The last night in Liberia I spent taking notes and jotting details down, so I wouldnt forget things later. During the day I had walked through town a bit getting prices from several building suppliers. Some examples:
1. Zinc roofing sheet is $120 for a bundle of 20, or 90+ for cheaper thicknesses
2. A bag of cement is $10.50
3. 1/2 inch steel reinforcing bar is $9 for 38 feet (that’s 10 metres guys!)
4. A 12.5 kVA generator (110V) is $8000. Small generators from a couple of hundred with all sizes and prices in between
All usual supplies are available, including tiles, plumbing, sinks etc, nuts/bolts, wire, electrical fittings and cables, tools and machinery. There are wooden plank lengths around, but I didnt recognize the wood or how suitable it would be for load bearing. Usual western hardwoods and softwoods arent grown here.
Now when I was in Gbanga, cement was $17 a bag. Prices inland are nearly double. There is such a shortage of trucks here that transport is a significant cost for anything outside Monrovia. It would be good to follow up if the Chinese have an alternate supply chain, or open some stores. I saw some guys about to open a chinese car dealership on Mechtel Street, with cars and trucks. They are starting to make a presence here. I think that anyone with a few trucks could do well here as a general haulage company making the run from Monrovia to Gbanga.
I think that the school needs at least one truck and one car asap; they should be the first purchases and the ones that would make an immediate impact. So many expenses are getting tied up in simple transport of people and materials. The truck can be for the school/farm, and also a small transport company for income.
Everyone builds with concrete and uses simple beach sand on the coast, and river sand inland. I sighted clean white river sand in Suakoko in piles on the side of the road, a good concrete grade. I was watching 2 guys carrying bags of sand from the Mamba Beach Hotel balcony with a french MSF (medecins sans frontieres) guy called Serge. He said, you know that if you use beach sand you need to rinse the salt out. But here they dont, they just dig it from the beach near the water and mix it with cement straight away. After a few years, a lot of these buildings will have serious corrosion problems. Yep.
Despite not being a guest at the hotel, I spent most of my time after 6pm there and used it as a base. By now new arrivals were asking me for survival tips about the city. It seems that the majority of guests are here for a week on average, for a specific conference or meeting. After dinner, I went home early and crashed.