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

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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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This is a little out of date, but I finally acquired the mp3 of my appearance with Parker on UNMIL radio talking about the TRC. This was originally broadcast on June 6th, 2008. The mp3 can be downloaded here.

I feel like I sound kinda silly at times. I even let a little Liberian English slip from time to time. I imagine I just sound ridiculous to the average Liberian.

John

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I’m two weeks behind on my blogging and still pretty busy so I’ll be brief, or at least write a lot hastily. Two weeks ago I was able to go again to Robertsport, and once again it was a lot of fun. I traveled with a group that included the wife of one of the President’s senior advisors. So we had our own secret service guard traveling with us. He had a gun and everything, Glock-17 if you’re curious. I even had my car washed alongside the President’s motorcade of secret service vehicles. They were using a pressure washer and after a lot of talking they finally let me use it. I don’t think they understood why I wanted to do their job. I was just excited to be using a pressure washer in a country that doesn’t have running water.

The surfing was pretty good. Not as great as the week before, but still pretty good. Michael and I from right to play had a lot of good waves. For once we brought other people with us who had cameras. So we have some pictures of us surfing. Nothing to spectacular, but it’s still better than nothing. We also did some dusk surfing and had some awesome pictures of us against the sun set. Thanks to Amy Kirkwood and Gwen for the pictures.

We stayed at Nana’s lodge. After hanging out a bunch in their bar, I finally got to sleep in their tents. It wasn’t half bad for a tent. The power cut out at night, so the fan also cut out, and it got a little hot. The sheets were a little stiff, probably still brand new, but other than that I was happy.

In other news this week Jonathan Saah, who I had posted about a few months ago, received the check for his microloan. He was pretty excited about it. He told me he had already begun talking with the landlord of the place he wants to move his café too. He also assured me that he’d be very timely in his repaying of the loan. I’ll keep you posted on this business venture.

Two Fridays ago myself and a crew from the TRC made it out to Groovies night club. The local band was pretty good and the drinks were reasonable. It was a lot of fun getting to hang out with those guys. In this picture Fully and I are hanging out at the table. Other pictures is just really cool looking and of Fully. It has not other purpose for being here than that.

I also had the opportunity to take Mr. Smith, a blind double amputee I’ve come to know, to one of the MercyShips clinics to see if they could help with his eyes. Smith lost his forearms and eye sight in the war. I was told to arrive early at these clinics so Smith and I arrived a little after 7 in the morning and there was already 40 people in line. The folks there seemed a little thrown off that I was in line. I hate pulling the white card, so I told them we’d wait in line like everyone else, but after a while they made us move forward.

Smith is one of my favorite amputee friends because of his constant gratitude and pleasantness. He’s never given me a hard time about not giving him enough and is always happy to know I’m about. Plus, no arms and no eyes in Liberia just can’t be easy.

Sadly the people at the clinic said they wouldn’t be able to help Smith’s eyes. The blindness was caused by scaring to the eyes due to an explosion he encountered in the war, and not because of cataracts or other treatable causes. I was afraid of how Smith might take this, but he was very OK with it. He said he was just thankful to be alive and that God would help him.

After the clinic we both hung out at his place of dwelling for a while. It was modest, but not bad for a guy in his position. I met his wife and youngest son. He told me he had two other children that stay at a mission across town. His friend who leads him around told me that they can make around 200 Liberian dollars a day begging. That’s about $3.50 a day. At the end of the day they split it 50/50 he told me. While that is by no means enough money for anyone, it is enough for them to not starve. Smith asked me if I’d give his wife some money so that she could open up a small shop at the back of their home and sell stuff so he wouldn’t have to beg. I had him write down all the things he’d want to seed the business with and that we’d go shopping next week. I’ll keep you posted on that as well.

This past week was also super busy. I was asked by a diplomatic officer at the US Embassy to give a presentation on our work with the TRC to a congressional delegation that was touring Liberia. USAID had given the TRC half a million dollars and they wanted to know what the TRC was doing. So on Monday I got to present. It was pretty neat. They all seemed impressed by it. I really felt like my Georgia Tech education had prepared me for such an event. Since every project based computer class I took ended with a PowerPoint presentation. I just thought of it as another end of semester presentation and went with it, didn’t even get nervous. On a side note, the fridge in the conference room the delegation had taken over was pretty well stocked with beer and other beverages. They even had Sam Adams. I couldn’t believe it. They would have to flown that over here themselves since you can’t get it here. I was really bummed that I had to present and couldn’t just drink a Sam Adams and listen to the other presentations.

The US Ambassador to Liberia was also at the presentation. I was told that he was so impressed with the presentation that he had my name added to the embassy’s super exclusive July 4th party guest list. So on Friday I went there. That was super cool. It was held at the American School which I had never been to. It was as nice as my high school in the states. A lot of top government officials and foreign representatives where there. The Vice President was there and gave a speech. I think Ellen was out of town, otherwise I’m sure she would have been there. This is a picture of Kristen, who works with me at the TRC for another NGO and me at the party. Kristen’s presentation at the same congressional meeting also got her in the party. Sadly there were no fireworks, but we did get a presentation of the colors and the national anthem. That was very cool.

I’ve also been taking GT’s kiosk video project out and about. We went to Robertsport and Tubmanburg. I have some video of the unit being used here. It’s kind of crude, but get’s the point across. While at Tubmanburg we visited blue lake. Also, some of you may notice that Stephanie Kruse is now here with me. She’s hanging out and enjoying all that Liberia has to offer. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get her hooked up with a little bit of something to do while she’s here other than watching me work.

Finally this weekend two of my roommates left, Amanda Leese and Gwen. We had a going away party for them and Gwen, who is a PhD candidate study Pentecostal Christianity, was “flowered” by one of the churches she attends for her going away. We both got all dressed up in more traditional dress for the occasion. I was told we were fortunate that the service only last 2 hours instead of 4.

John
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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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This past week Georgia Tech purchased a vehicle for their mobile video story sharing project. The idea is that we’ll put a PC with a video camera in the back of an SUV and drive it around Liberia. We’ll have official videos on the PC from the TRC and other government/aid agencies for people to watch. They can watch these videos, create video replies, or make their own video statement. We’re hoping it will be like a mobile youtube that updates a little slower. We’re also people will do more than tell their girlfriend they love them and stuff like that.

We hope with such a system people can share their ideas with others across the country and learn what other counties in Liberia are doing. We think this will aid reconciliation as well as giving Liberians a better since of who they are as a country. Thus building nationalism. This would go a long way toward unifying the country as Liberians, and not under their various ethnic and tribal groups.

But enough of that. The important thing is that GT now has a 1996 Toyota 4Runner, 4×4, V-6. I was hoping for a stick but it’s an automatic. It does have a CD player with an aux in. Probably my favorite feature. Oh, and it has cold AC. So I’m stoked about taking this out to the rural area and driving around. It should be a lot of fun. I’m also excited about shopping for toe ropes and shovels just in case. I’m working on getting a license plate to match the trucks radio call sign: GATECH-1.

John

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A lot happened in Harper. I took notes so I could better recount it all. If I had had more time, I would flesh this out more. But I don’t.

Harper is really pretty and laid back compared to Monrovia. While it has less in the way of amenities and stuff - being at the far end of the country getting things there just isn’t as easy - it does have some very good seafood and an easy going style. Several prominent men in Liberian history are from Harper so several of the buildings are, or were before the war, really pretty. There are no traffic jams in harper; it’s safer, and you can walk anywhere. They had motorcycle taxis, so if you needed to get from one end to the other it’d cost you 50 cents with little waiting, which is nice. In Monrovia it’s pretty cheap for a cab too, but it’ll take all day for an empty one to come by. I stayed with my good friend Jeff Austin at the Carter Center compound. Much thanks to Jeff and the Carter Center for their hospitality.

Day 1: The Carter Center compound had an outdoor, bamboo enclosed, shower. This was probably my favorite thing about the compound. I don’t know what it is, but something about showering outside was super nice - The cold water, the sun, the chickens walking by (Jeff had chickens and goats), or a nice shower under the stars. So relaxing, so nice. I also rented a scooter my first day in Harper. That was super nice. I miss the freedom of going where I want when I want.

Day 2: A local guy saw my TRC shirt and said I “brought war.” I asked him what he meant and he said that when he hears the stories in the hearings it makes his “blood boil” and makes him want to do harm to those who have harmed him and others. I appreciated his thoughts. I’m glad he has the self control to abstain from the hearings if they’ll cause such a reaction in him. It does seem hard to convey to the average Liberian the importance of addressing the underlying causes of the conflict and make sure they don’t come again. The current conflict in Kenya is an example of what happens when the underlying causes aren’t dealt with. Though it may be painful, it’s better to dig it up now, than to have it erupt later.

Jeff took us to the only night club in Harper, Black and White. There we met DJ Bob. Bob was great. We were the only people there so he played classic rock songs for us. Dire Straights, The Eagles, 80s rock bands whose names I can’t remember. It was wonderful. I also found out that there is a Jacksonville, Liberia in Maryland Co.

Day 3: A woman gave one of the most horrifying testimonies I’ve heard at the hearings. She told how her mother was shot in the mouth at point blank range, and that a pregnant woman was cut open by the rebels. She would have given birth to twins. The woman giving the testimony became quite emotional. A lot of times at the hearings witnesses talk about terrible things, but this was the first one that really made me respond emotionally. Dede Delopi , Vice Chair of the TRC, got up and comforted the women as she began to cry. I thought that was a really kind gesture from the commissioner.

Even though we had already come to an agreement in Monrovia, UNMIL wasn’t sharing it’s internet with us to update the website. We met with a guy from UNMIL who came from Monrovia about the issue. He made some calls and then told us that since we were “IT professionals,” there was a fear that we would hack into UNMIL’s computers and get sensitive information. He said this was ridiculous (as it is), and they should let us use their facilities. So that was nice to get resolved.

Day 4: We had a Valentine’s Day moment at the TRC. I couldn’t really understand the Liberian English of the witness, but from what the commissioners asked her, I gathered that she was from one tribe and her husband another. When the rebels came, they didn’t like her tribe and tried to kill her. Her husband stuck by her and saved her from them. Inspired by this tale of love triumphing over hate and war, Commissioner Bull noted that this was an appropriate account to be heard on Valentine’s Day. She told the woman to go home and tell her husband she loves him and “Happy Valentine’s Day.” I don’t think the woman knows what Valentine’s Day is.

I was also impressed with Commissioner Stewart at the hearings today because of his resolve to understand the causes and current state of a land dispute that had led to killings during the war. It was getting close to 8pm at the hearings and I wanted to leave, but Stewart kept asking the witness about the dispute: was it ever solved? what was the government doing? what more could be done? what could the TRC do? Witnesses often give very little information if they’re not asked very specific question several times. I’m told it’s a coping mechanism. So Stewart spent like 30 minutes talking to the witness to get at the heart of the issue. I just wanted to go home and shower, so I was impressed that Stewart was willing to drag the hearings out to get to the bottom of this.

Day 5: I got to fly in an UNMIL flight from Harper to Monrovia. We flew in an MI-8. It was awesome. We flew at 1000 feet with the windows open, slowly cruising up the Liberian coastline. It’s the only way to fly, and the Liberian coastline is beautiful. Any other country and there’d be resorts, condos, and hotels all along the rivers, beaches, and lagoons that populate the coast. I also really liked landing vertically. That was way cool. I did feel very “blood diamondish” flying around like this. It was way sweet.

John
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This past week the TRC started its tour of all 15 counties. They’ll be holding public hearings on the past civil conflict in each county seat. I was able to tag along to help coordinate the updating of the website on the road. Check out this short video I made of the trip. And thanks to UNHCR for the speedy VSAT connection to upload such a file.

As the trip approached, the TRC started stock piling fuel and provisions in the office. I was a little blown away by all the stuff they were taking. In a country devoid of McDonalds, BPs, and Best Western’s, anything you’re going to want along the road you better bring with you. They brought a lot of stuff. I asked someone how they were going to get it there and they said, “in the back of a pick-up.” And I was like, “you’re going to need 20 pick-ups, and not these little 4 door Toyota Helixes (Tacomas).” But when I arrived the day of departure they had a military style flat bed truck, which was able to carry everything in one trip. So I was glad to see that work out.

So at 4pm on Saturday we depart for Harper in Maryland county. I was in the “thin” car. This meant they could put 4 of us in the back seat of the pick-up, and that’s what they did, so it was a little tight. As we drove out of Monrovia we kept stopping to buy things. At first I was a little annoyed that we weren’t making any progress with all these stops. But then I realized that they had all received their per diem for 35 days and were buying all sorts of things. It reminded me of Jr. high church trips, that at the first gas station stop everyone bought tons of candy and soft drinks. It also alleviated my fear that I had over packed. All these Liberians who were going to be on the road for the next month had brought only one small bag, and I had brought this huge camping backpack for a week. But after all the stops we made they were bringing about as much stuff as I was.

Harper is in the south east corner of Liberia on the coast, while Monrovia is much closer to the north west corner. Even though both cities are on the coast there’s no direct road, so you have to drive all the way into the interior and then back out. So it was like driving from Chicago to LA, but swinging through New Orleans first. This makes the trip quite long. The roads were paved all the way to Zwedru, which would be the New Orleans of the trip. Now even though the roads were paved, they weren’t like an interstate, they were more like a drive way that was paved 30 years ago that had since fallen into disrepair. It was a bumpy ride at times, so having the ground clearance of the truck certainly helped us. We spent the night in Ganta. This would be the Memphis, TN of the trip.

I had a great time with the guys in my car. Donzo was the driver, Gabby and Amara from the media outreach team were with us, and to ensure that God was with us, we had Pastor Teayah and Sheik Mohammed, and so He was.  So, unlike the other car in our caravan, we experienced no car trouble. As you would expect from any good road trip, we all bonded. So at 6am we headed out from Ganta to continue our journey. We stopped in Zwedru where the big flatbed had broken down and tried to figure out what to do about that. Then we hit the unpaved road. For a while the unpaved road was really good. A Chinese UN team had done a lot of work to smooth things out for us, but we quickly hit some rough riding. This caused the brush guard of the other truck in our convoy to fall off. The top fasteners broke, but the bottom one held fast, so the truck was pushing the brush guard over the ground. They ended up tying the brush guard to the roll bar in the back of the truck to solve the problem until we got to Fish Town where a local with some tools took off the brush guard.

The roads were really rough at times and very dusty. We were the chase car, and we didn’t have AC, so we either had windows down, or stayed dust free with windows up - not the kind of trade off you want.

After Fish Town the road got really bad. It had rained a few times, and this had caused huge mud/water pits to form in the middle of the road. I was told that a big part of the problem was that flat beds that drive on the road push it down when it gets wet causing these huge gullies to form. So the shoulders of the road would be at the standard height, but the middle of the road would be 4 feet down with water in it. It was crazy. And it was now 11pm, so we were fording rivers in the dark. I was really impressed with how well the trucks handled it. We did a lot of driving in 2×4. Donzo was the man, fearlessly plowing through everything (I mean, with a name like Donzo how could you not be). We did use 4×4 at times. One time the water even came up over the hood for a second, which the last time I was in a car and this happened it wasn’t good.

The guys in the car were all apologizing about how hard the ride was and about the four-wheeling and I was like, “guys, there are roads like this in America too.” (Granted I didn’t tell them that mostly we drive on them for fun just to see if we can, not because we actually want to go somewhere). They couldn’t believe that a country as rich as America had dirt roads. I mean, I grew up on one, and in hurricane season (our rainy season), it could become impassible to non 4×4 vehicles. But we wanted it to be a dirt road to ensure a quite neighborhood. They asked why all roads weren’t paved and I was like, “if you have some small road in nowhere America no one wants to pay for that.” And they were like, “but you spend billions of dollars a month in Iraq.” I was like, “exactly, you can’t afford wars and smooth roads.” They also told me they were impressed that I didn’t complain about the trip. Again, I didn’t tell them that this was sort of my idea of fun, and why I wanted to come out here in the first place - that and to help people.

Finally, a little after 12:00am we pulled into Harper. I stayed with Jeff Austin from the Carter Center, who was a most gracious host. I was glad I experienced driving for a total of 22 hours through 7 counties. It was a lot of fun, but I don’t think I’d want to do it again - at least not 4 deep in the back seat.

John

So week two has drawn to an end. Here’s a list of the exciting events that have transpired. I meant to make some of these their own separate posts, but who has time for that?

I went to church this weekend. Last time I was here I met a local pastor, Luther Tarpeh, who was trained in Nigeria during the war and has since returned. He’s traveled quite a bit, and is well educated so I enjoy hearing him speak. My favorite driver and entrepreneur, Jonathan Saah, drove me to church. We had my surfboard on the roof of his car, and since church is on the way to the beach, I figured we’d kill two birds with one stone. On the way to church, we got pulled over by the local authorities for violating the traffic law by having something tied to the roof. Jonathan talked to them about it; I talked to them about it. I tried to get a more clear definition of this particular law in question but to no avail. So I asked if the car had a roof rack would it be OK? They said yes because it was made to carry things. So I explained that I had bought the surf bag and straps in America just to put this surfboard on this car. Showing that this was indeed made to carry surfboards on cars. At this point, we had been there for like 5 minutes and they had checked Jonathan’s paper work, which was legit. So they got bored, realized we weren’t going to give them a bribe, and let us go. Jonathan and I had a good laugh about the experience.

The church service was pretty good - a little different than what I was used to, but pretty good. I enjoyed Luther’s message on using our spiritual gifts for God, but they had this PA setup in this little bitty concrete classroom. I’m pretty sure they had no need for a PA in such a room, but they did, and the treble was turned all the way up. It was painfully loud. I wondered if the PA was broken, if no one knew how to operate an equalizer, or if this was the style, to play your music as loud as possible, or a bit of all three. It turned out the PA was Chinese, and all the labels on the knobs where in Chinese. Which is why they weren’t able to correctly tune the sound. Next time I’ll offer my assistance before the service. They had a 10 minute time when people gave testimonies of what God had done in their lives this week. I really liked that. I’m a big fan of the power of the personal story. One lady talked about how her daughter, who had been sick for a month, got better the day after her and the pastor prayed for her. I was also impressed with Luther’s desire to keep things on time. The church had much more of a charismatic flair than I am used to, as you’d expect in Africa, but Luther was the man in following God’s desire for order.

This church is located in Harbel, which is in the Firestone rubber plantation. I’m not a big fan of Firestone, and today didn’t make me like them anymore. The majority of the church members work for and live on the Firestone plantation. After the church service we had a baptism. They said it was going to be in the river. So I thought, “cool, a nice baptism in a cool tropical river.” It turned out to be a damned up river where everyone washes their clothes, and as best I could tell, where the sewer run-off goes; it was disgusting. Luther prayed that God would bless the water; I prayed that he would sterilize it. It just blew my mind that this is how these people live, and they find it acceptable to swim in such filth. It’s also revolting that an American company, that could easily afford to provide clean running water for it’s employees and proper sanitation, doesn’t. There’s no way they’d expect an American employee to live this way, and what’s the difference between an American and Liberian? I’d pay $10 more for a tire if I knew these people would be living an acceptable life. In Firestone’s defense, they do provide housing, schools, and a clinic for their employees, and their employees are the fortunate 20% of Liberians who have jobs, but Firestone still falls far short.

It was cool to see the baptism and the excitement of the people there. They kept singing “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus,” which was really cool. I’m a big fan of their prolific use of old hymns. No Passion CDs or talk of the latest David Crowder album here. They have some local songs that I’m sure I’d like if I could understand them. I really like old hymns.

The night before, at a party, I met a girl who’s boyfriend surfed. So after church I met up with them at Al Jehazi beach. Apparently, this is the beach to surf at. I met four other surfers there. The waves were pretty big, and I didn’t get up, which sucked, but it was still cool meeting other surfers. I’m hoping to surf with them more. In the pictures to the right you can see Sam catching a nice ride.

Saturday I went surfing at Thinker’s Village beach. In this picture, you can see me seconds before getting nailed.

In other news, I obtained by residency permit on Monday. I’m now able to live here for a year. I received a TRC ID card. Now I’m all official. And my first Ecobank checkbook arrived. At first, I wasn’t too impressed; the checks are just stapled together. But then I noticed that they do have holograms, so now I’m impressed. My Wachovia checks don’t have holograms.

This is a picture of the TRC public hearings in the Centennial Pavilion in downtown Monrovia just so you guys can get an idea of what they look like. This is the building where Liberians inaugurate their presidents.

John

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Last week Fully and I were scheduled to appear on UNMIL radio to talk about the TRC’s website. We were supposed to be at the studio at 3:00. I thought we should leave at 2:00 to get there, but Fully and Richmond Anderson (head of TRC Media and Outreach) thought we’d be ok to leave at 2:30. Of course we ended up leaving late.

We get out on Tubman Blvd and traffic is stopped. They’re repaving the road, a much needed improvement. Tubman is littered with potholes and craters. Some caused by the war, some caused by disrepair. So it’s a good thing they’re repaving the road, but they happened to shut down the road right in front of the TRC in the direction we want to be going. For those of you familiar with Atlanta, this is like shutting down all of North bound 75/85, and all the traffic diverting to Northside Dr. Obviously it’s not going to work.

So after sitting in traffic for 20 minutes going nowhere we headed back to the TRC. This took another 20 minutes. So at 3:40 we called in to give our interview. You can listen to the interview here: UNMIL radio spot 2/1/2008. I feel a little critical of myself, that I didn’t hit all the points I had on my list, and I wasn’t quite as elegant as I had hoped to be, but I guess for just running back to the office after sweating in a car with no AC that’s not moving for 45 minutes, it’s not half bad.

I’ve been told that we’re going to reschedule for next week. We’ll see if that goes any smoother than this time.

John

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