Can you fill in the, the background a little bit?
[00:16:44] Landis: I ended up back in Canada for about six months without Kent and started structuring my life doing things that I normally do. It was good, but, um, I quite like my husband and I missed him while he was away. And we started just talking about ways for me to get more involved with what we do. My first year I was definitely a trailing spouse and that didn’t work well for me. Going forward, one of the schools we had built, had opened and, and they needed help getting it started. So I took on that role of helping start that school, and I acquired a sense of purpose.
[00:17:24] Landis: I think the issue with the first year here was just learning to live in a completely different country like Liberia, where you don’t have running water all the time, you don’t have power all the time. The people we lived with didn’t want me out walking around all the time. So there’s all these adjustments. But then when I came back the next time, I, I suppose I knew what I was getting into. And I had purpose and that was to help start the school. And I, I come to realize in life that, no matter where you live and what you’re doing, if you don’t have a sense of purpose, it can be a pretty dismal existence.
[00:17:54] Louise: Yeah, you’re quite right. We do need purpose. It gives us, uh, meaning in our lives. So you found that, um, participating in building this school and then how has it evolved? Your work there.
[00:18:08] Landis: I want to just come back a little bit to that point. The other thing I found, my two essentials for being in Liberia is also connection with other people I can relate to, and you can probably relate to this too, is creating your tribe, and having your people that you can check in with and talk to and feel a sense of connection with.
[00:18:24] Landis: When you live somewhere like Liberia, where a lot of people come for two-year stints, their project is two years long, they come here to make a significant change in two years, which is very challenging. And so you’re always having to make new friends. But I definitely prioritize that every year because that’s a huge part of my sense of wellbeing.
[00:18:43] Louise: Yes, yes. You’re talking about community. So are the people that are coming there for say, two year stints, are they working for aid organizations?
[00:18:53] Landis: Yeah. It seems like in the world of aid, a lot of people have two-year contracts and I have met some people here that have been able to renew and stay longer. But two years is a common cycle for interns that may come in, for fellows, and yeah, there’s a minimal amount of people stay longer than that. I think people are building their careers and they wanna get diversity and move on to new places. It’s a lot of coming and going, but they also come and go into large institutions, so they come into institutional knowledge. Versus Kent and I, when we arrived here, we didn’t have that institutional knowledge to back us up. We had to figure everything out.
[00:19:28] Louise: So, I just have to ask, how, how did you then adjust to the climate? Because I’ve seen some pictures of you on social media and it does look tropical. How are you coping with that or how, how have you evolved to cope with that?
[00:19:45] Landis: You know, I swear I have never evolved to cope with it. I mean, I suppose what I’ve done is I buy clothing often that’s printed that doesn’t show the sweat as much. I rarely buy anything that’s solid that you’ll see the sweat through. Um, I go out as soon as the sun rises. If I’m gonna exercise, I’m out at the crack of dawn when it’s coolest and I spend most of my time in the water. There are some people here that go off into the country and they go hiking and in the sun, and I’m always in the water. It’s just so much more comfortable for me.
[00:20:22] Landis: And then I have a fan in the house. And we actually do have air conditioning that comes on at night, but I’ve gone through years where I come here and I say, I love the heat. I love the heat. The heat is for me, I embrace it. And it doesn’t work.
[00:20:37] Landis: I see, you’ve tried.
[00:20:39] Landis: Oh, and then I hit menopause and it just got worse.
[00:20:41] Louise: Yeah, I understand. Gosh. So what would the daily temperature be? It’s probably fairly consistent year round, but what would it be? An average daily temperature?
[00:20:54] Landis: The average daily temperature can get up to 34 degrees in the dry season. These days it’s more like 30. Today we’re at 26. When it’s cloudy out in rainy season, things drop down a notch. But it’s the humidity here that really gets you, and it’s a hundred-percent humidity. So you’re hot and then you step out the door in the morning and you start to sweat and then you just sweat to different degrees all day long. I always have like a bandana with me and I have gotten used to like having an intense conversation with someone with a fully sweaty upper lip. And, um, you just get used to that. I think that, especially as women, like I think sweating is something you do when you exercise, but you don’t wanna be seen sweating in your day-to-day life and it’s actually quite uncomfortable, but you get over that here and you move on.
[00:21:44] Louise: I’m sure you do. I guess if we would put it in context for listeners, and in fact probably about 55% of my listeners are US based, it sounds like it might be like Florida in the middle of summer.
[00:21:56] Landis: Yeah. Yeah. Warm, sweaty, drippy.
[00:21:59] Louise: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. Yeah.
[00:22:01] Landis: Yeah, yeah. Time to get those print dresses out that disguise it all.
[00:22:05] Louise: The Mu Mu type dresses that are not form fitting. Could you just set the scene for us? Give us a, a sense of the landscape. Again, I recently saw a picture of you, I think standing on a balcony of perhaps it might be your apartment or your house, and the backdrop is a fairly flat landscape, a lot of palm trees, um, the ocean in the distance. Is that accurate?
[00:22:30] Landis: So I live in a town called Paynesville, which is a suburb of Monrovia. And I live about three blocks from the beach and there’s beautiful cotton trees and moringa trees and coconut trees and palm trees all around the building. And my community is diverse. There’s the fishing community down the road from me that’s all tin shacks and smokers drawing fish all day. Across from me is a man that travels back and forth to America quite a bit and he has a very nice compound. On the other side of me is shacks again, where people actually build off of the wall to save the money of needing that fourth wall. And there’ll be multi-families living in these dwellings. And then a few roads back, there’s some wealthier Liberians that have compound walls and fairly expensive homes.
Universal Outreach’s compound in Paynesville, the four-storey green building
[00:23:23] Landis: And right across from me is a school. In my compound where I live is actually a four-story building that houses, Liberia Pure, which is a business we mentor. They’re a honey packaging business. So they’re packaging and warehouse facility is there. And then it’s our offices. I happen to live on the third floor of the compound, and then it’s an open deck on top. We also have an accommodation building on our property for visiting beekeepers. And then we have an after-school center as well.
[00:23:53] Landis: It’s a very tropical place. Liberia in general, it’s flat around the ocean, but as you go inland, there’s some nice hills. There’s mountains, not what I would consider mountains, coming from the Rockies, but there’s definitely some elevation gain and it’s very dense rain forest. Technically it’s a moist forest, but it’s a dense forest and it’s a very coveted forest here. It’s some of West Africa’s last remaining rainforest.
[00:24:20] Louise: Wow. So beekeeping. I did notice on your social media again that this is one of the projects that you are fostering or did you spearhead this or was it already in place?
[00:24:31] Landis: The beekeeping started when we had built the schools and they were running, and we continually were asked for jobs from people. So we sat back and started thinking about what we can do about that. Cuz as an organization, we just didn’t have any jobs and with everyone being farmers here, we thought that honey could be a good value-added activity.
[00:24:53] Landis: We went about to find an organization that trained beekeepers and we did a program with them and we weren’t completely impressed, so we decided to start running them ourselves. What we did was we brought Bees Abroad from England and a beekeeper from Nigeria and a beekeeper from Cameroon to join us in Liberia and start putting on training of trainers workshops. So that there would be a group of experienced beekeepers that could travel the country to train other beekeepers. Now, there already was a small group of beekeepers here that had been trained in Ghana, and there was maybe about 10 beekeepers at that time that were actively beekeeping, and they were all in Nimba County.
Landis with one of the beekeepers, both in their protective bee-keeping gear
[00:25:37] Landis: So we hosted our training of trainers in Nimba County, with a handful of people. And then that group of people improved their knowledge. And then we had another training of trainers the next year and they continued to increase their knowledge. And then we started running our beekeeper training programs and moving to other communities that were suitable for beekeeping and spreading the word.
[00:25:59] Landis: Because we’re a small organization, we can’t invest in the skills training program unless we’re quite certain of the outcome. So we also met Liberia Pure, which was this tiny little business selling honey out of mayonnaise jars, out of the back door of their office. We met with them, we offered them a startup loan, and they went out and offered to buy all the honey that anyone was producing and market it and sell it in grocery stores and start trying to create a market for honey in Liberia.
[00:26:27] Louise: And has that happened?
[00:26:29] Landis: Oh yes. So yeah. So 12 years ago Liberia Pure bought all the honey it could from farmers. It was packaged, it went to grocery stores, it got on their shelves. And now Liberia Pure has put over 250,000 US dollars in Farmers’ Pockets.
[00:26:42] Louise: Wow.
[00:26:42] Landis: They have flavored honey, they have honeys and squeeze jars, honeys in bottles. They do lip balms from the bees wax, and they’ve also gotten into coconut oil production as a way of generating income in rural communities. So Liberia Pure now also buys coconut oil and one of their most famous products as their coconut oil soap, which is absolutely gorgeous. So Liberia Pure is a key player in the development of the honey industry alongside of our training because they ensure every honey producer that they’ll buy their honey.
[00:27:14] Landis: So when you go out there and you start beekeeping, you’re guaranteed to have a buyer for your product. I would say I’m very proud of Liberia Pure. It’s been a great success and it’s been a hard working team. They’ve had a lot to learn over the years. I’ve watched them grow over the years and every challenge that they’ve come across, they’ve figured out.
[00:27:31] Louise: I was going to reflect that it must be really exciting to see how it’s evolved so successfully. Another of the programs that, uh, I wanted to talk about is the surfing program. I think this is how we first connected, because I think I saw a call for surfboards. Can you tell us a bit about the surfing program? I mean, it’s, it’s quite extensive. Everything that you do is fairly extensive.
[00:27:57] Landis: Yeah, we met over the surfing project. I put a call out for donations and you came to that call. So thank you very much for that. That was amazing. I believe we got a surfboard into a woman’s hand, Thanks to you.
[00:28:07] Louise: Oh, that’s right. Yes. I specifically wanted a surfboard to go to a young woman. That’s right.
[00:28:12] Landis: And it did. So, one thing we learned from beekeeping is that if you really wanna make change, It takes a long time and things never go as planned, and you have to be able to roll with the reality of the situation if you really want things to succeed long term. We had been watching surfing evolve for the past 14 years. When we were surfing here, there was two servers in Liberia, Alfred and Benjamin. And we watched them become national surf champs in Liberia, and then we watched younger kids grab their board whenever they could.
[00:28:46] Landis: And um, more surfboards have come to Liberia and all of those kids have grown up and they’re surfing now and they’re adults. It really struck me that these guys and girls, they’re having their own families now and they need to provide for themselves and their children and they’re really looking for a way of doing that. The community that they live in, Robertsport, is a strong fishing community. It’s a very respected profession and a lot of the surfers when they get to the right age, do join in with that profession. But they want something else. They want something a little more, they want options, just like kids everywhere do.
[00:29:24] Landis: A few people have come through and tried little projects and we were hesitant to get involved. But a few years ago a gentleman by the name of Arthur Bourbon, did a film called Water Get No Enemy, and he wanted to give back through that film. So he contacted us, said, Is there anything that I can do for the surf community? And we said, well, we are sitting on the edge of our seats debating to start a project related to surf tourism. The government of Liberia has just donated the piece of land. The Cape Mount Surf Association just got their accreditation. Everything’s lining up. So yeah, let’s go for it. If you wanna start raising money for a surf club house, then go for it.
[00:30:04] Landis: When they got the piece of land donated by the government and when they got accredited, these are all really positive steps and we decided we could get behind this. So we met with ’em and we formulated a plan for the land and created a vision and we’ve been executing that vision for the past year and a half.
[00:30:22] Louise: It’s very recent and then
[00:30:23] Landis: We’ve been busy.
[00:30:24] Louise: Yeah. You my word. You’ve been busy. One of the things you mentioned to me in a recent email is that your hope is that it will, uh, grow such that, um, that you can create a surf reserve. And in fact like one here in Portugal in Ericeira. Can you tell us about this? What’s the intention there?
[00:30:44] Landis: There’s the practical application of what we’re doing, and then there’s the dream. And the surf reserve is the dream. So to wrap up the practical application, over the past year and a half, we’ve built a restaurant, we’ve built a clubhouse where they can house their surfboards and they can do all their kind of retail business. A wash-room block has been established and there’s a tower for water. So right now people can come and camp on the property. Uh, four kids went to tourism schools, so now they’re there and they can take care of the guests and manage things. The project opened last year, right before the rainy season, and their first group of people that they got to host was surfers from around the world and around Liberia that came for their 9th annual surf competition. So they basically went from school to managing a large group of people and they did a great job.
[00:31:35] Landis: And then the rainy season came, which means everything gets quiet in Robertsport. But now we’re entering into a dry season again. And our step this year is to create elevated camping platforms that will catch the breeze. And then you can have official camping sites on the land. We just installed the solar system the other day, the power here can be inconsistent, so now they always have an environmentally friendly backup source of power.
[00:32:00] Landis: Those are all the practical things we’re focusing on. And the dream though is the concept of a surf reserve. There’s an organization called Save the Waves, and they do surf reserves around the world. I think there’s about 12. To do a surf reserve it’s a community led initiative and you have to have certain criteria to be considered. So I got interested in this when I saw that Liberia is on their five-year plan and I had a short meeting with them, and we have some work to do on this side.
[00:32:30] Landis: You have to monitor the wave that you want to have in the reserve because it has to show that it’s a world-class wave that it has a certain amount of consistency. You also have to demonstrate that the area is ecologically sensitive and that there’s something nature-wise that needs to be protected. You have to commit to keeping your beaches clean. You have to commit to always having access for locals so that they can reach the beach. Even where I live, there are a number of properties along the beach that have a sense of ownership over it, and I have some relationships so I can pass through their gates to get to the beach.
[00:33:05] Landis: When you have beautiful waterfront properties, they tend to get blocked off and Save the Waves wants to ensure that locals always have access to surf. You also have to have a community development plan so that you don’t just have a few little access points and then just do like row after row of concrete buildings that could potentially create sewage issues and have a negative impact on the water, the wave, and the fishing community.
[00:33:30] Landis: We’re starting to consider what we need to do to apply for a surf reserve. It’s interesting because when you’re in a community like Robertsport where they haven’t had a lot of development, the idea of controlling development isn’t necessarily smiled upon. The accountant for Universal Outreach goes out every month to Robertsport and works with the crew on their books and how they manage their books. And I said to him, Isaac, what’d you think of Robertsport? And he’s like, Yeah, it’s okay. And he’s like, too many trees and not a lot of buildings. And I’m like, But Isaac, that’s the beauty of it. He’s like, Yeah, but you know, buildings means progress. Buildings means development, and we want development.
[00:34:10] Landis: It was great that he said that to me because as I approach this conversation with everyone, we also have to discuss the downfalls of excessive development, the environmental impact of excessive development. It’s interesting talking with the community about development that is beautiful and useful and helpful and development that just takes away from the beauty and doesn’t encourage people to come. If Robertsport wants to see itself as a tourist destination, it does need to have accommodation but it also needs to maintain its natural beauty and clean beaches. Because it’s such a hard place to get to, I think one of the lures of coming here would be it not being overdeveloped. That there being inappropriate amount of accommodation without being excessive and that those pieces of land that remain full of trees, remain.
[00:34:58] Louise: That makes sense. And if it is a surf reserve, that’s what I think people would be looking for. Is the hope that it’s has the potential to attract surfers from all around the world?
[00:35:10] Landis: That is the hope. Our realistic hope is that surfers from around the world will come here. There are breaks in the world that are so consistent, that are so big that people that just only have so much time, they’re gonna go to that place that they’re guaranteed to get the great wave and Liberia has its peak season. Right now is a fabulous time to surf here. And in the rainy season there’s some great waves in Robertsport. There’s always a wave in Monrovia, but it’s going to be a certain traveler that comes here. It’s not busy in Liberia. So if you are a good surfer and you don’t like surfing crowded beaches and you are willing to take your chances to be able to surf basically alone, then Liberia is a perfect place. I think wanting to find these more exclusive, quiet places, that’s what’s gonna drive people to coming to Liberia.
[00:36:05] Louise: Love that vision. Yeah. Um, the umbrella organization that oversees all of these various projects. What, what’s the name of it?
[00:36:15] Landis: Universal Outreach Foundation.
Some of the Universal Outreach Team, with Landis bottom left, and Kent, second from top right
[00:36:18] Louise: And so now might be a time to share the website details and social media details with us.
[00:36:24] Landis: So you can find out more about Universal Outreach Foundation and our projects on our website, which is www.universaloutreachfoundation.org. We’re also on Instagram and Facebook under Universal Outreach, and we have a fabulous YouTube channel called Universal Outreach, and that will transport you to Liberia and you’ll get to see live and in-person, and up close all the different projects that were involved in.
[00:36:55] Landis: We’re currently raising some money for the surf project, um, and we are looking for, at the moment, I believe it’s tents that we’re raising money for. So just a little project, but, um, any small donations would go towards that. It would be a big help.
[00:37:09] Louise: Okay. That’s fantastic. Thank you for sharing all of that. And as we finish up my last question is, you’ve dedicated now 15 years of your life to Liberia and Universal Outreach. Do you see, uh, remaining there for many years to come?
[00:37:28] Landis: We’ll always be involved in Liberia. Our involvement is always changing. When we started here, it was Kent and I and we had a driver and a contract construction crew. And we’ve evolved to having an afterschool center that’s run by a woman named Angia. And Cecil Wilson is now our country director. And we’ve worked with these people over the years and they’re now very competent and very capable of taking over jobs that we used to have, which frees Kent and I up to focus on the bigger picture and to expand the Universal Outreach Foundation community.
[00:38:05] Landis: It’s a best that we outgrow ourselves, because if we aren’t outgrowing ourselves then the organization isn’t growing and our ability to have impact isn’t growing. So things are shifting right now. Our team does a great job when we’re not around, and we’re starting to spend a bit more time with our own community raising awareness and raising funds.
[00:38:25] Landis: We usually spend nine months a year in Liberia, and although that is fabulous, it does neglect the community that supports us in different parts of the world and it is time to start spending more time with them. Having said that, It’s always wonderful to come back here. We’re very much a part of everything we do. Like things get started and then Kent and I join in to discuss them and meet about them and fine tune them and evolve them. That happens as a team, but the execution really is in the hands of the team in Liberia now, and we trust them and they’re, they’re doing a great job.
[00:39:00] Louise: So for three months of the year, you go back to Canada?
[00:39:04] Landis: I typically spend nine months here and then three months back in Canada, and I think that’s gonna start shifting to a six month, six month split. We had a fabulous summer in Canada with our Universal Outreach community and actually visiting some other donors that are in Switzerland that are part of the surf project. And it means a lot to people to get to spend time with us and hear what we’re doing. And it also, Inspires them and gives them confidence as to where their donations are going. That’s a big part of my job and I look forward to spending more time doing that because we happen to be a part of such an amazing community and there’s so much fun to hang out with.
[00:39:39] Louise: Thank you so much Landis for sharing your story of life and work in Liberia. I really appreciate the time today that you’ve given me. Thank you so much.
[00:39:50] Landis: You’re welcome. Thank you for having me.
[00:39:52] Louise: Thank you for listening today. So you don’t miss future episodes, subscribe on your favorite podcast provider or on my YouTube channel @WomenWhoWalkPodcast. Also, feel free to connect with comments on Instagram @LouiseRossWriter or Writer & Podcaster, Louise Ross on Facebook, or find me on LinkedIn. And finally, if you enjoyed this episode, spread the word and tell your friends.