As part of the GTV mobile story sharing project I have been tasked with creating a Liberian designed shade covering for the back of our 4Runner that the GTV system will ride around in. The idea is that it’ll keep people cool, eliminate glare from the sun on the monitor, improve lighting conditions for the camera, and hopefully look cool.  This design will later be integrated with an American design, using modern materials and fabrication techniques, to yield the final product. To create the Liberian prototype I employed a couple local carpenters, Dauda and Augustine. Here’s what went down:

On Thursday I met with Dauda and we talked about the design. I told him we wanted a strong structure that could be setup by one, but if need be two people. Since we were getting something custom made, I thought it would be cool if it could be mounted onto the roof rack of our 4Runner and then fold out into place. So I talked this over with Dauda and he seemed to be down with it. We agreed to meet back Saturday morning to do the installation.

So on Saturday I show up at 8am, and there’s Dauda already on the scene, finishing up some of the poles. I was impressed. He and Augustine make a few feet for the support poles and then started setting up the tent. It was at this point that I realized that the custom made fold-out design had scrapped for a more traditional 4 poles with 4 supports and some braces design. I wasn’t super happy about this since I hadn’t been consulted on the redesign, and the new design just wasn’t cool. It also had some serious issues, one of which was that the support beams were a foot off the ground. Thus people couldn’t just walk up to GTV with out stepping over a cross member. Also, it took the whole crew of carpenters to setup the tent. This was more than the 1, maybe 2, people I wanted for it to take.

So we talked things over. Apparently I hadn’t been specific enough in sharing my vision with Dauda. He thought the new design would be stronger and easier to make than the fold out design. And in truth the design was fine, it just wasn’t what I wanted. So after some sketching on my note pad, and talking about exactly, to the inch, what I wanted, we came up with design number 2.

This design took advantage of the 4Runners vertical support and ended up being a lot simpler. I was pretty happy with the end product. Basically we braced the rear hatch with a 2×2, created a brace that hooks into the roof rack. This brace elevates 3 2×2s to the same height as the open rear hatch. These 3 pieces then form the end points of our covering. With a wing span of 105″ x 100″ (8′9″ x 8′4″) I think we can accommodate a fair number of people. This design can be assembled/disassembled by one person and packs up neatly for transporting to the next location.

Check out our little video at the end.

Monday I plan on talking to some tailors to make the fabric part of the tent. Hopefully it’ll work out wonderfully. This was a great learning experience for me to better understand how to communicate my ideas to the people I’m working with here in Liberia. Especially the value of good diagrams and drawings. I meant to make some CADesque drawings before my first meeting with Dauda. I was just too busy. I did get to have a brief conversation with the carpenters about the X, Y, and Z planes, and perspective. That was cool.

I also wanted to show the rubber yard, this is an area in town where you go to buy things made of rubber. Apparently every scrap piece of rubber in the country is brought here and sold. We came here to buy “rope”, or old tires cut into thin strips and used as bungie cords. The place has very post-apocalyptic feel to it with all these weird shapes of black matter hanging and lying around in nicely organized piles. So I just wanted to share that with you guys. The rubber yard is located in town near Benson street and some other street that escapes me at the moment.

John
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I had the pleasure of eating at PA’s Express for lunch today. PA’s Express is located on the ground floor of PA’s Rib house, which is located off of Airfield Road, Sinkor, Monrovia. Just follow the signs you can’t miss it.

Anyway, lunch was really good and pretty cheap. I had the fried chicken and biscuit. For only $150LD I got a large drumstick and a large thigh. The meat was really good and much bigger than fried chicken at a lot of other local places. If you’ve had chicken in Liberia before then you know what I mean. The biscuit was just OK. I also had the side of fried rice for $60LD. This could have been a meal all by itself. It had mushrooms, onion, and even little pieces of  ham. It was delicious and filled up a whole plate.

My friend Layal had the Burger. According to her it was the best burger she’s had in Liberia. I would agree. It tasted much like the $8USD half pound burger served up stairs, but smaller, and for only $200LD. I’m guessing it’s around a 1/4 lbs.

We also had the soft server ice cream for $75LD a cone. I’ve had better soft serve before, but it was still really good. The best soft serve I’ve had in Liberia for sure. And the cones were a pretty decent size.

Some of the prices seemed a little weird. Like the club sandwich ($500LD) that costs more than the rib plate($300LD). I also thought that $600LD was a little steep for the American breakfast. Not like you have much of a choice here, and good food is good food, I shouldn’t knock it till I try it.

Just like PA’s Rib House, PA’s Express is a pretty darn solid eating establishment. Really good food, and pretty good prices. The service was also great, no waiting. We were in and out in no time. Oh yeah, and free WiFi. Can’t beat free WiFi.

John

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This past weekend David McCann became my most international friend. To date we have spent time together in 3 different countries on 3 different continents. So far we’ve both made it to Ghana, Chile, and of course The Sates. David has been working the past month for Busy Internet, in Accra, Ghana. Busy Internet is an internet service provider, and home to the largest internet café in all of West Africa. David is helping the company develop their latest venture, Trade Net. Trade Net is a mobile phone based system for buyers and sellers of natural goods to exchange prices and orders. I know David from Georgia Tech, where we both received our bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

On Friday I flew out to Accra. The flight was pretty nice and only 30 minutes late. Not half bad. I flew on Slok Airlines which recently resumed operations after some safety issues. I felt safe, and the flight was cheap. I arrived in Ghana and was pleasantly greeted by AC and running water. I needed David’s address for the immigration officer when I arrived, but I didn’t have it. I was afraid this was going to be a big ordeal, but the immigration office was very nice about it all. He called David for me to find out the address and let me on my way. It was all so nice, and orderly and professional… so developed.

I was picked up from the airport by David, Mark Davies, and Jim Forster. Mark Davies is the owner of Busy Internet. He started his internet career in the dot com days with a web based city guide and was bought out by CitySearch. Jim Forster worked for Cisco back when the company only had 30 employees. He now holds the title, “Distinguished Engineer” at Cisco. It was kinda cool hanging out with guys who have pretty much done what I’d like to do professionally. Now I just need to find a start-up to be a part of that’s going to be wildly successful.

After leaving the airport we went to Jamestown, the historic district of Accra. There we walked around the beach, hung out with some fishermen, and climbed to the top of the light house. It was really cool to see the fishermen and their boats. They still fish the same way they always have. At dusk they leave, fish all night, and come back in the morning. They use simple nets and boats whose hauls are made from a solid tree trunk. The light house offered some really nice views of the city and the boats coming in from the sea. It’s also fun climbing around stuff like this in countries where liability isn’t a huge concern.

Ghana is far more developed than Liberia. A country can do a lot when it hasn’t had a civil war in recent history. The roads were filled with cars, and not the white SUVs of international NGOs, but of civilians and taxis. The roads were even paved. They had traffic lights, stop signs, and it seemed that people were following some sort of traffic law on the streets. I was also caught off guard by the tourism in Ghana. Tourism in Liberia simply doesn’t exist. So it was a little strange for me to meet people who were just touring around. It was also weird, and nice, to be in a place where it’s safe enough to take a taxi at night, expats don’t have their own drivers, and a local will want to talk to you just to be friendly. All in all I really liked Ghana. The 24×7 electricity and running water was also really nice.

On Saturday David and I went down to Cape Coast. Cape Coast is where the British originally landed in Ghana and setup the slave trade. Consequently the town has a lot of British inspired architecture and is a very lovely place. At the center of the city is the old slave fort where slaves were kept before being shipped off to the old or new world. We started out by touring the top of the fort, where the British lived. This gave us some great views of the city, and with the sun out it was really nice to climb around and check stuff out. Then we went down to where the slaves were kept. This wasn’t as pleasant. The slave’s chambers were dark dungeons under the fort where up to a 1000 men and 400 women were kept at once. It was a very sobering feeling to know that I was standing where countless people had suffered so many unimaginable things. Usually I think I’m pretty good at imaging, and thinking of what something could be like, but standing there in the dark corner of a cell I just couldn’t picture knowing that I was going to spend the night there, eat there, and maybe die there.

Saturday night David and I walked around Cape Coast a bit. We hung out at a local bar, but it kinda sucked. I’m used to being around expats who work for NGOs , and to some degree, are there to help. It felt a little wrong to be around expats who were being jerk tourists. It reminded me of bars in Thailand when I was there. Young people just trying to get drunk and hook-up with each other. Not as exciting as talking about the national poverty reduction strategy and its economic ramifications with a friend who works in the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Liberia.

We also saw an open air Easter Eve service that night. It was a Charismatic service so the pastor would get super quite and start to cry a little, then yell and scream into the mic. It was a little ridiculous. People would be dragged out of the crowd to a tarp in front of the stage where they would be placed so they could wiggle and writhe without getting in anyone’s way. I’m assuming the idea is that they were under the influence of the Holy Spirit who was at work in their lives at that moment in some powerful way, probably kicking out demons or something. Not how I would spend Easter.

Sunday morning David and I went to a national park do to a canopy walk in the jungle. The place had 6 rope suspension bridges between trees in the jungle that you could walk along. It was pretty cool, but short. After you walk through it once you’re kinda ready to move on. But it was really pretty.

After that we came back to Accra and pretty much just hung out. For me this was really nice. I appreciated the break from working and worrying about utilities and other basic issues. We even went to a shopping mall where I bought an ice cream sandwich. It was awesome. Then David and I kicked back and relaxed. I watched Star Trek I on DSTV and surfed the net.

Monday we went to a beach in Accra. David and I had a trash fight in the water. We threw plastic bags and other floating debris back and forth. No one told me that the water was unsafe, and floating plastic bags don’t worry me as much as floating feces, something we have to worry about in Monrovia. At any rate it was a lot of fun and I got to meet some of David’s friend from Ghana. For dinner we went to a tex-mex sports bar. This is my first tex-mex experience since 2007. It wasn’t the best tex-mex in the world, but good enough for me.

Tuesday I flew back, and that was that. Overall I really liked Ghana. I told Dr. Mike Best, my boss, about my time in Ghana. He said, “Yikes. When Accra seems to be a relatively well running city you know you must be living in…. well…. Liberia.”

John
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This past week Georgia Tech purchased a vehicle for their mobile video story sharing project. The idea is that we’ll put a PC with a video camera in the back of an SUV and drive it around Liberia. We’ll have official videos on the PC from the TRC and other government/aid agencies for people to watch. They can watch these videos, create video replies, or make their own video statement. We’re hoping it will be like a mobile youtube that updates a little slower. We’re also people will do more than tell their girlfriend they love them and stuff like that.

We hope with such a system people can share their ideas with others across the country and learn what other counties in Liberia are doing. We think this will aid reconciliation as well as giving Liberians a better since of who they are as a country. Thus building nationalism. This would go a long way toward unifying the country as Liberians, and not under their various ethnic and tribal groups.

But enough of that. The important thing is that GT now has a 1996 Toyota 4Runner, 4×4, V-6. I was hoping for a stick but it’s an automatic. It does have a CD player with an aux in. Probably my favorite feature. Oh, and it has cold AC. So I’m stoked about taking this out to the rural area and driving around. It should be a lot of fun. I’m also excited about shopping for toe ropes and shovels just in case. I’m working on getting a license plate to match the trucks radio call sign: GATECH-1.

John

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This past Sunday Kevin, Marcel, Peter and I went to Robertsport to go surfing. Kevin and Marcel work for Samaritan’s Purse. Peter is a local who surfer, who has made friends with the Samaritan’s Purse guys. I woke-up at 5:30am, and road my bike to meet up with Kevin and Marcel. We then picked up Peter and were gone by 6.  Kevin drove pretty efficiently, so we made it to Robertsport from ELWA junction in 2:15:00.  Not half bad.

We first dropped Marcel off to do some kayaking.  Peter, Kevin, and I then headed off to the beach. After unloading the boards from the roof of the Land Cruiser, we walked for 20 minutes to Loco Beach. At one point we had to cut through the bush. It felt pretty cool to drive down a two tire-track dirt road to a beach, then hiking 20 minutes through the jungle to get to the waves.

We drove 2 plus hours at 6:00am because Robertsport has a point break. That is a point along the coast that the waves break around.  In our case, this creates a wave that reliably breaks from left to right. The only problem is the point is made of rocks. So there are a few rocks in the water to keep an eye out for. Most of the time the water is deep enough that this isn’t an issue, but you  do have to be careful not to surf to close to shore.

Some of the waves were pretty big. Kevin thought they were around 5’ to 6’. They were bigger and more powerful than the waves I was used to, so I never got up. It was a good work out and I learned a lot. Kevin and Peter both had some good rides. Peter is a really strong swimmer, so he was able to paddle into any wave, ride it in, and then paddle back, all without taking a break. Kevin was practicing riding up on top of the breaking waves.

Sadly, all three of our boards were damaged in the course of the day. Peter’s board incurred a mysterious stab mark. Later in the day, Kevin and I tried catching the same wave. Kevin’s board cut across mine leaving a little gash. My board knocked Kevin’s fin loose. Kevin also banged- up his hand on his board.

Thankfully all the damages were repairable, so it was still a good day. Just getting to see the beach at Robertsport was nice. Tan sandy beaches, blue water, and lush green jungle laid over jagged hills, the beach is simply beautiful. We were the only people on the beach. It was our own little private slice of heaven.

John
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This week I noticed power poles going up in Monrovia. The Liberian Electric Company (LEC) is using huge generators to supply parts of Monrovia with electricity. As I understand it power runs for 21 hours a day. I’m also told that the price is out of reach for most people, and that they can’t handle heavy loads. Which means you can’t run a house full of AC units off of it. But I haven’t confirmed this. It’s a great sign of progress, and no doubt means a lot to the residents. Hopefully, the LEC will be able to expand their coverage and lower their prices as they leverage economies of scale.

In other electrical news: Robertsport in Grand Cape Mount County has solar powered street lights. I only saw it during the day, so I wasn’t able to see how well, if at all, they worked. At any rate, it looks cool and is a step in the right direction. Parts of Tubman Blvd also have conventionally powered street lights. This makes dodging put holes on my motorcycle a lot easier.

The Red Lion is a proper brutish pub. I’m not British so some may debate this, but with darts, beer on tap, and football on the widescreen, I don’t know what more you could want. Well… actually I want Strongbow on tap, but you can’t have it all. $4 USD gets you 0.5L of Heineken. The darts are free; you just have to wait your turn. For $7 USD you can get a toasted sandwich, though that’s about it for food choices.

The bathroom isn’t that great. But I’m OK with it. The Red Lion is a low key place to hang out with friends over beer. Again my standards for bar bathrooms are low due to my experiences at bars in other countries.

On the whole it’s a great bar, cozy and unassuming with darts and beer.

Red Lion
Broad St. and Buchanan
Monrovia, Liberal

The Plaza Pizzeria, located next to city hall on Tubman Blvd in Monrovia, has added a bar area to their establishment. They were building it when I was here in May 2007, and it’s now open. I walked in the other day to meet a friend, and a waiter asked if I wanted the bar. I was like, “what bar?” He shoved me through a non-descript side door, and I thought I had stepped back into the first world. Leather couches, pool table, and Heineken on tap. The space is very well decorated and designed. It has two floors, a downstairs bar area, and an upstairs lounge space, connected by a very attractive spiral staircase.

The bar has a modern, but laid back feel. It’s up to date, but not snobby about it. The walls are painted with warm colors, and decorated with posters and photos. Upstairs are some very trendy Posters of Che Guevara. Overall a very warm and inviting ambiance.

The prices are reasonable, a O.5L of Heineken is $4.00 USD. Not bad. Whiskey starts at $5 USD a glass. They even have a liquor locker. You can buy a bottle, and then get the key to your own on site locker for safe keeping. Very snazzy. They also have free peanuts to munch on while enjoying your drink. I’m a peanut fan.

And best of all you can order food from the pizzeria, which I already love for their cheap and tasty feed. This place is great. The nicest bar I’ve been to in Monrovia.

Oh, and the bathrooms are good. Not great, but this place isn’t going for super fancy. It’s trying to be your local-taste-of-home-watering-hole-for-expats, and does a good job of it (I hope that didn’t sound too neo-colonial, but that’s their target market). It’s not like bars in the states have good bathrooms any way… At least bars go to.

Plaza Pizzeria
Tubman Blvd., next to city hall
Monrovia
+231-6-424-242
Excellent Bar!

When my boss was in town we ate at the sushi restaurant in the Mamba Point Hotel. This place had the ambiance, design, and finish down, first world all the way. We could only find one exposed wire in the whole place. It looked like they used studs and drywall in their construction, no doubt a first for Liberia. Even the bathrooms were perfect. No smashed up tiles trying to fit around an awkwardly placed fixture.  You do pay for all of this fanciness. Though not outrageously, but still a little pricey. The sushi was good. I also had some shrimp teriyaki. The shrimps were good, though the teriyaki sauced seemed a little off. We also had a ‘06 bottle of white. I was told by those more versed in wines that it was the best they had sampled in Liberia. Five stars, great place. If I was trying to impress a date, I’d hire a driver, and take her here.

The Sushi Restaurant at The Mamba Point Hotel is located off of UN Drive in Mamba Point Monrovia.
The Hotel’s phone number is +231-6-511-202, +231-6-544-544

So I’ve decided to write little reviews of the new restaurants I’ve been to. Now I know I’m in no way qualified to do this. There are much better writers out there, and certainly much more refined tastes. But no one else is doing it, and these places could use some advertising. Plus, new restaurants are kinda exciting here. It’s not like home where there are hundreds of places to eat, and most of them pretty nice. A fancy new restaurant that reminds you of the first world is pretty sweet find.

So thanks to the boss man’s arrival last week, a going away party (see picture), and a Friday night splurge, I’ve been fortunate enough to have three meals at P.A.’s. They were all pretty good. As you might guess P.A.’s specializes in barbeque ribs.

The restaurant itself is quite nice. The interior is nicely decked out with a high ceiling and wood paneled bar. They also have a 200+ person conference room. P.A.’s also has free wifi. The bathrooms though, as usual for Liberia, could use a little sprucing up. But that’s just a pet peeve of mine.

I had the Carryesburg half slab of ribs on my first visit. For $12 USD this isn’t half bad. The ribs were also pretty tasty. They weren’t fall off the bone tender, and seasoned like Mama used to do it, but they were still good. Kinda like a Sunny’s perhaps. The real treat was the sides. Delicious. I’m told the ingredients for sides are grown in the garden behind the restaurant. I had the green beans and the mashed sweet potatoes.

My 2nd visit was with Marry Miller’s going away party. I ordered a burger, but they were out. So they gave me a steak at the same price. Not half bad. The steak was also really good. Well seasoned and a decent size. And as before. Great sides.

Wanting to try the burger that the owner had raved about, I went back a third time. At $8 this burger is a little steep, but pretty darn good. The best I’ve had in Liberia. The burger was still a little more seasoned than I would have wanted, but far better than the meatloaf on a bun some places try to pass off as a burger. The fries it came with were also great.

P.A.’s is located off of airfield road in Sinkor, Monrovia, Liberia. They have a lot of signs up, so you can’t miss it.