Read This Post

Hey all, just wanted to let you know that I did clean up the last post, and you should read it. In fact.....here it is.

Caucasian, 40-45, white dress shirt, unbuttoned, with tatooes on his chest. Snatches of his conversation included "I ******* got up at 5:00 in the morning, went out 'zip' into the liquor store, got ******* plastered by 6:00, went back to the shelter (homeless shelter), went back to sleep, woke up at 7:00 something, there's ******* Sticks (nickname?) perched at the end of my ******* bed like a ******* gargoyle or some **** like that." "Sticks and I were out all night, and this ***** is totally strung out, we had such a fun time ******* with her head, she was going nuts."

Caucasian, 30-35, shorts and button-up short sleeve shirt, shopping bag from Trader Joe's.

The bag was a total give-away, the guy didn't belong on the bus, he wasn't comfortable. Didn't say a word, but it was that awkward not saying anything. The best part of this guy was his twitching. Not twitching like someone who can't help it, but like someone sitting uncomfortablly, trying his very hardest to get comfortable, then realizing that his new position is even more uncomfortable than the previous. I felt bad for the guy, but at the same time, don't ride the bus if you that uncomfortable with it.

A group of 3 people, who all seemed to know each other. Discussions of work, kids, spouses, all of which gave the impression of fairly intimate knowledge. My question was, do they know each other from outside the bus, or is this strictly a transit friendship?

What is it about riding the bus that makes people talk to each other? Is it the proximity to people for a fairly long amount of time? I saw a grandfatherly looking man talking with a 2 1/2 year old, who was not his for at least 30 minutes, then a woman about his age sat down next to him, and then they talked for at least 30 minutes. Is it a probability thing, the amount of people who are inclined to talk are more likely to ride the bus, so the proportion is thrown off? Hard to tell, there certainly are plenty of people who don't talk. Is it a negative filter? I only notice the anomalies in the system, I certainly don't write about people sitting calmly on the bus, keeping to themselves.

I was waiting at a transit center for a bus driver to get off his break, and there was a decent sized group there, also waiting. Then this man comes staggering up, pretty obviously drunk, and knocks on the bus door. He begins talking, presumably to the driver. But the driver is not inside the bus. He must have talked to this invisible driver for 15 minutes, and I was able to understand some of it, not exactly worth repeating. A lot of what he had to say was some combination of English, Spainish, and absolute nonsense. Pretty amazing. Another man walked across the parking lot, talking loudly. I thought he might have been on a Bluetooth. Maybe he was on something else. This guy kept talking, and I couldn't see a earpiece, and realized that he wasn't having a dialouge, but instead, some kind of monologue with an internal audience. Some of my favorite lines follow.  "I know what the fools want, and I got it!" "They got the paperwork, and I got the money. I want the paperwork, and they want the money. All I need to do is get the ******* to listen to me." "I'm the protector, and they have to go through me, no matter what they try to do, they have to go through me." And my personal favorite......."What *****?!?" What makes this so hilarious is the context. This guy is standing in the middle of a parking lot, and then just shouts this, at the top of his lungs, he hadn't been talking, just standing there, pacing for a couple of minutes after finishing a good rant. Totally out of the blue.

.

This next guy was on a totally different scale from almost everybody. I'm pretty sure he is fairly intelligent, in good mental health, just choosing to live in a way that is hard to swallow. He was Hispanic, 30-40, wearing a 49'ers jersey, shaved head. What he was saying was so amazing, that I had to write down quotes on some paper I had with me. "If the ******* cops show up, there better not be any crack or any other **** like that around." "Did you hear about that MOB kid that got ******* up? Yeah, John and Victor's kid. Somebody knifed him. There's gonna be some major **** going down, and I thought you should ******* know. I'll send you a picture." "I'm still waiting to hear from Housing. I just went over there yesterday to change my status to 'Homeless'. The ******* clerk said it will go faster like that. Lying *****." "You better get your Negro working then! He just sits around all ******* day, on his ******* fat ***, just talking ****. Not even ******* trying to find something to do that brings in some ******* money." 'Nuff said.

This is written on Friday, riding back from Monterey. Sitting 4 feet away from me is a guy who is tied for best bus outfit ever. The previous champion was the guy with the "World Peace Through Marijuana" shirt. This guy has an entire outfit though. Fedora, Purple dress shirt. Kind of a shiny Barney purple. Electric blue tie, coat,and pants. Oversized coat, with shoulder pads. Amazingly shiny black dress shoes. Sunglasses hanging out of his coat chest pocket. A large necklace, with what looks like an axe for the charm. Perfectly manicured nails, 3:45 shadow, brushed back long, black hair. I shall call this guy, 40's Disco Guy.

Over the next couple weeks I will be collecting observations about the dynamic on buses, and the non-interesting people, and coming back with those. Those people will be called NPTP (Normal Public Transit People)

By the way. Just because you see me frequently, or talk to me, doesn't mean you can't leave a comment. All of you should be leaving a comment. Or two. Whatever you feel like.

That's it. Thanks for reading.

Sorry about forgetting to bleep all the language. I kinda forgot what was in here. Whoops

This Is Cool, But Scary

Stuff like this is why I am involved in conservation efforts. Bad things, things that are man-made.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/05/earthobservatoryvideos/

One Last Liberia Post

Yesterday Baker and I met with Oscar, so he could give us an update/report on the fruits of our efforts. It was fairly amazing to hear all that God did, and humbling to think that we helped start this process.

The entire NLBC population nearly doubled after we left, and now half of the entire church population is children. Oscar was thrilled with this, and slightly overwhelmed, because this is new territory for AHEAD. Quite a few of neighborhood kids continue to come back on Sundays, and even those that don't come, associate themselves with the church, it has become part of their identity.

Other churches heard about the great things that happened at Jacobtown, and now they are all excited to start developing their youth ministry.

After our departure, the most exciting thing that happened was the converstion of 6 Muslim children to Christianity, which was a real affirmation for us that God did use our time there to impact the children's lives. All of these kids need lots of prayer, because they face the possibility of real physical harm to themselves because of this choice.

One final development which is very encouraging to me is the beginnings of an intensive Bible study for some of the older children, to give them the tools to share the Gospel with their friends. I am a strong advocate for youth involvement in anything and everything, and this action by the Liberian church is very, very encouraging.

Liberia Stories (Part 8)

The last one!!!
This is going to be a bunch of fun stories, with no logical order, and tons of asides. Basically, what you are used to reading from me.

My absolute favorite day there was the day before we left. We all were staying at this "resort" where another church from Silicon Valley was holding a pastor's conference for the Liberians. This poor resort, it was considered the best thing, and our bathroom door didn't close. More on the hotel later. I got up, showered, I think, put on an outfit (shorts, T-shirt, and tennis shoes), and went down to breakfast. After that I hit the beach. Ditched the shoes and shirt, grabbed a nice walking stick, and walked, ran, and swam along the beach for at least 3 hours. Basically did that until a bit before lunchtime. Collected some shells, (pictures will be included in the Amazing Web Album), spent a lot of time processing, and just enjoyed the simplicity of my life in the moment.

At one point, I got a little bored, so I decided to try and get a coconut from a tree. This sounds complicated, but there were lots of trees, and one had fruit hanging 10 feet off the ground. I grabbed a beam that was 3 inches wide, 2 inches thick, and about 5 feet long, then started whacking away. 5 minutes later, no coconut, this guy comes around a wall, walks up, and offers to help me. I was a bit scared at first. Never seen this guy before, but then he helped me get one down, and then showed me how, and I got one by myself! Score! Now in order to give some closure to the story, the coconuts sat for most of the day, and that night Tony, Baker, and I were talking with one of the pastors and his wife. Pastor Vey and Cherry. They were talking about their crab traps they make (they live close to the beach), and I was curious, most crab trapping takes place at least in some amount of water, but they do it on the beach. Being me, I just had to know how. Turns out we had everything needed. Bucket, spoon, knife, and shovel were easily procured, but the key ingredient, a coconut was provided by me. After about 45 minutes, we had dug a hole for the bucket (so the top edge was flush with the sand), filled in around it, and scooped coconut meat out, and placed it next to the bucket. Someone got pictures of this, so you can try to imagine it, or just wait.

At the end of the soccer game at the VBS, I was sweaty, and dirty, and my legs were fairly covered with dirt, almost to the point that they were black. I was sitting down, slowly catching my breath, and 5 boys walked up to me, and then one of them delivered the best one-liner I have ever heard. He points at my torso, and says "White man", then points at my legs, says "Black man", and walks off, him and his buddies laughing. For some reason, this struck me as hugely funny, and apparently struck them as funny too.

One of the most amazing and memorable portions of the trip was driving places. Several times I was sitting on people, my butt cheek on their hip, or visa versa, or even me basically squatting on the floor of the car. I sat backwards on the floor of the van a couple times. When we were driving to the airport to pick up another group, I was sitting in on the floor, bored out of my mind. Tony, Baker, and Edwin were talking in the back, Marty was sleeping, Jen and K.J. weren't talking, and Chipi was thinking. So, of course, I started rummaging around in the van, looking for something. I eventually found a sticker. Something had to be done with this sticker, it was begging me to do something with it. I realized that Emmanual, the driver, was suspiciously stickerless, so in time-honored method, I palmed the sticker, and patted E-man on the shoulder, and asked how he was doing. K.J., Jen and Chipi did their very best to not laugh, but they drew E-man's attention, and he looked back, wondering what the heck was so funny. I sat there, perfectly straight-faced, just chilling. He didn't notice for the rest of the day.

On the topic of Emmanual, who was one of the nicest guys there, I must mention the race. Oscar, at some point, just out of the blue, asked how fast I was, and then challenged me to a race. He never came through on that challenge, but I did race Emmanual. The "track" was about 100 meters, from one end of a courtyard, to the other, then back. I had a good start, but E-man caught up on the turn-around, then I pulled away on the return leg. So fun!! One of the interesting things about whenever I would play sports, everyone reacted like I was getting out of my wheelchair to play, any kind halfway decent play would get huge cheers. Might just be the idea that white man can't jump.

At the VBS, after the structured events were done, I just started playing games, and not always organized games. The games developed really organically. One game started out as a form of dodgeball. Two people stand 20 feet away from each other, and then a group of people stand in the middle. The people in the middle are dodging the balls that are thrown by the people at the ends. The rest of play is like regular dodgeball. The game slowly turned into monkey-in-the-middle, and then into team keep away. I loved this process. So much fun.

One of my roles was game-player-in-downtime. This meant trying to keep anywhere between 100-250 kids playing a game. Some of my games included a crude version of Red Light, Green Light, Sharks and Minnows, Simon Says (they play Peter Parker Say. Yes, that Peter Parker), Stop, Stop, Go (Duck, Duck, Goose. Anyone know where the name comes from?) At the end of every single day, I was exhausted, sweaty, and stinky. Good times.

One last one I thought I touched on, but is always worth more time, Liberian taxi bumper logos. Lots of the drivers would paint little inspirational mottoes on the back of their taxis. A few of my favorites.
Papa Obama, Just Pray, Good Never Lost, Money Go Woman Stay, Go Arsenal!
Yeah, its that good.

That's kinda it, but I would love to answer some questions, so hit me with them.

Liberia Stories (Part 7)

Our team arrived in Liberia on Friday evening, spent Saturday shopping, hanging out, and adjusting. This means that Sunday, only our second full day was a head-on introduction to the Liberian Christian Community. Baker and Tony have been to African church before, and have witnessed the power of the community, but before that Sunday, I had only been exposed to Western Hemisphere Christianity. Most of this post will be about that exposure. P.S. Tony will be sampling bits of this post to send to people who supported him, so the language will be a bit less personal, and more team-oriented.

The church service was amazing. I already talked a bit about it. It was just so humbling to see the thankfulness that everyone had. It really spoke to my lack of thankfulness for all that I have been blessed with. This was a recurring theme through the trip. One of the greetings that is exchanged among some is "How was the night?" "Praise the Lord". We were told that this is an expression of the thankfulness for waking up that morning. 

One of the most exciting things that we saw was the growth of the church. The church we were at, New Life Bible Church, Jacobtown, was started in a house. It grew very quickly, and is now meeting in a regular building.  Following that same model of housechurch to meeting in a public building, NLBC now has 5 other branches, and our team got the chance to go visit all but one of those branch churches as well. Very inspiring. One of the congregations was meeting in a schoolhouse, at least 15 yards away from any kind of road. Really IN the community. To get to it, we walked past a huge mango tree, which had a guy lounging underneath in his lawn chair. It was so interesting. Another church is growing, and recently had some land donated where they will be able to build a building. A much needed building, as currently they are meeting in a breezeway between two houses. Swelteringly hot. Really made stark how blessed our church is.

The VBS was totally overwhelming. When we arrived, there were 68 kids waiting for us, which was a bit of a letdown, because we had planned for about 225 kids. We started our different sessions, and about 30 minutes later, a large school let out class, and our ranks swelled to around 300 kids. Next day, 325 kids, next day 400, last day 450 kids. All these numbers are approximate. Even with the margin of error, that's a lot of kids!! We found out that only 250 kids or so had signed up from the church, or through the church, and the rest were children from within the community. The children were so much fun to be around, really just amazing. Smiles, laughs, love, joy, great attitudes. We felt like celebrities, all the children jostling and competing to sit next to us, grabbing our hands whenever they were available, and showing us every little thing they drew, or cut, or glued. As we were talking about it later, a very interesting idea surfaced. In our treatment of the kids, and how they treated us, we could see Jesus. The kids just wanted to be with us, to hold our hands, much like how we are called to be with Jesus, and we tried to be like Jesus, just holding their hands, and loving them, and telling them their picture was beautiful, like he does for us. Being back here, it is challenging to keep both of those mindsets a part of our daily routine.

One of the most interesting things we heard was about evangelism in Liberia. Shepard told me that Liberians have "itchy ears" for the Gospel. (I love this imagery!!) Lots of Liberians told us about sharing the Gospel with total strangers, but the most amazing idea was actually sparked by something we saw by the side of the road. We asked there was such a large group of people along the the side of the road, circled up. One of the possibilities.....someone preaching the Gospel, for whoever would listen. Later we asked someone about, and their reaction was fairly calm, as if the idea is commonplace. I am still flabbergasted by the thought of going out, and just standing on the corner, preaching boldly. As we were talking about, we realized that in most places in the U.S. such an attempt would result in mocking at least, and a lawsuit at most, not conversion of by-passers. 

Part of the appeal of the location for the VBS was the neighborhood. Aside from the church attendees, the neighborhood was almost entirely Muslim. (We asked if there are people who aren't anything when it comes to religion. The looks we got for that question were the best answer possible.)  We got to be the face of Jesus to these kids who have never heard about Christ, and we got to see one of the Liberians share the Gospel with them. It was pretty powerful to see.

The last thing that we really saw happening was in our own hearts. All of us felt challenged to take information, either about the poverty, or the religious climate, or the VBS, or something else, and take it back, and share with others. We also had to chance to take back experiences and ideas and information, and have that inform our actions through the rest of our lives.

Liberia Stories (Hypothetical Micro-economy)

Alpha-A gas station worker.
Beta-A food store owner and operator.
Gamma-A barber shop owner and operator.
Delta-A communication link owner and operator.
Epsilon-A clothing peddler.
Zeta-A taxi driver.
Eta-A taxi driver.
Theta-A motorcycle taxi rider.
Iota-A motorcycle taxi rider.
Kappa-A general store worker.

Now, let's look at the typical interactions that these people could have in a regular day, and how each interaction fuels further interactions.

Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, and Kappa all need to get to work. So Zeta, Eta, Theta, and Iota take them to work. Zeta, Eta, Theta, and Iota would purchase their "petrol" from Alpha, with the money from Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, and Kappa.  Zeta, Eta, Theta, and Iota would then go spend their money on phone minutes, food, clothes. Alpha will spend his money on the same things. Can you see where this is going? Epsilon, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Kappa will spend their money on similar things. As we can see from this, a person can conduct most of the economic activity in a very small, personal group of people.

At this point, assuming that you were able to get the idea, you are now wondering why the heck I went on about that. The point of this whole excercise is to paint the picture of a highly personal economy. And this intimate economy fosters some real community, beautiful community.

Liberia Stories (Part 6)

The Economy-The most staggering figure for the Liberian economy is the unemployment. 80% to 85%. Imagining that there are 10 people reading this. (Conservative estimate) Only two of you have steady work. The rest of you are either looking for work, occasionally working, or diddling your days away. How's that make you feel? Now lets assume that you are one of the two who does have work, you only make $1 American a day. You have anywhere from 4-7 children, and adequate food for each child costs $1 a day. You are extremely dependent on help from aid workers, schools, friends, and any other possible means of making money.  Most of the nation's industry is based off of outside involvement, though sometimes indirectly. Much of the economy is little inter-connected circles, people selling food, the food sellers buying gas, the people selling gas get paid, and they buy food. The outside involvement comes in the form of the gas step. When it comes to something requiring large amounts of investment, without immediate promise of return, either a international investor, or a wealthy Liberian. I count wealthy Liberians as international, because the gap between regular Liberian and wealthy Liberian is of international proportions

One of the best possibilities for gainful employment, construction,  is not a widely available job. Not because there isn't a lot of construction going on, but because the jobs are already filled. Confused?  It gets better. A majority of construction is being done by various Chinese companies. And Chinese workers. I can understand the Chinese companies, in fact, China is doing some of the best things in Africa, not under the "foreign aid" heading, but under "investment" or "business opportunity". Shipping over Chinese workers doesn't make as much sense to me, considering that there is a huge pool of workers on-site. The surface reason for this choice is two-fold. Less training, hire people that have construction experience, and no language gap. The counter-reasons are far more compelling in my opinion. Liberian workers would be more familiar with the culture, economy, resources and obstacles. Housing would not have to constructed, special provisions for food and water would not have to be made, and assuming that part of the purpose of the construction is to help revitalize the nation, hiring Liberians would help stimulate the economy. 

One of the most interesting features of Liberia was the huge amounts of large compounds. Compounds are pieces of property, owned by either rich people, or rich organizations. The buildings are surrounded by large concrete walls between 7 and 12 feet high, topped with barbed wire. There is typically some kind of metal gate, and perhaps an additional pedestrian door. If you recall, this is almost exactly like where we stayed. The guesthouse had no barbed wire though. What was striking to me about this compound complex that so many NGO's seem to suffer from was the fact that the purpose of these NGO's is to help the citizens of Liberia. The compound fosters a cycle of leaving the compound, "helping", and then returning to the compound. This makes helping people just a task, just a part of a day. This mindset seems to be patronizing, because the compound gives an air of superiority. BTW, almost all of this is just my opinion. Feel free to have an open discussion with me if you disagree. Again, another African dilemma. How much safety and comfort should be sacrificed in order to be more connected with the general population? Going towards the beach, a lot of the compounds are abandoned, and looted. According to Chipi, those compounds belong to more of the wealthy Liberians, and less of the NGO's.  In almost every abandoned building. at least one family is living. Somewhere in the huge amount of pictures that I will be uploading will be a picture of a guy sleeping on a motorcycle, inside one of the hotels we visited. "Cheapest security around".

Going back to the little interconnected circles I mentioned earlier. There are tons of little places that are owned and operated by only a couple people. The best way I can describe it is as lemonade stands for adults, but with much, much higher stakes. Most of these places have personal sounding names, religious names, or crazily business-savvy names. These places are the same ones I described earlier, the ones that are getting knocked down. I just love the personal feeling of these little stands. Sure, the products are the same, and probably at exactly the same price. But you are directly supporting a person. If we stopped shopping at one store, and started shopping at a competitor, the employees wouldn't be personally effected, any loss of customers is a major decrease in standard of living. Such a personal economy. Let's imagine 10 people, and how they interact with each other. See next post for an idea of how this would work.

One more thing I wanted to hit on. The existing infrasturcture is fundamentally flawed, so public electricity is  unheard of, all power comes from generators, with the exception of main roads the norm is dirt, and water can only be obtained from wells. I actually got to pump some water from a well, which was great fun. There is a picture of me pumping the water, which will be among the multiplicity of forthcoming pictures. The wells are almost always busy, and are quite the gathering place, there will upwards of 100 people gathered there, waiting for their turn, and in the meantime, being a genuine part of community, and really being present in an unstructured way.

That's all for this one!
Next post is about things at the VBS, and things that our team saw God doing in Liberia, and in us.
Thanks for reading!

Liberia Stories (Part 5)

Thanks to my Mom's suggestion, I will be breaking up this economy/macro-policy post into a couple posts.
Part 1

Transportation.
My story about the mob justice for hit-and-run drivers is just an example of the lack of traffic enforcement in Monrovia. There are so few traffic lights, or traffic signs, or even traffic laws, and still supply of enforcement can't even come close to matching the amount of demand for enforcement. Most of the police cars are either civilian cars that have been drafted into police service, or donated by other nations. My favorite example of this was the M3 wagons that must have been donated by Germany. Just imagine the picture with police badging. Traffic lights are so rare that there is an entire marketplace, known in the colloquial as "Red Light", which was the first light in all of Monrovia.

There are a few main categories of vehicles, and those make up a hierarchy of the road.

 18-wheelers-Extremely rare, I saw 2, and they were outside of the city, on the more secluded roads. These belong to big foreign companies, because Liberian companies could not afford such vehicles. These have right of way over everything.

Big trucks-Cement mixers, rubber trucks, flatbeds, etc. Way more common. These double as mass transit, I saw a flatbed that was hauling lumber, and 10 people hanging or sitting on various parts of it.

Big vans-Perhaps the highest volume vehicles in the entire transportation system, I saw at least 15 people in vans with seat for 7. People sitting on stranger's laps, people with their torsos sticking out of windows, so they could fit. The amount of people that fit in one of these van would probably get a local news segement in the U.S.

Government and NGO vehicles.
These are the nice cars. Any car that looks like it was made in the past 5 years is almost certainly in this catagory. Interestingly, there are familiar brands. Toyota, Hundai, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz are the main examples, but what is interesting is the difference in models. One of my drivetime hobbies was looking for government cars, then trying to decipher the acronyms. EPA, MOT, OFR, etc. (Environmental Protection Agency, Ministry of Transportation, Office of Fiscal Responsibility)

Taxis-Taxis are a strange mish-mash of imports, domestics, and cars that seemed to exist entirely outside of any kind of brand. The most immmediately striking feature on these cars is the decor. A popular dash decoration is a jewled tissue box. An empty tissue box. Nearly every rear bumper had something painted on it, either a futbol association, some religious association, some motivational motto, or support for a particular U.S. politican. (And it is not Sarah Palin) Taxis have right of way over nothing. Except people, and that is dependant on how fast the taxi is moving, and how many people are there.

Motorcycles-There are 3 types, two domestic brands, and then a strange collection of this-and-that from elsewhere. These are like little taxis, on steroids and speed. A driver, a passenger (or two), and the road, and no helmets, and all the other cars that have right-of-way over them, and no speed limits. I know you all are imagining what a lot of fun that would be! Oh boy!

One of the most interesting things I observed about the transportation system was the total erraticity, the total lack of regularity. A commute of 25 miles can take anywhere from 1 hour to 3 hours, and can cost $50 Liberian (A little under $1 American), or it can cost up to $250 Liberian ($3.86). This really causes problems for those who want to work. Trying to get to work on time can be really hard to do, should you leave on time, or should you leave 2 hours early to plan for the worst? How would we do with having to make that choice?

A bit about the effects of the war. Liberia was plauged by 3 seperate conflicts between 1984 and 2004, and the times between these conflicts were not exactly idyllic either. The most visible effect is the big buildings. I saw three different large, resort-type hotels, all of which were abandoned. Most of the buildings were under construction when the looting began, so most of that was of material value was taken. I imagine the entropy went like this. Stuff that is easily removed (paintings, chairs, light fixtures, doors), then progressively towards things that take more effort. Sinks, toilets, plumbing, wiring, flooring, wallpaper, finally the buildings were stripped down to just the concrete frame. This once luxurious thing was broken into pieces so people could continue to live their bare minimum lives. Most of the other buildings are either intact, or rebuilt, it seemed like the big places are the ones that got hit.

That's it for this one!
More to come!

Liberia Stories (Part 4)

I have to admit, at this point my memory gets a little more fuzzy, so I will stop including days, and stop deluding myself that they are in chronological order.

We went to the beach, AHEAD owned property, with a couple of buildings, one of which must have been magnificent, but now is stripped down to concrete, and has the visible scars of war. People still live there, mainly because there are solid walls, and a solid something over their heads. Imagine living where an abandoned building is considered good shelter. I want you to imagine it, then tell me how that makes you feel, or what you think of that prospect. The comment box is there for a reason. The beach was totally awesome! Reddish sands, good waves, and pleasantly warm, I guess warm in comparison to Pacific Ocean temperatures.  Swimming was great fun, bobbing in the waves, occasionally bodysurfing a wave. The most fun was when I would catch a wave, and then get smacked into the sand, which for some reason was hilariously fun. I finished swimming, went and changed my shorts, and then went back down to the beach. In retrospect, changing my shorts was a moot point, because the entire reasoning was that I would avoid having sand all over me. A futbol game was breaking out, and I naturally jumped in, cause that's what I do. Those guys were way out of my league, and I knew it, and they knew it. I didn't hold back, and they didn't. I didn't get totally embarrassed, so that was a great game. My standard for African futbol games is not making an absolute fool out of myself. All in all, the game was pretty fun.

After the beach, on the way home, we stopped by the THE Liberian ice cream place. Bonjal. Still don't get the name. The place was a large compound, surrounded by 7 foot high walls, and two strands of barbed wire, the only visible points of entry were two heavy metal gates. Inside was a large plaza, with a stage to the left, tables to the right, buildings to the back left and right, and gazebo tables to the back center. The ice cream was......unlike any other ice cream I have ever had. I think they used powdered milk, because the texture was very grainy, and I know their freezer was not running so well, because this was soft-serve, taken to the extreme. The ice cream was not exactly Haagen Daaz, and the atmosphere was just as interesting.  I went in expecting Baskin Robbins, and came out having experienced an odd cross between a club, and a McDonald's Playplace. It was pretty interesting. Never thought of an ice cream place as a social scene. Perhaps there is an unexplored market for that in the U.S.

The guesthouse was in a neighborhood called "Bushrod Island", which is about 20 miles from Monrovia.  Along the way, I saw plenty of tiny enterprises, and I started noticing some of them had yellow marks, mostly "XMCC" When I asked about those marks, Chipi told me that MCC stands for Monrovia Cleanliness Corps, and that X means that building, or structure is going to be knocked down. My immediate reaction is that is wrong, but then the situation got explained to me in a little detail. During the war, many people fled from the interior to Monrovia, and there they set up those little huts, shacks, stands, etc. Those who had businesses established away from the road, where they are supposed to be, got crowded out by those who basically jumped ahead of them in line. Now the roads are going to be expanded, and those people who built closer to the road are getting their buildings knocked down, so the road can expand. This will allow the economy to expand, which is a good thing. This brings up a question about if this is ok morally, and how the conflict can be avoided, or diffused. This is a tricky moral and ethical dilemma. Tony and I were talking about the problem, and we both came to the conclusion that the the buildings needed to be knocked down.

My next post is going to focus on the economy, and transportation, which plays a huge role in the economy. I will also talk about the effects of the war on the nation, and on the people of the nation. One final story to introduce transportation in Liberia.

Motorcyclists sit at the corners of major intersections waiting for people to hire them as mini-taxis. We were driving along, and I saw a crowd gathered around something at one of those intersections, and I caught enough of a glimpse to see that it was a person lying on the ground. Chipi speculated that someone in a car had hit that man, and then continued driving, instead of stopping. In other words, a simple hit-and-run. We have those in the States. My thoughts were along the lines of "Poor guy, I hope someone helps him. Seen it before though." As we continued driving along Chipi told us that the police could never catch this person, but that some of the other motorcyclists sitting at that corner would have taken off after the perpetrator of the crime. Sure enough, about 3 miles down the road, there was a car, pulled over, with several holes in the windows, ranging from 3 inches in diameter, to 6 inches in diameter. Rock sized, basically. There were 4 motorcycles, parked there, and several men around the car. We asked Chipi what would probably happen to the driver. "Beating." This is a totally different way of dealing with a similar problem that exemplifies the differences between Liberia, and I imagine most 3rd World nations, and the U.S., and other nations like it.

That's it, tommorow I will be starting Liberia Stories (Economy, Transportation, and the Effects of War)
Thanks for reading.
Feel free to comment with questions, ideas, or replies to questions I posed.
Have a good day!