I just wanted to make a quick post saying that the surf has picked up noticeably in these last couple of weeks. We went from really small, disorganized and choppy waves to really small, organized, nicely shaped and consistent waves. So still small, but a lot of fun to ride and easy to catch. The later being important to me. The sets are even coming in a lot quicker than before. I’m hoping this marks the transition from the messy rainy season waves to the pretty dry season waves. I’ll keep ya posed.

Another change I’ve observed lately, that could possibly be related to the improved waves, is the weather. It’s been… almost cold. The other night I was beginning to almost start to regret wearing shorts. I drove home with the windows down and heater on. Kinda like what I would do in October in Atlanta. It was fantastic. The mornings have also been nice and… not hot. So that’s been very nice. It’s kinda like winter… sorta.

These two pics are me surfing in Robertsport. Again, not the biggest waves, but good clean fun none the less.

I spent my first new year’s abroad this year. Christy from the American School, Andrew, Deb, Jenn, Matt, all from Orphan Relief and Rescue(ORR), and I went up to Robertsport for three days to celebrate the new year. However, we hit a little snag when my transmission blew a seal. I had just received my car back from No Lemon, who up until now I liked a lot, after having two seals replaced. To get to one of the seals they had to take the transmission off, so when the car started having problems I had a good idea of what the problem was.

So with transmission fluid pouring out of my car I had to have Andrew tow me home with his Indian made Tata pick-up, a car that looks like I should be towing it, and not the other way around. In fact, earlier in the day I had made a joke that I brought my tow rope incase the Tata needed to tow the 4Runner back. Now I was very glad that we had the tow rope.

I wasn’t sure how bad it would be to run the engine with the transmission in neutral, but with no fluid. So I left the engine off, which meant no power breaks. On top of this Andrew was a little too excited when he pulled away the first time we tried towing, so the tow rope was rather short. This made for a very hair raising 3 hour trip back to No Lemon. So much so, that Christy couldn’t ride in the front seat. The picture on the right is me getting towed through Dwala market while UNMIL armored troop carriers role past.

But we made it back just fine. No Lemon was apologetic and began looking at the car right away. It turned out that when they put the tranny back on they had neglected to replace the old casket, and it sprang a leak. The car is now running fine, and I didn’t have to pay for anything.

So we went and picked up another vehicle from ORR and headed back to Robertsport. After 10 hours we reached our destination, just before sunset. We didn’t do much the first night. We had hoped to arrive a littler earlier in the day. Andrew and i went out and caught a couple waves before the sunset. The next day, in addtion to being New Year’s Eve, was also the wedding day for Joe’s, the South African owner, brother. So I attended my first beach wedding in Liberia.

It was awesome. The bride pulled up in the sand on a four-wheeler, and I still had my wine glass that I had brought from the bar. Every wedding should be this cool. It was also surprisingly quick. The justice of the peace proclaimed the marriage law of Liberia and then the two were joined. After that we were all invited to a wonderful dinner and some very tasty Champaign.

The highlight of the night was probably the phosphoresce in the water. Some sort of microorganisms, that I know nothing about, glow when they are disturbed in the water, so when we went for our midnight swim every time we moved in the water, the water would glow around us. It was way cool, and made for a great transition to 2009. We also did some minor fireworks as evidenced by this photo to the right.

So I was parking my motorcycle last night outside of the Palm hotel to meet some friends for dinner when this cop came up to me and told me that I was in violation of the no bikes after 8pm rule, and that my bike was “arrested.” (Just to be clear, the bike was arrested, I was never arrested.) At first I was very skeptical of such a rule, I wasn’t really sure what to do. But being someone who gets pulled over all the time I kept my cool, acted like I had all the time in the world, and parked my bike over where he had pulled over a few other bikes.

After I parked my bike he asked for the key. I told him I wouldn’t give him the key. He asked why and I told him because I don’t trust the police in Liberia. There’s no way I’m going to leave my bike with those guys. If I got it back, it’d probably be missing the battery and a few other parts. So we talked for a while. He kept mentioning that it was at his “discretion” as to how to handle violators of this law I had never heard of. A few of the people gathered next to me told me I should “compromise” with the officer. I told them I didn’t compromise. The officer asked, “What do you want to do” and I was like, “Whatever is required by the law.”

We talked some more and then he decided we should go to the central police station. I agreed. He had one of the other bikes he had pulled him over drive him up there while I followed behind. I gave him my passenger’s helmet. I didn’t want him to break the law by not wearing a helmet.

Upon my arrival at “Central” I met his boss, his boss’s boss, and his boss’s, boss’s boss, and we talked more. The law changed from applying to all motorcycles, to applying to bikes with “CMC”, or Commercial Motorcycle, plates (The Ministry of Transport refused to give me a regular motorcycle plate because too many people were getting personal plates and then using their bikes as taxis, or so I was told). Then the price of the ticket I would have to pay went from $35 to $45, and then back to $35. I asked if I should pay a ticket and they said it was 9:00pm and they couldn’t write tickets then. I asked when I should come back in the morning, and I never got a straight answer to that one. We then talked about my work with Georgia Tech, and what I do in Liberia. Finally since I was affiliated with a university, and a couple of them went to the University of Liberia, obviously a common bond, they decided to let me go.

However, then I had to explain why I had said I didn’t trust the police. Looking back on it, I probably could have chosen my words a little more carefully. I told them how I’d been in Liberia a while and I knew how things worked, that I get pulled over for doing nothing, and I gave my corruption monologue, and they were pretty understanding. In the end they turned out to be pretty nice guys and we were cracking jokes. I even got one of their numbers. I asked if I could go on patrol with them some time and they said sure. So maybe I’ll try to hook that up.

But what I really want to talk about is how ridiculous this rule is. I checked with my friend at the Ministry of Justice, and sure enough, due to the fact that armed robbers have been using motorcycles in their robberies Ellen decided to ban motorcycles on the road past 8pm. Since the government’s ban on arms in the country has been so effective at stopping armed robberies, they’ve decided to extend it to motorcycles. (If you can’t tell from the tone of my text, there’s a lot of sarcasm in that last sentence).

I mean really? No bikes past 8? All that does is screw over the Liberians who are trying to get home at night and can’t find a taxi, or the Liberian who’s just barely middle class, saved up all year, and finally bought him or herself a bike, and now has to worry about leaving work too late. Not to mention any bike rider who just wants to cruise around, like me.  I’m sure that while a robber is grabbing a machete, or AK-47, he’s thinking, “geez, can’t take the bike… Maybe we should just call it a night.” They’re probably thinking “guess we should just steal a car.” Or most likely, they don’t think about it at all.

It’d be one thing if the citizens of Monrovia were plagued by the local chapter of the Hell’s Angels. If women and children couldn’t walk the streets at night because marauding gangs of bikers on 100cc Chinese made motorcycles were out wreaking havoc, then I’d be fine with the law. But the robbers are just using the bike as a getaway vehicle. They’re probably wearing pants during their robberies too, maybe they should ban pants passed 8 as well.

Building capacity in the police force and fighting corruption in the Liberian justice system would probably be slightly more effective. Maybe even figuring out where these armed robbers are getting their arms. Or how about coordinating neighborhood watches, and ensuring quicker responses to robberies. I’ve been told by robbery victims how the police at the police station a quarter mile away waited till the robbers left before they came over. Which gets at another issue I’d love to write about but I’m not going to: Do you really expect unarmed police to engage armed robbers?

I’ve been trying to think of peaceful ways to protest this law. I was told that not too long ago the motorcycle riders got together and blocked an intersection in protest of these sort of discriminatory laws, which just resulted in all the bikes being locked up at the police station. So I guess Critical Mass style demonstrations won’t be that effective. I’ll keep ya posted.

So yup, still way behind on the blog.

One of the notable things that has happened recently was the full moon party at Nana’s Lodge in Robertsport. Back in October Leah and I were talking about the lack of beach parties in a country with amazing beaches. So we decided to have one. We continued to talk and decided that what we needed was not just a party but an all inclusive weekend. So we talked to Musa, co-owner of Nana’s Lodge. We asked if we brought him 50 people paying $100 for all you can eat and drink for a night and two days if he could take care of the rest. Knowing a good deal when he sees one, Musa said yes. After further discussion we decided that 10% of the proceeds should go to a local charity in Robertsport. We didn’t want it to look like a bunch of white people were just partying it up for no good reason. So we gave $500 to the St. John’s Episcopal High School reconstruction fund.

We got to take a tour of the school and it was amazing. It was one of those few places you go to in Liberia and realize how nice the country was before the war came and ruined it for everyone. I hope the money will go far towards restoring the place to its original beauty. In this picture you can see the old church building on the school campus.

My favorite part of the party was the midnight moon light surf. I’m told that we picked the brightest full moon in the last 25 years for our party. So surfing at night was a lot of fun. The best part was that the water was so clear. We could see our shadows on the sand below as we floated over in the water with just the moon light. It was so amazing. One of those moments everything is so amazing it makes you wana believe in God.

Christmas has also happened since I last wrote. A mass exodus of expats occurred, but me, and a brave few, remained behind to hold down the fort. Christmas in Liberia was pretty nice. It was hot and sunny like every day here, so it didn’t feel at all like Christmas. Things quieted down a little and it was nice to relax at Christmas instead of running around from event to event. I spent Christmas day at my friend Christy’s apartment with my roommate Vishal, Leah, the people form Orphan Relief and Rescue, and Jacob and Keith, who do health work here. We had brunch, which seems to be very much in style amongst expats in Monrovia. Vishal and I headed out for a Christmas day surf.

In celebration of Christmas Monrovia decked the halls, or at least decked a few sidewalks and street lights. The street lights were quite impressive. As you can see from this picture on the left, lights were strung from light pole to light pole in front of the executive mansion. Lights also graced Broad Street and the bridge to Bushrod Island. It was beautiful. While it does seem kinda like a waste of money while people are hungry, laying in dilapidated hospitals, and standing in class rooms with no chairs, but it is a very nice sign of progress and hope. Not long ago the Liberian Electric Company (LEC) wasn’t operational, now they can power Christmas lights. Not bad.

Right down the street from the mansion, at UN Drive and Camp Johnson road, was this wonderful display of Christmas tackiness. How a mechanical dancing Santa made it to Liberia is beyond me. I’m just glad that this isn’t how the government chose to show its Christmas spirit.

In this picture flat mate Vishal and I are giving our security guards their Christmas present. We bought a 50kg bag of rice for the day shift, and one for the night shift. I think that made us their favorite tenants. We also gave our maid the week off. I don’t think she really understood it at the time, I don’t think she’s used to taking a Christmas holiday. I also realized later that she probably thought we were trying to get rid of her with out giving her a gift. So we called her up and had her come back over and take the first crack at the bag of rice. She seemed happy after that.

A lot of Liberians asked me for “my Christmas.” Another popular saying was “my Christmas on you-O.” While I do like to help those I can, the entitlement that people asked with really bothered me, especially when people who I’ve already helped a lot were asking me for their cut. It was obvious that it wasn’t about friendship or being nice to the ones you love, it was about them getting something out of me. Granted, they live on the edge of absolute poverity and starvation, so they have every reason to take advantage of any situation that presents itself, but just the way they go about it, is so… not enticing. I’d really like it if one low income Liberian would get it, and figure out that they’ll do so much better if they really are my friend.

But all in all it’s been pretty darn good, and I’m blessed enough this holiday season to give out a few “my Christmases” to people.