My Third Week in Liberia

As I mentioned in my previous blog entry, I’m slowly starting to adjust to life in Liberia. I’m finding it hard to believe that I have now been in the country for over three weeks, and it seems unbelievable to me that time has flown by that quickly. That being said, there are still a number of firsts that I have experienced in this past week.

The first of those was last Sunday when we traveled about 1.5 hours NE of Monrovia to go hang out at Bomi Lake. For the distance you have to travel this is a great option to get away from the city and enjoy a touch of nature. The only really annoying sound to put up with is the generator sounds being created by the UNMIL group at the end of the lake. It can hardly be called a lake, as it’s more a reservoir created from an old iron/ore mining area, but a natural spring feeds it, so it’s a nice place to swim.

Anyways the first that I experienced was my first bout of illness here in Liberia. Within two hours of returning from the Lake, I was curled up on my bed feeling nauseous and achy. It progressed, and while I tried to push myself the next day to go to a meeting at noon, I knew I was in trouble as I was dry heaving in the restaurant where the meeting was being held. After two days of not eating and all the other flu like symptoms I experienced, I started to feel better. I’ve deduced that it was in fact either a touch of the flu or food poisoning. But, regardless, I’m feeling great now.
The other first is actually driving here in the city. It’s a bit of an experience, and in like most developing countries, it’s a matter of figuring out what the pattern of driving is and then adjusting. The city limit roads have two lanes on each side of the road and believe it or not, they actually have painted lines of the road. Now, please don’t misunderstand me…people don’t actually use them, but they are there. There is usually a lot of veering in and out of lanes, and honking as you go by just to notify the driver that you are coming up beside them. The taxis prefer to cut you off as they veer to the right hand lane, and then abruptly stop, partly on the road and partly on the shoulder to pick up passengers. The other one is that people suddenly stop to let pedestrians cross, but it could be at any random point on the road. I guess it just keeps you on your toes at all times!

Well, Kendell is back on Sunday, along with a new staff person and a 15 person short term mission team. Perhaps, despite there being not much going on here, our life will be kept interesting with the sheer number of visitors that come through the office. I have a workshop at the office tomorrow morning at 10 and plus the generator is being turned off here in 20 minutes, so I’m going to call it a night.

Till next time…