I thought I’d start this off with a picture of my apartment. This is what my room looks like. I’m especially proud of my painting on the wall there. For months I’ve been staying strong and resisting the urge to buy a cliche painting of an African woman drawing water or carrying something on her head. But then I saw this image and I had to have it. First of all the colors are uniquely Liberian and not just generic Africa. I like the kid in the painting because he reminds me of why I’m here. Also, on the wall is the map of Liberia with little post-its that mark where I’ve been. So far I’ve been to 13 out of the 15 counties.

Earlier this month I attended a Barack Obama fundraiser. It was a lot of fun, it was catered and the food was amazing. It was so good. The caterer has since been hired by other friends of mine. They also were strict on making sure that only US citizens were donating. Apparently that’d be illegal if someone from another country donated. The fundraiser was hosted by Jordan Ryan, deputy special representative something of something at UNMIL. Basically the number 2 person for the UN in Liberia. We watched the VP debates and played Palin bingo, you listened for words like “gosh darn”, “energy”, “renegade”, and “hockey mom.”

On the one hand it was really cool to see people so excited about American politics. It was also a very fun social event. At the same time it seemed a little ridiculous to be raising money for Obama here. So many people are in more dire need of money here, and it’s not like Obama is hurting for cash. His campaign budget is roughly half of the Liberian government’s annual budget. I’m told $7000 was raised for Obama that night. That could send 70 Liberian kids to school for a year. I guess the idea is that if Obama is elected USAID will be restored to its former glory and then aid money will flow in, in the millions. But I think the impact those 7000 dollars would have on Liberia is much greater than the impact they have on Obama’s campaign.

Speaking of Obama and helping Liberians, I’ve undertaken a small venture to capitalize on the Obama craze. Inspired by a t-shirt worn by David McCann on his visit over here, I committed some blatant copy right violations, and downloaded an Obama logo from the internet, added the ubiquitous Liberian phrase “trying small” (roughly, “we’re doing our best”) and had it printed on shirts. I then turned the shirts over to my “authorized retailers”, Mr. Smith and his friends. Keep this on the DL, but the shirts cost around $2.50 to make and I told Mr. Smith to sell them to expats for $10. I told him I want my initial investment back, and that he’s free to charge what he wants. Smith and his associates were outside the Obama fundraiser and sold quite a few shirts.

Despite the success the night of the fundraiser, the shirts haven’t been selling as well as I had hopped. I think I may have overestimated the number of liberal expats in Liberia (the folks here for mining and rubber are probably republicans). I also don’t think Mr. Smith has fully grasped the target demographic and how to best reach them. But we’re working on it.

In work related news, I… GT had a box built for the kiosk project, now called MOSES(MObile Story Exchange System). The box will house the MOSES computer when he’s not on the road at the TRC office on 9th street. If you’re in the neighborhood you should check it out. It’s been drawing a lot of attention and I hope to have some formal write-ups on this for the boys, and girls, in Atlanta soon. To the right you can see the box and the carpenters who worked on it.

Finally, Oct 7th was my birthday. I’m now 27. I can’t believe I’m this old. Late 20’s what happened? What do I have to show for all my years? I’m so close to 30 and still don’t think of myself as having a real job. Which I kinda like. I get to do a lot of coo stuff in Africa. So I’m pretty OK with that. It’s just gonna be a while before I can afford a wife and kids, or a mortgage, (not that any one else in America can afford a mortgage right now anyway), or retirement. A lot of people started asking me for my address right before my birthday. So far I’ve received nothing in the mail. So I hope you didn’t send anything important. I also haven’t received my absentee ballot which is a bit of a bummer.

My birthday was celebrated with a few friends at the newly opened Japanase Steak House. That’s the name of the place, “Japanse Steak House”. I’m hoping to have full write-up on it soon. It was good, but very Liberian (took forever, half of the menu wasn’t available, the bill was a mess, you know… the usual).

Oh yeah, and a new club opened up in Monrovia. De Javu is Liberia’s latest night club. I headed over there with the roommates and a few other people on opening night. I liked it. The music was at bearable levels, it wasn’t smoky, and the AC was up to par, I didn’t get sweaty or anything. The cover was $15 which is ridiculous. We talked them down to $10 and I would never do it again. I’m morally opposed to covers, especially in the 3rd world. But for opening night I made an exception. The place reminded me of the places I went when I was 18, but not 21. It was a little cheesy, but really good for Liberia.

Finally, I wanted to leave you with this picture from the balcony at the TRC office where I work. Just another day in paradise.

John

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Once again I’m super behind on my posting. I guess this is just how it’s going to be. So I apologize.

So after spending a few days in Liberia after returning from Sierra Leone I got right back on a plane and went the other direction to Ghana. I went to Ghana to do a little work with Busylab. They’re working on a mobile system for farmers in developing countries to get information on every part of the crop supply chain, from prices to shipping expenses and everything in between. They call the system eSoko, which is African for e-Market. I had the honor of working on the initial design of this ground breaking and ambitious project.

At Busy I was working with my long time friend David McCann. David and I have collaborated on some of the best computer science projects of all time. Notably the highly acclaimed networked Scorched Earth we made for CS2335 while undergrads at Georgia Tech. It was such an amazing piece of work that the TA’s had to make-up extra, extra credit to properly recognize the shear brilliance of the program.

Anyway, so for 10 days David and I, along with Xose and Andrea , worked on design, researching technologies and deciding how to handle key issues. It was a nice break from Monrovia. We spent all day in an air conditioned room with constant electricity. We even had not so slow internet. Though, after a while I did find myself getting restless from sitting behind a desk all day. I missed having to run errands in town or meet with people on things, but it was still nice to have a little break from Monrovia. One nice thing about the job was that I got to ride a Yamaha 250 to work. It was quite the upgrade from my Chinese 150. Not to mention riding on streets where you can go faster than 45mph.

Part of my break from Monrovia included watching lots of satellite TV, catching up on all the movies I haven’t seen, and watching the world’s economy crumble. On the weekend we went to Ada beach. It was really cool. It lacks the waves of Robertsport but it was still really a lot of fun. We took a 10 minute boat ride from a little resort hotel to a thin (200 yard) little peninsula between the Volta River and the Atlantic. We slept in little huts with country flags painted on the doors. David and I slept in the American flag hut.

In the morning the local fisherman stood on the beach and pulled in these huge nets that had the catch of the day. When they brought it all in we bought 4 cuttle fish fom them and made calamari. It was really good.

At the end of my stay in Ghana I joined Devine, one of the house keepers at the place where I was staying, for a peace march. We were marching to promote peace in Ghana with the upcoming elections. Already there had been some violence in the northern regions of Ghana. The march started an hour and a half late, but it was still cool, and fun to be a part of. I also got some way cool t-shirts from the event. Which is important, it’s hard to find a good t-shirt from a country here that’s not super touristy. So I was excited about that too.

Upon returning to Monrovia I met up with Guilhem, who I had gone surfing with in Sierra Leone, and we went to Robertsport for a day trip. The weather was terrible, but when we got to RP the conditions were perfect. It was great.

John

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