I went to Gbarnga on Sunday for a BBQ at Tate and Kristen’s house (an RPCV couple living in the area). My driver stopped the car at the beginning of the 3.5-4 hour drive and had me lead us in prayer before we started the ride, which really can’t hurt on these roads and with these drivers. The BBQ was really nice: meat on a stick, fried plantains and grilled mangos, Lebanese food, potato salad, tequila shots, and a man with a guitar. A fantastic combination, great weather, and a good time. I stayed with them in their guest room – they are great, super welcoming, and cool. Monday morning, I headed off to a meeting Tate set up for me with one of his coworkers who has some knowledge about communal farming. And by “some knowledge,” I mean taught me more than I’ve learned since being here. Great guy – Fahn. We’ll definitely be talking again soon. He was headed on a week long field trek to Lofa county, so he set me up with his coworker Jeff, who carted me around on his motorbike to a Palm Oil Plantation/Processing Site. The site is using the Freedom Mill to process the palm oil - which decreases both the time and physical energy needed to produce oil. Winrock Internation, the organization that Tate works for, is training local metal workers to make the mills so that it's actually sustainable (hopefully). If anything breaks or goes wrong with machines, there is the local capacity to fix them even if Winrock has left Liberia. It's a good plan! From there, we went off to Cuttington University (a private University located just outside Gbarnga) to see who we could meet there.
When I was planning on going to the BBQ and then missing work on Monday, I was hoping they would be fine with it because I was meeting with people about farming. And then it turned out that my work people had scheduled a meeting at Cuttington on Tuesday, so I would just stay and meet them there. Once I arrived, however, I realized that “scheduled” was a strong word – they had thought about it on their end, and it was up to me to find the right people to meet with and schedule something one day in advance. Ha. Luckily, when Jeff and I arrived at Cuttington, there was a 60-something missionary man there who was a huge help and super nice. Me, I am skeptical of missionaries after meeting some absolutely horrid ones in Gambia (just not nice or cool people). But this man made me considerably less distasteful of missionaries as a whole.
So I set up my meetings, and then met up with Kyla (PC at Pheobe hospital) to head out to Kpatawee Falls – beautiful. I actually think it would be better to go there in the dry season, because the water was rushing so fast it was hard to appreciate the intricacies of the falls, but the power was more than clear. Check out the pictures, if you so please: http://picasaweb.google.com/mtd933
Tuesday: my people arrived, only slightly late, and we had a really successful meeting with the Dean of the School of Agriculture about a potential collaboration between MIA and the University. They essentially want to create an internship program for agricultural students to work on the government agriculture projects. There’s also interest in training farmers in a short, non-degree program. All in the works, but interesting.
I had actually set up another meeting at C.A.R.I, which is the agricultural training center in the region, but we didn’t have time because we had to go back to Monrovia (I won’t dwell on the wasted resources of sending two cars, and five people out to a meeting 4 hours from the capital…). It was a much faster ride in a government car, and I was home and showered by 5:30. The missionary man, who had been such a big help to me, was actually in Monrovia for the night and didn’t know many people in the city, so I had told him I would go out with him. Thus, after a long weekend out, I cleaned myself up and headed into the city around 6. Met up with some people for yoga, and then did dinner with my missionary friend. It was really nice – he’s had an interesting life in international business and has traveled all over the world and bought my dinner.
From there I went to meet up with my housemates, who were also doing dinner in the area, to all share a cab home together. We call cabs to take us home at night because some of them can be a little shady or drunk. So one cab comes, and half the roomies jump in there, and I’m waiting for cab number two. But there’s confusion, and another cab pulls up and we run out in the rain and jump in. I jumped in the back seat first and realize there is a woman sitting in their already. But no matter, we’ll all squeeze in and we do. Though in the close quarters, it’s clear she’s drunk – from both her breath and from the bottles jingling at my feet. The driver, who is NOT the one we called, says, “No worries. She is my boss lady.” Hm. And then he gets out, disappearing into the compound next to where we were. At this point, the whole situation becomes quite clear: he’s arranging this woman’s work for the night. He then reappears, saying: “He said you should come.” And the woman gets out and we drive away. That’s clearly not cool or ideal, but if the man could get us home safely, I would have stayed in the cab. However, the bottles in the back, the drunkness of the woman, and his insistence that he “never drinks” kind of made us all wary. My one room mate pretended to be sick and we got off at the main road to wait for one of the cabs we usually take.
So we’re standing on the main road, under the awning of Lucky Pharmacy, watching the rain and the cars pass on the slick, dark road. My back was turned, but suddenly I hear a scraping sound, screaming, and a horn. Barely visible on the road is the outline of a capsized motorbike. Apparently it had been clipped by a passing car. The three passengers of the bike had immediately run/limped off the dark road so they weren’t hit. As they sat on the sidewalk recovering, a big SUV with it’s bass blasting comes barreling the other way, hits the fallen motorcycle, and drags it for about 50-75 yards of loud screeching and sparks. The motorcycle driver, in full yellow rain gear, sprints after his bike as a rather large woman gets carted our way on the back of a skinny man.
She’s bleeding from her knee and her foot and they bring her in to the pharmacy, where she is immediately yelled at by the owner for getting blood all over the place (there was a fairly good amount) and kicked out. Me and Javi go in and demand gauze or something – they must have something she could cover it with! Come on! I was annoying by this owner – turning a bleeding woman away! Just give her some gauze at the very least! So the owner gives us a small piece after I demand it and tell him I will pay for it, and I go out and give it to her as she gets in a car that magically appears and drives off in the opposite direction of the hospital, which is directly across the street from us. We also saw another accident on the way home. The next day, walking around the city, I witnessed another motorcycle crash right behind a taxi emblazoned with the phrase: Fear not the World but the People.
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I am hopefully headed to Robertsport this weekend to chill on the beach and do some surfing! It's supposed to be an amazing place to surf even for people who actually know how to surf. They just made a movie about it - Sliding Liberia - which is a traditional surfing movie PLUS some cultural stuff that highlights the difficulties of post-war life in Liberia. Here's some links that are cool:
http://www.slidingliberia.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0eru45CK5Y
To be honest, I can't actually look at either of these because my internet is too slow, BUT I did see the movie last week and it was really great.
http://www.slidingliberia.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0eru45CK5Y
To be honest, I can't actually look at either of these because my internet is too slow, BUT I did see the movie last week and it was really great.
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