A couple weeks ago I toured three counties with Georgia Tech’s MObile Story Exchange System (MOSES). I was accompanied by my colleague Dickson Fully, IT Manager at the TRC. We went to Sinoe, River Cess, and Grand Bassa counties. Obviously I had a great time driving on some of these roads. The road from Monrovia to Grand Bassa is paved, but has so many pot holes that you have to drive really, really slow. To me this is the worse. The road from Grand Bassa to River Cess was good. USAID is paying for  a road renovation project, so it was a lot of nice rolling dirt roads.  Thanks, this is your tax dollars hard at work in Africa. The road from River Cess to Sinoe was a mess. Lots of mud and dirt. Some times it was pretty fast and some times we were down in 4L trying to not get stuck. Of course this was my favorite part.

I definitely found myself wondering why I went to school for so many years, when driving through the mud is all I want to do. At one point I kept to the right side of the road to avoid an oncoming motorcycle and just kept driving straight. Straight into a hole that held fast to our front left tire. I should have stopped, let the bike pass, then drove to the left side of the road where all the tire tracks were to indicate that, that is where I should have gone. Fully and I tried digging out the dirt around the tire so we could jack it up, put something under it, and then drive away. Every so often Fully would, stop, look at a rock, throw it aside and keep digging. I asked him what he was doing. He said, “They might be diamonds.” He also informed me that if it was a diamond we would be going straight to the airport. I never had to deal with this when stuck in the mud in Florida. We never found any diamonds. After an hour of pushing, digging, and shortening the life of the transmission, some very nice Liberians came along and pushed us out. They only asked that I give them $10USD in exchange for their services. Seemed fair to me, I wasn’t going to argue with them. Fully told me this was a good jungle experience for me. I agreed. I think we both bonded. I also learned that the 4Runner’s 4WD is more of a, “don’t get stuck driving on the beach” or “keep from spinning out when driving on snow” 4WD than a “drive through anything” 4WD. I had the car in 4L and where did all the might of the 3.4L V-6 go? To the one tire that wasn’t getting any traction. Some sort of limited slip or locking differential would have freed us in no time. Should have bought a Land Cruiser.

We also encountered several other stuck vehicles. Some we could help, and some we couldn’t. We used our tow rope to pull this truck out on the left. We scraped our selves up a little when we passed this lorry, on the right, that was stuck on a bridge. They had laid some wooden planks on the side of the bridge so you could drive around the side of the lorry and get on the bridge. We slid latterly in the mud and had a rubbed up against the lory. And finally we came across this SUV that was stuck at the bottom of a hill. We thought about pulling them out, but there was nothing but mud in front of them, and I was afraid we’d just slide right into their bumper. So we drove around them on the high ground.

On the right here is what GATECH-1 looked like after arriving in Sinoe, eight hours after we left Monrovia. As you can see the new shocks and springs make the 4Runner look pretty nice. And we never hit the frame once the entire time. Of course I was driving carefully, but some of the roads here were pretty rough on our ramblin wreck. She still came through shinning. So much so that Fully insisted that we have her washed at every stop. He pointed out that no one would want to crowd around a dirty car to a see a cutting edge piece of reconciliation technology. So we drove out into a stream and had someone wash the car. We even had a little dirt on the license plate that needed to be scrubbed off.

Over all our research work went well. We had large crowds most of everywhere we went, and people were excited to see what we were doing and be apart of it. I have a video of some of the best of from the trip, both driving and users here. As you can see in the picture on the left we had lots of people checking out what we were doing. This picture is from Buchanan, Grand Bassa County. Some of our best interactions came from a group of guys in Greenville, Sinoe. We setup in front of a tea shop where all the local men come to “lecture.” That’s what Liberians say, the don’t say discuss or talk, they say “lecture.” These guys gave some fairly insightful and well educated thoughts on the causes of Liberia’s problems going all the way back to its American settlers.

I also found a Shell station in Greenville, Sinoe County. The sign seemed a little shot up, but there was a boy with mayonnaise jars of gasoline and a hand panted sign that said “Shell” behind him so I figured it must be legit. There was a also a Texaco in town, but it didn’t seem to be doing so well. The picture on the left is a sunset over a grave yard in Cestos, River Cess county. My camera didn’t do a very good job of getting both the sunset and the tombstone. Trust me, it looked really cool in person.

In other news the TRC summer interns, Zoey and Kara left to go back to school.  The TRC staff had a going away party for them at the Garden Cafe. Garden is one of my favorite night spots in Liberia. Lately the ratio of regular girls to commercial sex workers(not to be confused with faith based or non-profit sex workers) has been a little low. Even still, with a large enough group of people it can be a really good time. Just be sure that you bring enough friends to achieve critical mass.

Every Friday Garden has the GML band playing everyone’s favorite Liberian, reggae, pop, and rock hits. The band is led by this guy. I have no idea who he is, most of us call him the “old guy.” The best is when the band sings Shakira’s Hips Don’t Lie. It’s a great song to dance to and the old guy can bust it out. This particular night out I learned that one of the TRC’s drivers sings back-up for the band. Here we are adding to the overall vocal harmony.

Finally, the TRC’s public hearings have been in full swing. They’ve had some of the major players in the civil conflicts come forward and speak about their involvement. As you can see from this picture of the Centennial Pavilion in downtown Monrovia, the house is packed.

John

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In my humble opinion, Shark’s is the best ice cream in all of Monrovia, and thus all of Liberia, hands down. As soon as it hits your lips you’ll instantly recognize the distinct taste and texture of real cream. No soft serve mix, none of that gelatin nastiness from Monaliza, but real delicious cream, the way ice cream was meant to be. When I was a kid my mom would buy heavy whipping cream, throw in some sugar, salt, and vanilla extract, kick on the churn, and make some of the best ice cream I’ve ever had. That’s exactly what Shark’s taste like, it’s great.

Shark’s is located down a small side road off of Airfield Road right before Sprigs Airfield. If you’re coming from Tubman, Shark’s will be on your right. Just look for the sign, turn right, and then it’ll be on your right. Can’t miss it.

Shark’s sells its ice cream in a variety of sizes that are reasonably priced. I go with the 75LD small cup, about 6oz. Unless you’re preparing for rainy season hibernation it’s about all the creamy goodness I can handle.

Shark’s also has a mobile ice cream sales force. You’ll notice that they’re ice cream cones retail for 15LD. This is in contrast to Shark’s main competitors, Quench Your Thirst International, who sells cones for 10LD. But once you have a Shark’s cone, you’ll gladly pay that extra 5LD. It’s just so good.

Shark’s Ice cream, the closest thing you’ll find to a Cold Stone/Marble Slab in the whole country.

A while ago I wrote about Mr. Smith. He’s a blind double amputee that I’ve befriended while being here. He’s been my favorite amputee because of his cheerfulness and gratitude. In July he asked me to give him some money so his wife, Ruth, could sell dried goods. I asked him to submit a list of items and prices. The next week he had a shopping list ready for me. So I took his wife and his friend, Moses, to Red Light market where we bought around $100USD worth of goods. They were all excited to have their store fully stocked, and it was kinda exciting for me as well.

So this past week I stopped by to check on the store. Mr. Smith happily told me he had sold 6 bags of rice since I had last seen him. At first I thought, “Hmmm six bags, I was hoping for more like 60, but it’s a start.” But then I saw the empty rice bags on the floor. I realized that in less than a month he had sold 6 50kg bags of rice!!! That’s about 660lbs for you Americans. Not to mention 12 gallons of cooking oil. The picture at the top left is Mr. Smith with his kids and Ruth standing in front of the empty rice bags and oil jugs.

After seeing the empty bags Mr. Smith showed me the tin can he had his savings in. He said every day he puts 50LD in it. I looked at the tin and asked how to open it. Everyone laughed, and said you don’t. You put money in it till it won’t fit anymore and then break it open. He told me he only puts 50LD bills in the can and not 10 x 5LD bills. He also showed me his current cash surplus. It totaled around $30USD. In a country where most people make less than a dollar a day, having $30USD lying around plus a savings tin full of money means you’re doing pretty well. To the right is Mr. Smith with his two children and the business’s money.

So far this seems to have been my first sustainable development success. The phone charging business I helped start when I was here last year is non-existent and the guy never paid me back, though his cell phone scratch card business is doing well. I’ve been told by some amputees at the super market that Ruben, the man I bought the tarp for to cover his house, has sold the tarp. Though when I talk to Ruben he tells me he’s just waiting to save up enough money to buy some woven mats for the walls.

At any rate, I haven’t lessened anyone’s situation and it feels great to see Mr. Smith succeeding. He told me he wants $50USD to buy a tarp and some building materials to construct a small shop on the side of his house. I think Mr. Smith has graduated from charitable donations to loans with interest.

John

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I just got back in the office from a wonderful, and slightly long, lunch break. Today was an absolutely gorgeous day, sunny,  warm(not hot), and a very light breeze. So light in fact, that it made for very glassy waves. They were small, but compared to what they’ve been lately I’ll take whatever I can get. I tried to go out Saturday and the wind and the current wouldn’t have it. I just paddled, and went no where for 15 minutes. Not very exciting.

So at 1:00 I met up with Keith and Peter for a quick lunch break surf at Thinker’s Village. I hadn’t been to Thinkers in a while so I was shocked to see how much of the beach had been eroded. Several of their concrete palava huts were now lost to the see. It was crazy.

Anyway… The waves were small, but if you waited long enough a 3′ or 4′ wave would come by. We all had a few good rides. Towards the end of the day the wind picked up and the waves started to really suck. But, I can’t complain. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend lunch.

John

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This past week No Lemon received the new heavy duty springs for GATECH-1. Before the rear springs were pretty much shot, causing the car to bottom out all the time. The new springs have lifted the back by a good 4″. Just check out these before and after picturess. The car also drives a lot nicer over the rough roads of Monrovia. I’m very much looking forward to taking her out up country. In theory the car can now carry 600lbs over the standard load in the back. I had 5 people in the back plus the MOSES power pack. We drove from downtown to Congo Town with out bottoming out once. Amazing.

Once again I’ve managed to go a month with out any updates. When I started out I thought this would be easier than it is. The hard part is getting the photos up here, and we all know photos make the blog. Like this photo here. See if you can spot the white man standing at Water Side Market.

Water Side is where i took my friends David McCann and Stephanie Kruse when they arrived here to get a taste of Liberia. David and I studied computer science at Georgia Tech together for both our undergrad and grad degrees. He now works for Busy Labs in Accra. Steph and I went to the same church in Atlanta. She teaches special ed in the Gwenette County school system. Steph arrived at the beginning of July and has been helping the TRC with some copy editing.  The following is a brief summary of the high points of our adventures this past month.

I’ve noticed for some time that GATECH-1, my company car in Monrovia, has been riding a little low in the back. Especially when there’s equipment in the back and a back seat full of people. The tire would be an inch from the wheel well when the car is fully loaded. I found myself driving very slowly to avoid bottoming out on every pot hole, and there are a lot of pot holes here.

I took the car to No Lemon garage to see what could be done. Given the nature of the driving the 4Runner would be doing, they recommended heavy duty shocks and springs, which I fully agree with. Unfortunately, they couldn’t get the parts in for several weeks. They had to import the parts from their supplier in Australia. So I decided to work on a quick fix in the mean time.

I went down to the rubber market, and found four 4″x1.5″ blocks of rubber. I had the guys at the market cut these up into eight 2″x1.5″ blocks. This set me back a paltry 700LD. I then went home, jacked up the 4Runner, and shoved 4 blocks in between the each coil of the rear springs as shown above. Amazingly, this added about an inch and a half of lift to the rear of the car and fixed the bottoming out. The ride was even pretty good, no squirly backend or anything. This reminded me of the kinds of things friends in my neighborhood would do to raise their pick-ups when we were in high school. Though after a while a few of the blocks of rubber fell out, so a real solution to the problem is needed. I’ll keep you posted.

We also took the MOSES (MObile Story Exchange System, formerly known as the Kiosk) out to Vonzula, Grand Cape Mount county. We were invited to go there by David Kizolu, the TRC county coordinator for Grand Cape Mount. Vonzula is a market town about 20 (I’m making up this number) miles from Sierra Leone. We went on market day so the place was packed. There were some good interactions with MOSES and the locals, lots of good videos were recorded, and as always people seemed excited. I think Steph and David liked it because it was a break from Monrovia and more of a sampling of rural Liberia. Like a lot of places the capital city is not what the rest of the country is like. David and I met a lot of people from the surrounding area, and Stephanie was befriended by every child in the market. Some parents just asked her to the take the kids back with her, she declined.

What trip to Liberia would be complete with out going to Robertsport? So of course Steph, David, Carter Center Sean, and I rented a tent at Nana’s Lodge for a night to soak up the sun and the waves. The surfing was OK on Saturday, but Sunday was rainy and windy. However, we did have a good time walking down the beach. In this picture I’m riding down the sandy cliff of a stream created by rain water running from the hills through the beach and into the ocean.

On July 17th Monrovia saw its first ever trivia night. Founded by Sean Mcleay, trivia night was composed of a round of Liberian trivia, general trivia (music, movies, people, places), and  wild card trivia, with a final question. Between the first three rounds was a special picture question. Our team comprised of David, Steph, new roommate Sabrina, and me. Trivial was held at Taaj Indian Restaurant, with first place receiving a $50USD gift certificate and second place a $20USD gift certificate to Taaj. We dominated the Liberian trivia round but then hit some rough waters with the other two rounds. Thankfully, we had a strong showing in the first picture question and the final question, which was a science question. So we came in second. Not bad for our first try and David’s first full day in town.

In our quest to find touristy things to do in Monrovia, which isn’t easy, we ended up at the Monrovia Breweries, home of Liberia’s own Club Beer. When we first arrived we were told we had to submit a written request for a tour and then management would get back to us. These guys wouldn’t have any sweet talking, they were all business. But they did tell us that maybe we should come back at 2:00 when the boss man was back from lunch. So I left my business card and we went on our way. After lunch and a way fun ride on a random dusty road we came back to the Brewery.

We talked for a while, and again were told we needed to submit a request in writing. Then, right as we had started up our motorcycles to leave, they flag us down and said, “Why didn’t you tell us you were the people that left the business card? Come on in.” Apparently my business card constituted a request in writing, or something like that. So the assistant brew master, a very nice man named Sampon, took us on a full tour.

It was amazing. One of the best things I’ve done in Liberia. The picture on the top left is me in the brew house control room with one of the guys that runs the system. The picture on the right is of cans of hop extract. They don’t use fresh hops because it takes too long to ship them over from Germany.

There were several outstanding things about the tour, but for me the most amazing was that we saw no other white people working there. The whole place was run by Liberians, and these were some serious, on the ball, and very professional Liberians. Though the plant is Swiss owned it was so nice to see it Liberian run. Often I find myself struggling here with the lack of capacity in human capital, so it was very refreshing to see such an operation so well run by Liberians.

Another thing I enjoyed about the tour was the lack of OSHA/FDA restrictions. We went everywhere and saw everything. It was great. No, “don’t walk there it’s slippery or.”, “We can’t go past this point with out washing our hands.” It was all access. I mean we’re all adults, we don’t need the government telling us to walk slowly on a wet floor, I can see it’s wet. Though I must say that the plant was very clean, neat, and sanitary. They showed us all the things they do to clean out the system between brews. They also answered every question we asked. No, “That’s a trade secret.”

Some facts I found intersting about the plant.

• Contrary to popular belief the plant did shut down during the war.
• They brew Club Beer, and are licensed to brew Guiness Stout and Guiness Malta, very impressive.
• They brew a little less than 5 million gallons a year.
• They don’t export because they can’t meet the local demand as is!!
• Obviously clean water is important to them, so I was very surprised to learn that they mainly get water from the city of Monrovia. They said it’s usually pretty pure and if they do anything at all to the water they only add a little chlorine. They said the real problem is when they have to get water from other sources, then it’s not clean.
• A crate of 12 large club beers wholesales for 860LD. On average they retial for 100LD per bottle. So a profit of 28LD per bottle. That’s almost $0.50USD.

At the end of the tour we saw their bottling operation, also impressive, and had a absolutely delicious club beer. It was so hoppy and fresh. I asked when it was made, “yesterday”, was the reply. Amazing!

On that same day we also visited Hotel Africa. Built for a continent wide conference in the 70’s, Hotel Africa was at one time the largest hotel in Liberia, and I’m told it had the largest swimming pool in West Africa, and maybe all of Africa. As you can tell from the picture the building was very impressive. The pool is in the shape of Africa. In addition to the hotel there were casinos, restaurants and boutiques.

I was super impressed to see dry wall in the rubble. I haven’t seen dry wall since I’ve been here. They also had duct work lying around from the hotel’s HVAC system. Again, something I haven’t seen working here since I arrived.

I’ll end with a little bit about my life in Liberia. To the right is a picture of my favorite meal to cook here. I call it “John’s Skillet Surprise.” Because of the uncertainty of refrigeration and the price of most food items I’ve adapted by pan frying some potatoes and onions, and then adding adding eggs. Some times cheese or avocado can be added, a little garlic is nice as well. Often I’ll serve skillet surprise with ketchup. It’s around $2.00USD to make a plate of skillet surprise and refrigeration isn’t required for the meals components. Though I do prefer to keep the eggs refrigerated most of the day.

Is skillet surprise tasty? Just look at Sean’s face.

John

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Shirley’s Restaurant serves local food but with more refinement than you’ll find at most local dining establishments. Located on 10th Street, beach side in Sinkor, Shirley serves cabbage salad, potato salad, and my favorite, fried rice, in addition to local rice dishes. I like the food for the following reasons: the pepper is put on the side; the meat is served as one big piece, thus there are no little bones to pick-out; the presentation is quite nice, and it tastes good. A plate of food will run you $150 Liberian dollars. Meals include a small cabbage salad with a “zesty” mayonnaise and spices dressing. Not a bad for two and a half bucks.

In addition to cooking at her restaurant, Shirley also bakes. She’s made many a wedding cake, and

she’ll be more than happy to pull out her rather impressive scrapbook of cakes she’s made to showcase her abilities.
The service at Shirley’s is also prompt and courteous. Compared to other local places I’ve been, Shirley is downright speedy. She also has meals well into the day for those of us who can’t pull away from work at the stroke of noon.

On the whole, Shirley’s is a great place with good food and friendly people, and it is relatively inexpensive. What more could you want from a lunch spot?