That’s what our Liberian research assistants / interpreters told people we were doing when they explained the purpose of our visit.

This past week Tom Smyth, a computer science PhD student from Georgia Tech, came over to help start up a couple projects. One of these projects being the GTV mobile video story sharing system, and the other is an analysis of the motivations behind cell phone use in Liberia. We started off working on the GTV project.

One of our priorities was setting up a power supply for GTV. So we went to a couple shops down town and bought a 120 amp/hour battery and a 1500 watt inverter/charger. The inverter is pretty awesome. You plug it into the wall and it charges the battery while powering the stuff plugged into it. When the wall power cuts out, the inverter switches to the battery and keeps powering the stuff plugged into it. Basically, it’s allows you to make a huge UPS. You can keep chaining batteries together in parallel to make a system that can run for days. The Carter Center, Jimmy Carter’s rule of law NGO, has a 3000 watt inverter plugged into 4, 200amp batteries to allow their whole office to run for 5 hours when the generator shuts down for a break during the day. I was pretty excited to get to play with electronics. We bought a multi-meter to monitor the battery and diagnose problems. We also started thinking about how to convert watts, volts, and amps to watt hours of burn time for GTV. It was good ole nerdy fun.

We also needed to create a system to provide adequate lighting for GTV. We wanted to make sure that when we’re filming outside the users face isn’t a black silhouette against a super bright background, so we bought two 15 watt compact fluorescent bulbs. We wanted a focused light that would compete with the brightness of the sun. For this Tom had the brilliant idea to make reflectors out of pie pans. So I was testing the pie pan reflectors when one of the pie pans slid down and made contact with the base of the bulbs contact. Instantly both my arms became rigid, I yelled, and fell out of my chair. I needed a second to process what had happened, then had a good laugh. I’ve never shocked myself with 220 volts before.

Another exciting project that Tom and I were tasked with was performing Q-sorts surveys of mobile phone users in rural (non-Monrovia) Liberia. What’s a Q-sort you may ask? I’m glad you asked. It’s a method for determining a person’s position on one issue relative to another. In our incarnation of Q-sort we have a big mat with 31 cards. Each card says something like, “My cell phone lets me get more done in a day”, “I enjoy talking to my friends and family on my cell phone”, “I use my cell phone to stay in touch with my suppliers”, and “My cell phone makes me feel more secure.” The subject takes these cards and then arranges them on the mat from “Most like me” to “Least like me.” To make this task possible we’ve hired two Liberian research assistants, Laye and Aldoph. Both of these guys are great. Some of the best Liberians I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with. The biggest thing they help us with is explaining such an abstract concept as a Q-sort survey to the average Liberian. Laye would relate it to soccer, “Say I prefer Man U to Chelsea, but I prefer Liverpool to Chelsea and Man U. Then I would put Liverpool on the far right, Man U in the middle, and Chelsea on the far left.” We also taught Laye and Aldoph shotgun. Aldoph is now pretty good at riding up front.

Everywhere we went we’d draw a crowd, and people are always super accommodating. We first went to Robertsport and spent the whole day sitting on someone’s front porch. In a market town outside of Kakata we sat in the “offices” of the local lawyer. People want to know what we’re doing and it sometimes takes a while to explain that we aren’t working for a cell phone company or starting a school in Liberia. Oddly enough most Liberians have not met academic researchers on the streets.

For me the best part of this has been the driving. I love driving. The roads to most of the towns are paved for the first 40 miles. After that it can get bumpy. Even the paved roads are bumpy in spots. The road from Tubmanburg to Bapulo was nothing but dust, mud, and rocks. I was in a mild state of euphoria the entire trip. At the end of the trip our 4Runner was covered in dirt. I need to get the road pics and video from Tom, but it’ll be good when I do.

In addition to all this fine research I’ve also replaced all my stolen IDs. I spent a memorable 3 hours getting a new driver’s license. To reduce corruption there are 4 levels of indirection when paying for your license. First you go to the Min. of Transport where they give you a hand written bill. Then you go to the Min. of Finance where you hand the bill to someone who prints out a bill. Then you go to the teller in the Min. of Finance and give them the bill and the money. Forty-five minutes later someone comes out with a stack or receipts and calls out the names on them. Finally you take the receipt back to the Min. of Transport and there you get your license. Luckily, the Min. of Transport is across the street from the Min. of Finance.

While waiting, I met some very cool people. One guy asked if I was getting the license for my bike and I was like, “Yeah I am… How do you know I have a bike?” He said he had seen me driving around town. I still don’t buy it though. I have a helmet on when I ride; even my friends don’t recognize me when I drive by, but whatever. I also had some great conversations with people about coming to America and that you can’t just get off the plane, hail and cab and say, “I’d like to go to college and then a job please.” One guy was sure that he’d get a good job in the States, another guy was like, “No you’ll do labor.” I agreed with the later. Then we had another conversation about how inefficient the whole process of getting a license was. The guy said, “This is Africa” and before I could retort this old lady on the corner went off about how it’s not Africa, it’s them. It was great. It was so cool to be talking politics with the common man, and not just me arguing my western, college educated, think I know it all point, but to see Liberians discussing their differing views.

Also, after several weeks GATECH-1 has her vanity plates. Since the plates have arrived I haven’t been stopped at check points. A few days ago I found a hard spot on my foot where it looked like I had a splinter stuck in that the skin had grown around. I tried digging it out with my knife and all this puss came out. But when I examined it closer it wasn’t puss at all, but little white ovals. Kinda like insect larva. I was ever so slightly disconcerted by this. I went to the doctor and they checked me out, made sure the cut wasn’t infected and told me I was alright. I think I was gotten by a worm at the beach. So far I’m still alive.

This was overheard in Monrovia when one person was talking about a workshop for traditional tribal leaders about the country’s new rape laws:

1. Traditional Leader: “Can woman rape man? If so how?”

2. Traditional Leader: “If a woman is raped in the bush and no one hears it, is it still rape?”

Expat: “Yes.”

In traditional culture, if a man doesn’t force himself on a woman than it is thought that she must not be attractive enough. So a woman asked how many times a woman can refuse her husband before he can force himself on her. When told that a man can’t ever force himself on a woman, the woman was flabbergasted.

Soon Martin Bednar, another GT student, will arrive with the long awaited GTV system. Once that arrives, the real fun will start.

Also, special thanks to Tom for sharing his pictures with me for this post since my camera was stolen.

John
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Senegalese rapper Akon came to Monrovia today for a concert. Akon is by far the most popular musician in the country. You can’t go 100 feet without hearing one of his songs being blasted at a bar, music shop, or out of

someone’s car. Akon would be to Liberia what the Beatles were to America at the height of their popularity. Akon was brought to Monrovia by Cellcom, Liberia’s 2nd largest GSM company. Lately Cellcom has been running a large PR campaign to brand themselves as the Liberian phone company.

In the morning Akon drove around Monrovia and toured several places. At one point he was waving to people out of his car window. Rumor has it that someone ran up and grabbed his cell phone. The thief was then beat to death by the mob. I’ve also heard that the thief was merely hauled off by the 40 police officers assigned to Akon, though either way he probably got beat.

The cheapest ticket for the concert was $20USD. This puts the show far out of the reach of the average Liberian. VIP tickets went for $100USD. On the one hand, everyone in Monrovia wanted to see this concert; on the other, only 3,000 of the 1 million people living in Monrovia can afford it. So we were all curious to see how packed it would be. Had the tickets been $5 a pop the whole town would be there.

At 6:00pm Tom Smyth (visiting PhD student from Georgia Tech here to help with the GTV project), Sean Macleay (Carter Center), Mike Albert (Right to Play), Sando (Liberian friend and driver), and I headed out for the show. In our pockets we had $20 tickets and nothing else. After our last theft incident, we decided to pack light. Mike and I put our SIM cards in cheap phones and left our nice phones at home. Traveling without a phone is as bad of an idea as traveling with a fancy one. Tom left his phone at home, but brought his digital camera. Thanks to him we have photo and video footage of this event.

We showed up to Samuel K. Doe (who names a stadium after a cruel dictoator?) stadium a little after 6:00. The opening acts were supposed to come on at 6:00, but didn’t come on till 7:00. Even in the states I can’t think of a concert that started on time so I didn’t mind. We mingled with our fellow concert goers and talked about how crazy it might get. It was kinda weird to look out over the crowd and think this is the entire Liberian middle class that’s under the age of 45. I couldn’t imagine having a similar realization anywhere else. The stadium was probably about a 10th full. Two sections of $20 seats were filled and the $100 seats were pretty filled but that was about it. I think they would have made a lot more money had they sold $5 seats to 10X more people. There was no seating on the field. A barbed wire fence separated the stadium seating from the field. The stage was in the middle of the field.

The first couple of opening acts were alright. They lip synced to their songs, which seems to be kind of common here. But they were well choreographed and fun to watch. It was cool to watch the crowd get into the songs. Mike and I danced along to the songs once or twice and everyone cheered for the white man.

As it grew dark we walked to the top of the stadium and looked out over the wall that separated the stadium from the rest of Monrovia. People were pressed up against it looking in. Every so often someone would hop over and make a run for it. It was like watching a levy that was about to be overwhelmed, with each little wave lapping over the edge. Once a jumper had crossed the wall the Liberian National Police (LNP) were in hot pursuit. It was like watching a scene out of a movie, one jumper 10 feet in front of 3 cops, the cops holding their caps on their heads as they ran with a Billy club in their other hand. Once the police apprehended their man they gave him a few cracks on the head with the club to let him know trespassing was not allowed. Some guys fell when they were being chased and received a few kicks as well.

There were also a handful of armed Nigerian UN peacekeepers at the stadium. It was nice to know the good guys had guns. Occasionally, one of the peacekeepers would join in to chase down a jumper. I was just thankful they didn’t use them for target practice.

When Akon’s motorcade pulled up the crowd outside the stadium went nuts. He couldn’t get into the stadium because the mob was in the way of all the vehicles. The police had to form a human chain before his car and the bus of police officers could get in.

As soon as Akon made it into the stadium the chaos started. First the jumpers started pouring over the walls. The police were now focused on Akon so there was no one to stop them. All at once we saw people pouring through gate 10 in the stadium like ants coming out of their hill. Gate 10 was to the back of the stage, so these people quickly came our way. At this point we were standing at the back of the stadium. Tons of people went past us with no wrist band, a clear indication that they were jumpers. They went straight for the area around with VIP section. This area was fenced off with barbed wire. This barely slowed them down, they just kept going over. After about 20 minutes the stadium had gone from a 10th full to a 4th full.

Akon’s DJ came up to get the crowd pumped. At this point you could hear that one of the speakers had started to crack. Not what you want at a rap concert. The DJ had a mohawk and wore a skirt, or maybe a kilt.

Finally Akon arrived. The crowd cheered and we were all very excited. He opened up with one of his newer songs that I had never heard before. At the end of the song he said, “Man this ain’t right. They got my people 100 yards away. Ya’ll need to be down here.” We looked all looked at each other in shock. Why would he say that? Instantly the people poured onto the field from the VIP area. We suspect that, that was part of the plan to reward the people from dropping $100. But then everyone else came onto the field, barbed wire or not. Then Akon said, “We’re going to take over this stadium.” I was thinking, “Does he not know that this is a post-conflict country full of ex-combatants, not LA. They really will seize control of the stadium.” People just kept coming onto the field. First the lights went out. Someone probably tripped over the power cord. Then the camera feed to the jumbotron (that’s right they have a jumbotron in Liberia) went out. People started climbing on the lighting towers and then sure enough, one fell over, no doubt injuring people. After 2 minutes the audio went out, never to come back on. The show was over. Akon stayed on stage for a while, but after a 5 minutes his Hummer pulled up and sped away. At this point we decide to leave just in case there were some bitter feelings.

We left as fast as we could and stopped at a local night spot for some drinks and food. On the one hand I had a blast. It was so high energy and exciting to be in such a volatile situation. Thankfully it never blew-up. I saw some crazy stuff and we all had lots to talk about. But I was also really sad. This was so big for Liberia. A big American super star had come to their country, and in less than 10 minutes it was ruined. I’m sure a lot of people were really upset that they didn’t get their money’s worth. I imagine the sponsors, the police, UNMIL, and the government weren’t too happy either. What Liberian organization is going to put on something like this again? What artist wants to perform for such a crowd? I really hope that this doesn’t tarnish Liberia’s appeal to international figures. The country needs more positive reinforcement like this. Hopefully despite this incident, it’ll still come.

John
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So this wasn’t the best weekend I’ve had in Liberia. Friday was Prayer and Fasting day in Liberia which is a national holiday. In light of this, Michael and I went surfing at Silver beach Friday morning. Silver beach is the “surfing beach”. We had been introduced to it by our other surfing buddies. We had gone there a few other times and never had any problems. Two other guys met us out there, Kevin and Keith. They left at 9:30am or so. Michael and I got out of the water around 10:00am. When we got to the 4Runner we saw glass on the sand. Someone had thrown a rock through the rear windshield and stolen Michael’s and my bags.

This was a bit of a bummer. We asked around the beach, but of course, no one saw anything. I had brought my backpack along that I keep most of my things in. Resources here are pretty limited so I usually keep everything I need in one bag and just take that everywhere. It’s very convenient, but doesn’t work so hot when someone steals your bag. Thankfully my phone and my eye glasses weren’t in my bag. I was wearing my glasses and had my phone with me when I was driving. They never checked the center console where the phone was. Thanks God. But I did lose my digital camera, two pocket knives, my polarized sunglasses, my head lamp, my wallet with all my ID, (but not my passport) and $150USD, and all my surfing gear. Michael also lost a lot of important things, including his phone.

Thankfully a few days before I had decided that I should have a cash stash at home, just in case I really needed money in a hurry. So that worked out really well. Since Friday was a holiday the banks were all closed.

I was told that the place I had parked on the beach wasn’t very good because the car was in front of a fence that hid it from the main road. I thought it was a good idea to park there because it was closer to me. Not that I could have just hoped out of the water and stopped these guys. It was also stupid for us to just leave two bags in the back of the car, and have all our stuff in two bags. Live and learn. When I go surfing in the states I just take my keys, driver’s license and visa. I should have done that here.

On the upside the surfing was really good. Both Michael and I caught a few good waves. I noticed that my stamina is increasing. I’m able to paddle a lot more without getting super tired. Now I just get really tired. Also, my right shoulder, which I had an operation on because I dislocated it a lot in high school, didn’t bother me as much. I think it’s getting stronger.

Saturday Michael and I went shopping to replace our lost stuff. I bought two new backpacks. One to take to the beach, and one to take to work. I so miss my sweet Osprey Stratos 24 liter backpack. It was awesome. It’s probably the thing I’m most bummed about getting stolen. It was bright yellow so I’m hoping I’ll see some kid walking down the street with it, and I can buy it off of him. I’m not holding my breath. For $15 I bought two cheap Chinese made backpacks. I’m just waiting for the zippers to split open and the seems to come undone.

The thieves stole Michael’s phone. We called the number and they answered. The guy who answered told us he just had been given the SIM card by someone and he didn’t take any of our things. Yeah right. We’ll we told him we’d like to give him a reward for the SIM card because we wanted the numbers on the SIM card. We made it very clear that we weren’t looking to get anyone in trouble, we just cared about the phone numbers. He told us to meet him at a market Saturday at 9:00am. We showed up, he didn’t. It would have been cool had we retrieved the SIM card.

I’m also bummed about the camera being stolen. I fear this will make the blog far less interesting. For those of you who like pictures, I’m sorry.

I was able to get the rear windshield replaced on Saturday. I was really impressed that they got it done in less than 6 hours. Not half bad.

I reported the incident to the police department by the beach. That was an experience. It’s this little building made of concrete blocks with no power. There were 6 police officers hanging around. At the back of the station was a holding cell with a re-bar door over the opening. The gentlemen in the cell were in the back of the cell out of site. But they made quite a racket. It was pretty intense.

I told them I wanted to file a report and they pulled out a notebook and wrote out all that I told them. They were all pretty nice. I asked for a copy of the police report for Michael to give to his company since the SIM card that was stolen was there’s and they were like, “You have to go the main station for that.”

Not to be deterred from surfing, Michael and I went back to the beach Sunday morning. We took Michael’s car and driver to the beach. Michael brought his stuff in a plastic grocery bag. I brought my $5 backpack that I had bought the day before. As soon as we turned down the road to get to the beach we saw two police officers on patrol. I guess my time at the police station paid off.

Once again we had a great day of surfing. We both caught some good waves, and we had a good work out. But, when I got out of the water I found a two inch hole in the bottom of my board. I think it happened when a wave picked me up and dropped me on my board. I put my foot down to try and land on the board, and I remember it feeling soft when I landed. Not that I really landed, more just hit the board on my way down. The hole fits my heal perfectly so I’m pretty sure that where it came from. Anyway it’s fixable, but keeps me out of the water for the next few days to give the board time to dry and to apply a patch job.

So not the best weekend ever, but it was still not half bad. It could have been a lot worse. I’ve had stuff stolen from my back yard in Atlanta, and I didn’t come to Liberia to be safe and secure. I still had a fun weekend, and God blessed me with a positive outlook on the whole thing. I don’t feel bitter towards Liberia and life is a little simpler now. I mean I no longer have to debate with myself whether I want to take my camera when I go places. I know I’ll miss the camera when I want to take a picture of stuff, but I never felt down this weekend. So thank God for that.

In other news, the amputee guys that I gave $50 to for a t-shirt and their rent did give me a hand written receipt. I was kind of hoping for something a little more official, but this is consistent with the environment. I asked for the phone number of the landlord and they gave me that. I called him, and I had a really hard time understanding him. I could understand that the guys lived at his place, and that he charges 600LD ($5USD) a month. But I couldn’t get a clear answer as to whether they put down $50 for the next year. I guess I’ll know in a month or two if they still live in the same place.

Tony, the head of the amputee guys also gave me a letter requesting a loan of $40. He wants to add this to his savings of $40 and buy umbrellas to sell in the rainy season. I like the idea, but I think this is a violation of our agreement that he wouldn’t ask me for money any more. Since I just lost $150 the Etherton micro-bank is out of commission for a while so this gives me time to reflect more on this business proposal.

John
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I’d like to introduce my dear friend Mr. Jonathan Saah. Jonathan is a local Liberian entrepreneur. After the war he saved up enough money to buy a car for use as a taxi. As Jonathan operated the taxi he earned the trust of many in the expat community. So much so, that he began to only drive expats exclusively. This was a big step forward for Jonathan’s taxi service. After a few years Jonathan was able to save up and buy a newer and more reliable car. Because of his hard work, financial wisdom, and respect for the clock, Jonathan is now able to employee another man to drive this car. Currently Jonathan’s day job is working as an IT specialist at Ecobank Liberia. However, still pursues other entrepreneurial ventures.

Jonathan was trained in computer software and networking at Universal Institute of Technology In 2001. Because of this affinity for technology Jonathan opened up an internet café in the back of his home near Newport Street, in Mamba Point, Monrovia in June 2007. The café had a 128Kbps dedicated internet connection, 3 laptops for browsing, a printer, a scanner, and a Vonage voice over IP phone. The internet café attracted many customers, but not enough to recoup the cost of the internet connection and the diesel to run the generator. Jonathan shut down café in November 2007 to prevent any further losses.

Jonathan attributes the businesses lack of success to its location. He was operating the café out of the back of his home. His home is located near the old Ministry of Youth and Sports which is 50 feet from the main road hidden behind other buildings. Thus only people who knew about the café or found out through word of mouth would come by. If the café were on the main road Jonathan believes he would receive far more customers.

To this end, Jonathan has found a vacant store front he can rent to house his café. However, the down payment for the lease is prohibitively expensive for him. Jonathan has looked into taking out a loan from a local bank but has been declined. The local financial institutions in Liberia have yet to take to the micro-lending craze. International micro-finance groups have also yet to move into Liberia. Because of this lack of resources I told Jonathan I’d make a post on my blog about his business and his need for funds. Ideally Jonathan would like a loan of $1,400.00 USD repayable in 12 month with 30% simple interest. So if loaned Jonathan $1,000.00 you’d get $1,300.00 back in 12 months. If anyone would be interested in making a loan towards this amount to Jonathan or is aware of any other options please contact me at john.etherton@gmail.com. I would be happy to be the liaison between Jonathan and any perspective micro-investors. To talk to Jonathan directly email saahjonathan@yahoo.com, jsaah2001@hotmail.com, or jsaah2001@aol.com. With Jonathan’s income from his taxi service, job at Ecobank, and the internet café, he should have no problem paying off such a loan.

Below is a breakdown of the café’s expected costs and the schedule of fees for services:

Onetime costs (USD):

Monthly Costs (USD):

Fee Schedule for services (LD, USD):

Jonathan has 3 laptops for internet browsing and the hours of operation would be 9:00am-12:00pm 7 days a week. So assuming a full house, Jonathan would make 3 laptops x $1.00 x 15 hours x 30 days = $1,350.00 a month from internet browsing alone. This would generate a profit of $680.00USD.

If you have any more questions please ask john.etherton@gmail.com or saahjonathan@yahoo.com

John

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Kate, a freelance reporter, Adam, works for the Clinton Foundation, and I went to Robertsport this weekend to camp and surf. We had a late start and a little trouble at a immigration check point so we arrived a little late. Why you need to have immigration check points in the middle of the country, in counties that don’t border other countries is beyond me. Unfortunately Kate had forgotten her passport so she had to pay a fine. The guards asked if in our country you could just go around with out a passport. Probably not, but you can drive from Florida to California and never be stopped at a check point. On the upside, we did get to pass over some fun little bridges that were being worked on. It was at this point Kate got out and walked. Adam and I stayed with the ship.

Once we made it to Robertsport we put the 4Runner in 4wd and cruised the beach till we found a suitable spot for camping. We found a lovely camp site underneath and old cotton tree. We setup the tent and had a fire going just as it got dark. We had a little trouble with the fire since everything was wet from the rains. Kate and Adam are both British, and they had purchased our food supplies so we had proper meals at all times. For dinner we had toasted bread and bacon or sardines and matubal. For breakfast we had toast, eggs, and tea.

We also had marshmallows after dinner. I haven’t done that in a while. We also went down to the beach and look for phosphorescence every so often we could see a little spec of light. The seas were rough so it was hard to make anything out in all the foam. We also met some very drunk South Africans who had built a small bar on the beach. The bar was empty, but they had plenty of beer. They invited us for a sit so we hung out with them for a while. They have plans to build a hotel on the beach. I think I’d rather the beach stay remote and natural. When we woke-up, they had already started drinking again. One of the guys was like a big kid, half of me was like, “this guy is ridiculous” and half of me was like, “That’s what I wana be like when i grow up.”

After packing up we started up the car to drive down to where the surf is. We made it about 10 yards before the car stalled. (To make things worse I could even get the key out of the ignition. After a little prayer I realized the car was in neutral and wouldn’t let the key out till it was in park… oops) We spent 3 hours trying to figure out what was wrong. While waiting we played with some of the kids on the beach. At one point we had a local mechanic come and look at the 4Runner.

The battery was fine so he figured it must be a fuel problem. This is logical. So we checked the fuel line under the car, it was a little loose, but nothing sever. Then we checked the fuel line in the engine. The mechanic wanted to take off the air intake hose and put some gas right into the carburetor. This would be fine, except that the truck is fuel injected. So there is no carburetor, just fuel injectors that precisely and efficiently inject gas right into the cylinder. I asked if he knew about fuel injected engines. He said yes, but then he kept trying to tell me that this little rubber vacuum hose that led into the throttle body was the fuel line. I tried to explain to him that there’s a metal fuel rail on a fuel injected engine, and that’s where the gas enters the fuel injectors . The fuel pressure would be too great for the little rubber hose he found. It was at this point that I realized we were in trouble.

Thankfully, an UNMIL staff member who was near by suggested we check the fuses. We checked them and sure enough, one had been blown. Not only had it been blown, but someone had already wrapped some wire around the fuse to short it out. This wire had fallen loose and caused our problems. We refitted the wire and the cart started fine. I was a little worried about this since fuses are there for a reason, and something at some point had blown it. So I decided to take the truck to a mechanic when I got back to Monrovia.

In the meantime we went surfing. The waves were great. I wish I had pictures but the surfing beach is a hike from where the cars go and we didn’t want to bring valuables with us. The biggest waves were about 6′ high. It was easy to get out and a lot of fun. I even caught a little wave. My only complaint was that it was a little crowded with 5 other surfers in the water at one break, and they were all better than me. So they’d catch a wave before I could and I’d get out of their way so my board wouldn’t get ran over again.

On the whole it was a fun trip with a little excitement. We made it back to Monrovia just fine. We didn’t even get stopped by immigration. The next day I went to the Toyota dealership. I figured they’d have the diagnostic computer for the engine. I wanted to make sure the hack job on the blown fuse hadn’t damaged the engine control unit (ECU). But they didn’t have the diagnostic computer! They only had the one for diesel engines. I asked if anyone in the whole country had it and they told me No Lemon did.

So I went to No Lemon. This place was awesome. It even smelled like a garage in the States. In 3 hours they replaced the blown fuses, tested the ECU, found that the wrong sparks plugs were in the truck, and that the fuel filter had been put on backwards. They fixed it all and then washed the car, all for $125.00. Not too bad. The guy I bought the car from had boasted about how he had only used genuine Toyota spark plugs, he even showed me the receipts. So either he went to great lengths to decieve me, or his mechanic was ripping him off. I imagine it’s the latter.

And special thanks to Kate for taking all these pictures and documenting our adventure.

John
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So Liberia won the Amputee African Cup of Nations football championship. They beat Sierra Leone 1-0. I met some of the Liberian team players yesterday at the local supermarket. Sadly, this is where they beg since being an amputee soccer player doesn’t really pay. They had these way cool shirts from the event. Apparently the Ministry of Sports had made them. I told them I wanted one, and one of them started to take off the shirt he was wearing. I stopped him and tried to explain that I wanted my own shirt. I told them I’d give them $20 for a shirt if they could get me one. So today they called me up and said they had a shirt. I went over to the supermarket and met up with them. They had even put the shirt in a plastic sleeve, and what’s more, it even fit. Check out the back of the shirt too. I love it.

So we talked for a while, and the players and some other amputees told me that they needed money to pay the rent on a new place to stay since they were being kicked out of their current place. According to them, someone is building on the site that they currently live at. They said they needed $50 to pay for 8 months of rent, and that 6 of them could live there. I wish I could live that cheaply. Anyway… We talked for a while, and they agreed to bring me a receipt for the rent tomorrow and to only talk to me about soccer and their games from here on out. No more asking for money, at least for 8 months. So I ended up spending $50 on the shirt.

I’m excited to see what’ll happen. I really hope I can help these guys stay out of the rainy season and keep them off the streets. It’s crazy to think that you can provide housing for 6 people for 8 months with just $50USD. I also hope this leads to more friendly conversations about topics of a non-financial matter. It’d be nice to really get to know these guys.

In other news I got caught in the rain riding my motorcycle. I wasn’t prepared for this. I got soaked. I discovered that rain starts to really hurt at 60kmh (37 mph). Thankfully my helmet has a flip down visor. I was on my way to the Mercy Ship when I hit the rain, and they were nice enough to let me borrow some clothes while they dried off my wet clothes. I’ll know be carrying my rain jacket and pants in my backpack from now on.

John
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In my post about the African Amputee Football Cup of Champions I made some comments about the size of the field and the lack of proper equipment for the team. I received an email from Jim Loudon former goal keeper for the USA national amputee soccer team. Mr. Loudon played in four amputee soccer World Cup tournaments, and is the only American goal keeper to have a shut-out in international play. He had the following to say about my comments:

The reason the field is smaller than a regulation soccer field is because the amputee game is seven a side instead of eleven a side. Smaller pitch for a smaller team. Anticipating your next question, no, I don’t know why they chose seven a side, but it’s what they play in the Paralympics, and it wouldn’t surprise me if that was a factor. Amputee soccer is not yet a Paralympic event, “but we’re working on it,” or so they say.

The comment “I’m sure the American amputee soccer team isn’t using one-size-fits-all crutches” drew a chuckle — as a matter of fact, the American team *ALWAYS* used one-size-fits-all crutches (Team USA went belly-up after the 2001 World Cup). As far as I know, Brazil is the only team regularly equipping its players with custom crutches. They use aluminum, btw.

So there you have it. Two things can be learned from this:

1) Ask a question on the internet and someone will answer you.

2) Don’t assume the richest country in the world can outfit the players who represent it with suitable equipment.

John

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Today the tailor finished up the fabric part of the Liberian tent prototype. I also picked up a shirt and some, “short trousers” too. They all three fit pretty well. Mr. Amsu Am Bility, the tailor, did a pretty good job.

The tent is to be used to protect the users of the GTV mobile video story sharing system from the sun and keep the glare off of the computer screen. Hopefully it’ll also add some visual appeal to the system. As though, a white man and computers isn’t enough.

I set up the tent at the Carter Center with the help of a few of the guards. It was pretty easy to setup, and it looked pretty good. They all thought it was pretty good. I asked them what they thought; two of them thought it was like a palava hut. This is really good. A palava hut is traditionally where people would come to discuss their problems and resolve them. Ideally that’s what would we would like to see happen with our system, but across all of Liberia.

John

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Today, Gabe and I went to see Angola play Nigeria in the African Amputee Football Cup of Champions at Anthony Tubman Stadium (SKD) in downtown Monrovia. The feel of the game and the stadium reminded me of going to see minor league baseball when I was a kid. The stadium wasn’t huge, but it was better than my old high school stadium. The seats even had little backs to them – not a full back, but a good 9 inches for you to lean against. There were even kids selling popcorn, candy bars, and yes, even beer. Gabe and I bought some snacks, but felt a little snobby since we were the only white people there and also the only ones eating snacks. But it did feel kind of homey to sit and eat snacks while watching sports. The game was also free to attend, which is always nice.

The field was in really good condition. The grass looked well taken care of, and the lines were clearly marked. My only complaint was that the field was smaller than a regulation soccer field. They may only have one leg, but that one leg is just as strong as anyone else’s. They could easily clear the ball from one end of the field to the other. If it were up to me the field would be longer. That’s all I’m saying.

The players all had professional uniforms and looked very sharp. If it weren’t for the peeling paint on the stadium and their lack of limbs, you would think you were watching professional players. I did notice that none of them had custom crutches that properly fit them. They all seemed to be playing with your standard one-size-fits-all aluminum crutch. One guy even had a pair of wood crutches that looked to be made out of a couple of sticks. This is a shame. These guys should have custom-made carbon fiber crutches with silicon gel pads and specially formulated rubber feet that are made to take the abuse of this sport. I know Tech has a prosthetics department, so I tried to think of who I should email over there to see if they can help. If you know, please tell me. Gabe and I talked about how you would think someone would sponsor these guys with some high tech equipment. I’m sure there’s some company out there that makes this kind of stuff that could easily afford to donate some equipment. I’m sure the American amputee soccer team isn’t using one-size-fits-all crutches.

All of that aside, the game was a lot of fun to watch. The players can pull some sick moves when they plant their crutches and then come swinging at the ball. We even saw a few slides. The action is pretty non-stop. It’s amazing to watch two players chasing after the ball. They can move pretty fast. The players also didn’t take any falls. I hate watching pro-soccer when one player barely taps another and the guy goes down grabbing his knee. There was none of that. These guys are too good for it. The crowd was also really into it, which made it even better. They would cheer and yell whenever something happened. Many times, people here will make a high pitched “eeeh” when something happens that surprises them. So it was cool to hear a whole crowd of people “eeeh” when a player pulled an awesome move.

When we left, Nigeria was up 1-0. It was a lot of fun, and I’m glad we went. I’d love to go again.

Later that evening I went to the Mercy Ship for a Bible study. I had my camera with me, and the sunset was pretty, so I took a few pictures of Freeport at dusk. I downloaded a hacked firmware update for my Canon PowerShot SD1000 that lets me shoot pictures in RAW format. I’m told this should preserve more of the color depth of my images compared with the camera saving them as JPGs. I don’t really know what I’m doing, but the colors did seem a little more vivid. Hope you like them.

John
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The Little ‘G’ on the top of my cell phone screen means that the network I’m using supports GPRS or General Packet Radio Service. GPRS is the entry level standard for cellular data transmission. GPRS falls under the GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) standard for mobile telephony. Commonly thought of as a second and a half generation (2.5G) cellular technology, GPRS allows for data transfers of speeds up to 114Kbps. The word “Lonestar” on the other side of my cell phone screen means I’m getting GPRS in Liberia.

Just last week Lonestar Cell announced their jump into GPRS. After Libercell, Lonestar is the 2nd carrier in Liberia to do this. The internet is about as slow as it is in the rest of the country, but it’s still good enough for email. Mobile phone apps like Google Maps and Microsoft Live Search work well enough but don’t really have any content for the greater Monrovia area.

Lonestar was the first cell phone operator in Liberia using the GSM standard. For a long time, they held a monopoly in the cellular market until Cellcom GSM came along. Today, they are the largest carrier with about 500,000 subscribers.  It will be interesting to see what this does to the already competitive GSM market in Liberia.

Lonestar has been advertising this service in the paper, but much to my dismay, with no technical details of how to get it to work. You have to go to a Lonestar store, and there they give you a little flier with a few specific details for Nokia and Motorola phones. The alternative is to wait in a huge long line for someone else to setup your phone for you. I had to do a little playing around to get it to work on my Samsung Blackjack that runs Windows Mobile 5, but after a 4 or 5 tries I got it. Here’s what I did:

settings->Connections->GPRS->GPRS->Add

Description: lccgprs

Connects to: The Internet

Access Point: internetlcc

Leave all the rest blank

Then settings-> Connections->GPRS->GPRS Authentication

GPRS Authentication: None

After that it worked just fine.

I’ve heard that Cellcom is set to deploy EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution), a 2.75G technology, on their network in the coming months. With a theoretical top speed of 473Kbps this will make Cellcom’s network a lot faster than Lonestar or Libercell. However, that will only work if the connection coming into Liberia is that fast when you split it amongst the whole country. At any rate, I’m excited about it. I’ll keep you posted.

John

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