From the Land of Lofa

Morning...

Remember how in my last posting, I had said that I was going to fly by helicopter up north to Lofa County to visit a project site? I can't explain all of the confusion that has happened the last four or five days regarding flights, but I do know that we ended up travelling by road both ways. It was approximately 10 hours each way give or take a flat tire, and a tea break. One might think that all that travelling might have tarnished the trip, but it was actually a great couple of days.

We arrived late on Wednesday night into Foya, a growing town/city about 8-10 miles from the Guinea and Sierra Leone border. This part of the country has long been recognized as the breadbasket of Liberia. The thick, dense forest resembles many other parts of the country, but what makes this area unique is the hilly landscape and rocky outcrops. Because Foya is a border town, there are still plenty of refugees returning to the area. Within two hundred feet of our office there is a UNHCR transit center, and during my time there we witnessed refugees coming in from Guinea. Accurate statistics are difficult to come by in Liberia, but there are estimates of 1500-2500 refugees still returning each month.

Thursday and Friday were spent visiting our projects that are going on in the area, and also conducting meetings with local leaders to discuss their interest in an HIV/AIDS education program. Additionally, we have 3 interns who are arriving at the end of this week, and we needed to ensure that things were being set up for them. All of these meetings went well, and it became apparent that there is a definite need in the area. I learned how to ride a motorbike, ate lunch with the Pakistani battalion of the UN, and experienced road conditions unlike any other.

Thursday night we met up with our staff at a local "video club" to watch Togo vs. France in the world cup. The week before I had watched the game in a restaurant in Monorovia with all of the ex-patriot community, and this week I experience almost a complete opposite experience. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room, one of our staff flashed his cell phone light to catch our attention. I quickly found my seat and I looked around to get a picture of my surroundings. The old part of walls were still laden with bullet holes, and the missing parts of walls had been rebuilt with new material. The roofing was made up of UNHCR tarp, and we all sat on long wooden benches. I estimate that there were over 100 people in the room all watching a 26'' TV screen. D

Despite the different surroudings from the week before at the hotel, the intensity with which people love their football remained the same. As the bad weather knocked out the picture, the crowd grew anxious and restless as they were desperate to watch the game. My colleague at one time had to stretch out his arms between the two gentleman in the bench ahead as their discussion over a hand ball call was growing quite heated. As France scored their second goal, I heard comments from a gentleman on my left to the effect of, "ah, the white men...they never get a call against them...". As the game ended, we filed out with the 100 others to the smell of chicken being roasted on a charcoal grill and loud comments being made about the game. We jumped on our motorbike and drove off to the guesthouse. It was one of those nights you remember as being an experience that you don't want to forget. Not because there was anything monumental about the night, but because you left feeling like you had experienced something real.

Keeping you Updated

It's always difficult to know where to start my entries because there seems to be so much that goes on in a week. I suppose the theme this week would be "breaking down". It seems like everything was breaking or not functioning properly. Two of our coffee pots went on the fritz, which if you know the staff here is disasterous. The airconditioning broke down on Thursday, and lastly our internet was out for three days. None of these things were any big deal on their own but collectively made us wonder what was going on! I'm happy to say that 2 out of 3 are back up and working, and we've resorted to using a French press for our coffee addiction.

Otherwise, it was work as usual mixed in with a whole lot of rain. Strategy meetings, coordination meetings, ...you get the picture. It was a good week though, and the weekend has been even better. I wouldn't have said that waking up yesterday, as the night before was one of the most terrible sleeps I've had since arriving. I woke up at 2:30 with an uneasy feeling and it kept me awake for quite a while before I was able to drift off to sleep. I must have been quite tired because everyone woke up yesterday morning talking about the big commotion that took place at 5:30 am. I remembered waking up to some lights flickering around outside and a few loud voices, but had assumed that it was our security doing their routine checks. Turns out that our security had captured 1 of 3 rogues who were trying to steal/break into a house on our compound. In true Liberian fashion mob justice came into play and they gave him a good beating. The positive in the situation is that they turned him into the police before they beat him to death.

The rest of the day went well...in fact it went great. We had a guest that had been here for four days this week over for a pancake breakfast before I was able to drive her to the airport. (That drive is one of my favourites by the way...good paved road and beautiful scenery) Then upon my return, I discovered both our air conditioning was being fixed, and our internet was back up and running. I capitalized on the internet till the power went out at 1, and then crawled into bed for a good afternoon nap. The evening was spent at a gathering for our visiting Canadian ambassador from Cote d'Ivoire and a member of the Trades Commission, and then off to watch football/soccer.

As mentioned in a previous blog, the feeling around world cup here is fantastic. The restaurant that we gather at to watch was packed with people. We walked in 20 minutes into the game and luckily found a seat in the back of the room. Italian fans more or less on one side with American supporters on another, and a whole lot of controversial calls. It was fantastic! Everyone left feeling like it was great atmosphere and a great night.

Tomorrow I hope to take the UN chopper up to the north part of the country. I'm going primarily for an assessment of the area. This will be an area of the country that we will be focusing more and more of our work on in the area. Currently, we're working with the community to rehabilitate swamps, but will expand to more and more program activity. Part of that will be placing an intern there for church reconstruction projects, and also I'm going to assess whether or not we can be doing something with HIV/AIDS education. So, I'll hopefully be on the flight tomorrow and returning on Wednesday. It will be a quick trip, but a much needed one. I'll be sure to post my findings when I return.

Till then...HAPPY FATHER's DAY!!!

World Cup Fever

It's Saturday around 2 pm. The game is just starting into the second half, and England leads Paraguay 1-0. The restaurant is full of English fans, and there are loud cheers going up as Beckham touches the ball. World Cup fever has hit Liberia as it has other places around the world. I've been sucked into the scene and feel like I need to choose a team soon. There are posters all around town, entertainment centers have opened up especially for the event, and the line up at the satellite server the other day was long as many pleaded for a connection to be established before the start of the event. As Canadians, we're trying desperately to stay in touch with Stanley Cup playoff results, but we're lucky if we can get a 20 second clip on ESPN here. I've come to realize that my knowledge of football and cricket will be far greater than b-ball, or hockey come the end of this year.

Apart from getting deeply involved in world cup watching, I've been busy of course with work, and trying to get back into running. Finding an ideal time to run is a difficult thing for me. For those of your who don't know me well, I must state that running to me is torture. There is no way that I would in sound mind ever climb out of bed before work, and so I'm resolved to finding time after work. It sounds simple, but the key is finding the ideal time where the humidity and heat has dropped to a point where it doesn't feel like I'm running inside of a sauna, and yet giving myself enough daylight to complete my journey. I've committed to getting back into running, but I know that this will be never be a "fun" thing.

I've also tried surfing this past week. When I travelled to Australia years ago I made my first attempt at it, but basically sucked. This time, I gave myself plenty of weeks to warm up to the idea of subjecting myself to such humiliation once again. There is a beach about 10 minute drive away from our house that provides the opportunity to try it without having to be worried about getting smashed into rocks. Let's say that I'm still at the beginning stages. I've tried two different days, and can happily say that I've caught a wave and gotten on my feet, but it is not looking pretty. I've also taken a few good beatings, and been tossed around quite seriously by some ferocious waves.

Anyways, I am surviving, healthy and enjoying my sports. I won't write any updates on work, as I'll save that for another day. Here's me signing off from Liberia.