So a while ago I was out doing some GT research work, and I kept seeing these dump trucks full of sand. A new on would roll past every 15 or 20 minutes. After wrapping up the days work we decided to check it out. Because of the regularity of the sand we thought they might have a back-hoe or front end loader on the beach, but no, it’s just a lot of guys.

I was probably the first white guy to ever show up on their beach. I met the owner, the manager, the head security guy, and everyone else. They were all very nice, and after some talking agreed to let me take pictures as long as I used them to show people how hard they are working here in Liberia. And they are working very hard. These guys are out here in the sun throwing shovel’s full of sand into dump trucks 14 feet in the air non-stop.  They asked me to appeal to the international community for assistance. They’d like a back hoe. I think it’s just awesome that they have jobs and are working so hard. Others in Liberia turn to less honest means, and even more just sit around a do nothing. So here’s to these guys for being motivated.

And on a slightly related note check me out on this wave at Robertsport from the swell that rolled through three weeks ago. Needless to say it was awesome. And yeah, my stance needs some work.

Check this out. A story was published on cnn.com about the work Georgia Tech is doing here.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/06/09/Liberia/

Today we have a guest blogger, my travel companion Adam McQueen:

I’ll be taking over for John today to provide a different perspective and give John a little break.

Some days start off better than others.  We were due for a stretch of bad luck since John embraced the local superstition and rubbed the gold dog on St. Charles bridge expecting good luck.  Those things never work.  So, against all logic, reason, experience and advice, we took the Smart Car into town again.  And what would have been a 10 minute tram ride turned into an hour drive.  As I tried to navigate us to a large American style breakfast we ended up on a pedestrian only street.  We passed a cop going the other way and when he didn’t flag us down we hoped we were safe.  Not so.  There were a couple cops on foot that pulled us over on the other end of the square.  1000 Kč later we finally found some parking and got breakfast served by a nice Czech woman doing a terrible Irish accent.

That’s the last time we drive in Prague.

After breakfast we drove out to the amazing Czech countryside.  Its tough to still be irritated about a traffic fine while cruising down tiny tree lined back roads through towns untouched by tourists.

We ended up at Konopiste, the home of Archduke Franz Ferdinand before his famous assassination.  The archduke was an avid hunter and had over 100,000 mounts lining the halls and rooms of his castle.  The only way to see the inside is on a guided tour and the only guided tours were in Czech.  So I am sure there are many interesting facts about the duke or the castle, but we don’t know what they are.  It was worth it to see the huge collection of trophys and weapons.

From there we set out again across the country side to Sedlec Ossuary.  Over 40,000 people unknowingly contributed to the macabre art within.  The small chapel was filled with pyramids, banners and a chandelier all made exclusively from human bones.  It was hard for me to connect these intricate displays with the idea that these bones once had names, parents, and dreams.  The poorly translated info guide had a surprisingly evangelical tone, which seemed out of place in a town with many lingering affects from the decades of communism. 

As we made our way back to Prague we stopped in Kutna Hora for some groceries and beer.  John really needed some dark beer and it’d been a few days since I’d sampled some local blue cheese.  You have to rent grocery carts just like the lugage trolleys at cheap airports.

After getting completely lost on the way back into town, we finally made it to Natalie’s apartment to hang out, watch the UEFA championship and just relax.

Yeah I know. I haven’t even finished writing up my motorcycle trip and now I’ve started another epic journey. What can I say. After this I doubt I’ll get any more vacation time for the rest of the year. And I am working on the motorcycle trip, I just have to take advantage of this fast internet while I have it.

So the back ground story, Adam McQueen, college friend, and I agreed to spend two weeks traveling Europe together, and most of that hanging out in Prague where I know Ms. Natalie Van Hoose, who teaches English there, and kindly agreed to put us up.

Both Adam and I knew that we were too busy with our lives to plan for this trip. So when I flew into BRU at 5:00am that’s when we started planning. Adam had seen a rental car shop advertise a Smart Car for 10 Euros a day. This is what I like about Adam, he sees a good idea and goes with it. Needless to say we waited till the rental agency opened up and reserved a smart car for two weeks for 525 euros.

The lady at the rental place was super helpful and told us if we took the train to Antwerpen we wouldn’t have to pay the 100euro airport fee. so we took the train to Antwerpen, then a bus, but then ended up 5km in the wrong direction. Adam stuck out his thumb and in 30 seconds we were picked up by the first passer by who loved that Adam was an American from TX.

We get to the car place and they didn’t have the keys for the car. So they talked to the airport office who paid for a taxi to take us back to the airport where we got out smart car, minus the airport service fee. Such customer service just doesn’t exist where I come from. Thanks Sixt Rentals!!

Then we drove around Brussels, got lost, probably broke some traffic laws, and saw all the important sites in Brussels, whcih aren’t many. Then we hit the road trying to make it to Germany. We soon realized that we were both exhausted from our travels and ended up heading to Huy, Belgium to stay with some friends of Adams, Clay and Megan.

Huy is awesome. It’s the small little town that’s so perfect, no tourist, no gimmiks just small town europe. After being in Monovia where there’s effectively no tourism, seeing all the manufactured restaurants and shops in Brussels made me a little sick, but Huy is perfect. It’s so laid back, the beer is amazing the food is good and the feel is incredible. Check out this amazing view from Clay and Megan’s apartment.

And that’s all for today. Join us tomorrow when we head to Germany.  If you want a preview of what’s to come check out our tenative route.

We needed to “officially” start the retracing of Graham Greene’s journey by going to Foya, Lofa County, Liberia. So we left Voinjama and headed to Foya. Since we had to pass back through Voinjama, Jeff and I left our bags with Johnny. This was great since now I had no extra weight on my bike, so I just flew down the road. I think I did most of the damage to my bike at this point. Jeff was a little slower than before, but he still kept up just fine. It was tons of fun to fly over rocks and wash outs and just throw the bike around. It also really made me wish I was on a Honda 450 and not a Chinese POS 150.

Foya was super cool. It had even more of a Wild West border town feel than Voinjama, probably because it really is a border town. We had a great fried egg, mayo, and avocado sandwich at a Fula tea shop. The streets were dusty and had shops and stalls up and down them. It felt like we had gone quite far from Monrovia and the civilized world.  The picture to the left if the main road in Foya. As you can see it’s pretty empty, not tall buildings or anything, just dust, shacks, and blue sky. The picture on the right is taken from the tea shop we had lunch in.

On the way back to Voinjama we stopped off at a church mission that Mr. Greene had stopped at. That was pretty cool. We met a couple father’s there who were very cool. They had were older and had been in Liberia long before the war. It was really neat talking to them because you got a sense of how the country was before the war. They were all well spoken and obviously well educated. It just made you realize how nice the country had been once upon a time, that people were educated as well as these gentlemen. They stood in contrast to the younger people you meet in Monrovia. The campus was also very beautiful. I’m sure before the war it was absolutely amazing. Jeff and I had been on the road Easter Sunday, so we asked the senior father to bless us and he did. That was really cool. I love hearing older folks with lots of experience praying and things like that. It’s so cool. The picture on the right is of the main church building on the mission.

Since we didn’t have bags and were driving faster the riding was rather intense. That’s not to say that it’s not usually intense on these roads, but it was especially so. One thing I noticed after driving for a while on these roads while trying to keep the bike at 50kmh is that it just cleans out your head. You don’t have the capacity for high level reasoning and thinking. No, “I wonder what she meant by that the other night?” pondering. Instead all you can think is, “left, left. Speed up, Slow down, get out of the left lane, get out of the left lane, wash out, slow down, slow down, lean right…” Like I’d get off my bike and then become aware of bug bites that I had gotten 20 minutes ago. I’d totally lose track of my thoughts and just concentrate of riding. It felt very purifying. I did have time for some quick simple thoughts like “that’s cool looking,” “Where’s Jeff?”, and “Man this is awesome.”

So after riding for what felt like all day we made it back to Voinjama. We had lunch with Johnny and then hit the road to Zorzor. Zorzor is about 7km from Guinea and he plan was to overnight there, giving us all day to cross into Guinea. The ride to Zorzor felt like it took forever and I noticed that my front wheel was really, really bent up. That’s what you get for trying to shot down hills with volleyball size rocks in the way at 40kmh. On the way to Zorzor we stopped back in at Kortie Town where this child was kind enough to give me a bit of a back massage. There was some confusion between punching my back and chopping my back, but we worked it out.

We got into Zorzor right at dusk and met up with Zaezae.  I was exhausted. Zaezae knew jeff since he worked with the Justice and Peace Commission and they partnered with the Carter Center on things.  Zaezae had a really nice house that we stayed in. To the left you see Jeff with Zaezae and his family. To the right is me totally whipped out after the ride. Notice the dust highlight I had added to my hair and face, very fashionable.
Chelsea, the British football(soccer) club, had a big game that night so Zaezae went to a video club to watch the action on DSTV while Jeff an I chilled out at a quieter venue. Zaezae walked into the video club, saw that it was 0-4, left in disgust, and hung out with us. I should point out that European Soccer is huge here. People can have their whole week wrecked if the wrong team loses. None the less, I made fun of him for being a fair weather fan. Sure enough, an hour later people ran up saying it was tied 4-4. Jeff and I also admired the battle depicted on the wall of the bar we were at. Club beer Vs. Stout, who would win?

Just real quick I wanted to point out that some of the work I’m doing here with Georgia Tech for the Liberian TRC made it onto a World Bank blog. You can read about it here http://africacan.worldbank.org/truth-and-reconciliation-through-technology.

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

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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.

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?

My immediate boss, Dr. Michael Best, arrived in town last week with his boss, Dr. Bill Long, chair of the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at GT. They came here to assess the situation on the ground, and bring me a new camera among other goodies. So this blog post has photos that I took. Just like the last time Dr. Best was in town we kicked off a whirl wind tour of ministries, commissions and institutions of higher learning. Our coolest meeting was with the Vice President, the Honorable Joseph Nyumah Boakai. I was really excited to have landed us this audience. He was a pretty nice guy. He listened to what we had to say and had some good feedback. He got us a follow up meeting with the minister of internal affairs, who really liked the kiosk, and even talked to me. I figured with a world famous leader in technology for development and the chair of a top tier research university’s international affairs school he’d want to talk to them. But he talked to me. I was busy taking notes when I heard him ask if I worked at the TRC. I looked up from my note taking to realize everyone was looking at me. So I told him I sat there, but also worked on other projects. It was nice to get to be a part of the conversation. Also, amongst our maelstroms of meetings was the Minister of Post and Telecommunications, the Minister of Information, the chairman of the Liberian Telecommunications Authority, the president of Cuttington University, Liberia’s premier private university, various members of the TRC, the Inter-Religious Council, the Liberia Media Center, and two separate meetings at the US Embassy. The pictures here were taking while we were at Cuttington University in Bong County, three hours out of Monrovia.

While at Cuttington Dr. Best and I watched the artsy-about-Africa-foreign-film Bamako on the kiosk. Clearly a good use of its 19” wide screen and built in speakers. The viewing experience was great, the movie was terribly boring. We both decided we’re not artsy enough for such films. I also got sick and threw up a few times. Despite my sickness I drove Dr. Best and Dr. Long to the airport in time to catch their flights home. We took the scenic route and passed through the Firestone plantation. It was really pretty on a rainy Liberian Saturday. The road was also in great quality. I guess that’s what you can do when you’re an exploitive multi-national.

So when I got home that night I was feeling a bit achy, so on the advice of a few friends and 50 Liberian dollars I got tested. Sure enough, I had malaria. It was 8pm so no doctors were available. So there was much debate on what course of action I should take next. Finally I decided upon the ACT treatment. It set me back 120 Liberian dollars. Who needs insurance with such prices? I was a little worried because everyone said the treatment would wear me out and I had a big day ahead of me tomorrow.

Thankfully I woke up Sunday feeling just slightly under the weather. So I decided to go for it and attend the Liberia vs. Senegal football match. Worrisome from the match two weeks ago, I arrived early and drove my motorcycle in case I needed to make a quick getaway. The first thing I noticed was that there was no traffic. This was in stark contrast to the crazy line of cars that formed in front of the stadium last time. A local branch of the Ministry of Youth and Sports even let me park my bike inside their compound. They were very nice. This picture to the left is of me and my apartment mate Gwen Heaner. We were all decked out for the game in our red white and blue.

The first thing that you noticed about this game was that your ticket not only had a gate number, but a row and a seat number. Kind of like a real sporting event. There were no crazy lines to get in the gate. I walked up, showed my ticket and was immediately let in. Everything was calm. There was no craziness at all. We walked in and found freshly painted seat numbers on every seat in the stadium. Lonestar Cell, Liberia’s largest GSM operator, sponsored the game and was handing out free water and cool aid, Liberian’s call it “juice.” This was to prevent the overheating and dehydration that caused deaths two weeks earlier. This was very much appreciated because Sunday was a very hot day.

Inside the stadium things were festive, but under control. Fans were drunk and singing 3 hours before the game but it never got out of hand. The stadium was almost empty. The cheapest seats were $5 USD which isn’t too expensive. The game was also broadcast on local television, so perhaps after the last debacle people thought it best just to watch on TV. Either way, it was all for the best because FIFA had observers at the match to ensure that Liberia could handle a FIFA sanctioned game. It would have been a terrible blow to Liberia for them to lose that privilege.

The Lone Stars, Liberia’s team, even played much better than last time. They were much better about passing the ball and held Senegal to a 2-2 draw. All the goals were scored in the last half of play.

This was unfortunate because I left after the 1st half to meet up with two friends on the Mercy Ship. Kim Robinson and Peter Fullerton were both leaving the ship, though Kim is coming back in August. They’ve both been really good friends to me and I’ve enjoyed their company immensely. Kim calls herself my African mom, which I’m fine with. We could use more moms in the world. She’s an amazing woman of Christ. I should be so lucky. We attend the evening service together then had Star Bucks coffee in the ships commons area.

On Monday the Malaria meds caught up with me. I felt absolutely worthless. My stomach hurt and I had no energy. I even had trouble concentrating and was completely unproductive, which might have been the worst of it for me. I hate feeling like I’m not doing stuff. What made it worse was that I was stuck at home with no electricity so there really wasn’t much I could do if I had felt up to it. Looking back on things I realized that I had felt really tired most of the week. I thought that I was just worn out from our busy schedule of meetings and things. So I was kind of glad that it wasn’t keeping up with two of my seniors that had worn me out, just malaria.

I was still pretty out of it on Tuesday. I also think that the medicine messed with my head. My thoughts would race a lot and I’d lie in bed thinking of the things I needed to be doing stressing out that I wasn’t getting stuff done and really worrying a lot. More than I would normally. I really wanted to go home. It was the most homesick I’ve been. I even kept telling myself that it was just the medicine, but it wasn’t much fun.

By Wednesday I felt a lot better. I had finished my ACT treatments and now had my head and my strength, but alas, the generator was out at the TRC. So I visited the supermarket and ran into my amputee soccer team friends. Rueben, the guy I talk with the most from the soccer team, wanted me to buy some tarpaulin for their “house”. It’s the rainy season and their house doesn’t have a roof. He said they need a roof so they didn’t get cold. I still don’t understand how they call it cold, I call comfortable, but that’s beside the point. So I let Rueben show me the house. It was a two room stick framed house with no roof. He said they had woven mats for the walls, but didn’t want to put them up without a roof to keep things from getting ruined.

So since I had a free day and the “I’m getting over malaria” excuse to not work, Rueben and I drove to the Red Light market to buy some tarpaulin. I hate Red Light market, it’s one perpetual traffic jam caused by bad planning, poorly enforced rules, and unregulated capitalism. As far as I know it’s the biggest market in all of Liberia. It’s just a mess. The ride there wasn’t as much fun as I had hoped it to be. It was awkward. Reuben’s a good guy, a bit pushy with the begging, but a good guy, we just have a hard time talking. His Liberian English and my American English don’t mix very well. But we did get to talk about his wife and two kids, and whether or not the Lone Stars would make it to South Africa in 2010, still a lot of awkward silence. So after waiting in traffic for an hour we pulled up to the spot where the tarpaulin guys were. There’s no way I was going to leave the car alone in this placed so I stayed in the car while Reuben got the goods. 15 minutes later he returned with the tarpaulin.

On the whole I felt pretty good. For $35 USD I had literally put a roof over someone’s head. In this case it was half of the soccer team’s heads. Reuben didn’t say much, but I could tell from the smile on his face he was excited. He had me drop him off were the guys lived who would help him put the roof on. I guess being an amputee you need some help with these kinds of things. I plan to go back and get some after shots of the house. I really hope this works out for them.

John
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