Recently the TRC had several of the major actors of Liberia’s civil conflict appearing before their public hearings. As you can see from the picture on the left, it was a packed house. On that day in particular Senator Prince Johnson was appearing before the TRC. Prince Johnson was a leader of rebel faction and is widley believed to be responsible for the death of President Doe. Especially since there’s a video of Johnson tourturing Doe to death and then eating his ear. Unfortunately, Johnson glazed over this issue, saying he wasn’t really sure about what happened to Doe.  The picture on the right is of Johnson at the witness stand.

Despite the omission of a few facts, the day was very good for the TRC. People were happy to see such “big fish” as they call them, appearing before the TRC. So many people came that there weren’t enough seats in the hearing hall, so people crowded by the windows to hear. The TRC even ran a speaker outside so people on the street could hear the proceedings.  UNMIL was also on duty that day ensuring that nothing happened at the hearings. I had heard some rumors that members of President Doe’s family were intending to kill Johnson when he took the stand. Nothing happened, but it was good to see so many guys in blue hats with AK-47s keeping the peace.

John

<><

Just a quick update on Mr. Smith and his family’s small business. Last time I had spoken with him he had asked me to give him another loan to build an extension to his house to put the shop. Currently, the Smiths kept all the inventory of their dried goods business in the corner of the their one room house. Expanding would give them some much needed space and give their clients a more professional shopping experience. However, at the same time Mr. Moses, Mr. Smith’s brother (different father, different mother) had also asked that I help pay for him to have his prosthetic leg refinished because it was starting to rub his leg raw, so I did that instead.

But the last time I visited the Smiths I was happy to see that Mr. Smith had gone ahead and taken the initiative to build the extension himself. You can see the extension in the photo at the top. This is definitely another positive sign of Mr. Smith’s business sense and his proactive attitude. So many people would have just waited for me to pay for it for them, so I was very impressed by this. He told me he still needed help getting some shelves installed. We’ll see about that when I get back from Ghana. 

John

<><

A couple weeks ago Jeff Austin(left) and I went to Sierra Leone to check out Freetown. Jeff had been to Bo in Sierra Leone, but this was my first time in Sierra Leone. Jeff and I both really liked it. Freetown is at the base of some mountains right on the ocean. It’s a beautiful city, and the people were all very nice. In Monrovia it seems that there’s an underlying animosity and sense of entitlement in a lot of people, I didn’t get that feeling in Freetown. People still asked for stuff and hasseled us, but it was far less aggressive. Below are some of the pictures of are times in SL.

The roads in Freetown are much nicer than those in Monrovia. Granted, we didn’t go to some of the more run down parts of the city, but the major roads were notably lacking in potholes compared to the major roads in Monrovia. The run down parts of Monrovia aren’t even paved. At one point Jeff was talking with an expat in Freetown about the roads to Liberia. She went to great lengths to emphasize how bad they were. To which Jeff replied, “But you made it through right? So they can’t be that bad.” She then replied, “No, they were really bad.” Jeff lives in Harper in Liberia. Right now, in the rainy season, no automobile can drive to Harper, the roads are that bad. Thus, Jeff and I concluded that “bad roads” in Liberia and Sierra Leone mean different things. To the right is a picture of some of the wonderful roads in Freetown and in the background the green hills that the city is built on the side of. I really liked the hills, having all that vegetation in plain site on the hills helps to remind you that you’re in what should be a tropical paradise.  While Freetown is a step up from Monrovia it’s still a little under developed. To the left is a picture of another thing I really liked about Freetown, street signs, again something rarely seen in Monrovia.

Another great part of Freetown was the architecture of the buildings, as seen from these two examples. Sierra Leone used to be a British colony at one point, and you can still see their influence in the structures they left behind. The building on the right is of the Justice Ministry. The one on the left is just some building I really liked. I’m sure it’s more important than that, but I’d just be making stuff up if I tried to guess its importance.

Another novelty Jeff and I enjoyed in Freetown was the public Library. As of yet I haven’t seen a public Library in Monrovia. There may be one, I just haven’t seen it. At any rate Jeff and I were way exited to sit and read for a bit. Naturally I found a mid spring 2008 Popular Science. I was really impressed that they had such an intelligent piece of literature. I caught up on the latest gadgets that wouldn’t work in Liberia because we don’t have power there. We stayed at the Library for a good 3 hours. It was wonderful. 

One of the best parts of our time in Freetown was staying at the Faduma Guest house.  The owner was a guy named Stone who worked for the Sierra Leonean department of corrections teaching fine arts to those spending their days behind bars. Stone was a very nice host. One day a young man was over to negotiate for his daughter. He was so excited he gave Jeff and I a free beer, what a guy. Stone was also a big fan of American politics. So much so that the night Barack Obama gave his speech at the DNC, Stone woke us up at 2:00am so we could all watch the speech. It was pretty cool seeing people in other countries so excited about American politics… in a positive way. This is much different than the time I came up from a French subway in the middle of an anti-Bush protest.  Stone would watch American news and verbalize his agreement with Obama and Bidden’s speeches. He even talked with us about how ridiculous of a choice Palin is. It was a lot of fun talking with him. To the right is a picture of my room at the Faduma Guest House. The guest house is located at N8.48398, W13.26993.

Other highlights included the public park at the center of town and the many seafood dinners we had. A picture of the park is on the left.  Again, public parks like this are something that don’t exist in Monrovia. The picture on the right is the Hard Rock Restaurant. The restaurant is located on a large, hard rock at the beach.

John

<><

So I went to Sierra Leone last week, stopped off in Liberia for a few days and now I’m in Ghana. I’ll talk about this more, but right now I’m trying to catch-up on my blogging. I’ll have a full report of Freetown later, but right now I wanted to make a quick report on some surfing. And even later I’ll talk about Ghana and what not, but to get the ball rolling…

In freetown I hooked up with a couple Freetown based expats who took me surfing at Bureh Beach. On the ride to the beach I just hung my head out the window and soaked in the beauty of the Sierra Leonean country side, so I don’t really know how we got there.  It was about an hour east of Freetown. But we were here N8.20739, W13.15552. On a side note, I noticed Google maps seems to place the coordinates several hundred meters away from where I think they should be, so either Google Maps isn’t super accurate for West Africa, or my GPS was pretty far off. Anyway…

Bureh was gorgeous. After getting out of the car we passed a few huts and signs of human existence, but by and large the place was totally pristine. It reminded me a lot of Robertsport, Liberia. Bureh is a beach break, though sometimes the waves would break along the rocks at the far right of the beach making some left handed rides. On bigger swells a nice line would form and even a few small barrels. The guys I was with told me that the waves were a lot bigger and nicer the day before. Too bad I missed it. I still really enjoyed it. I had a quite a few nice little runs and enjoyed getting out. 

John

<><