The hotel had arranged a car for me to take me to the airport. You always have mixed feelings when leaving a place. Karrus accompanied me for the run. On the way I dropped the apartment key off in Sinkor, and called Agnes to thank her again and confirm the handover. Next time I am here I will go to Robertsport again, check Cori’s Strongheart house and see how they’re going, and visit Agnes hoping to score potato greens again. It would be fun to spend a night in the beach tents next door, where there is also a beach restaurant. The surf there is loud. I really hope Robertsport takes off.
http://www.surfliberia.com/home.html
http://www.strongheartfellowship.org/
The trip was quick and I got there 3 hours before departure. Check in and immigration was polite, quick and hassle free. I had been expecting a bit more chaos. To my horror and indignation I realized I was now in the THIRD airport in a row without a Qantas lounge. Ouagadougou, Accra, Monrovia. I will be having SERIOUS words when I get home. However there was a really nice, clean restaurant in the international terminal (there is exactly one terminal in the airport) where I ordered some red red and chicken; this is one of my favourite meals. It consists of fried planteins, red beans, rice, fried chicken and a hot palm butter sauce. I tried this at home; you can buy planteins in Melbourne, from Springvale Market. The restaurant had a Kenyan soap opera going, very loudly, on the African Magic channel that is everywhere here. I spoke to a guy in the terminal who I met on my flight over here. His father had been here a lot in the 60’s, and he had been back and forth himself all his life. I seemed to be running into quite a few westerners who kept coming back to Liberia. He gave a passionate response, when he asked how the school was going and I mentioned the default building style. Its crazy! They love concrete houses with tin rooves here! It’s so hot in there! What is that?
You almost never see natural airflows. That reminds me, When we went to Suakoko, before checking into the Phebe guest house, we went to the Catholic College near Gbanga looking for a restaurant. There I saw the best constructed building I had seen in the whole of Liberia. I was speechless, I was without speech. It looked catholic. There were 4 wings arranged in a large square around a courtyard maybe 50×50m, and wide cloistered verandahs. The roof height was high, 4 metres. The classrooms were large, 8m wide rather than the usual 6, and at least 10 m long. All rooms had open weave brick walls with half brick spaces, allowing a breeze through. Those catholics.
But what struck me most, even more than the great (simple!) design and airflows, were the materials. The rooves were tiled, with possibly cement tiles, but more likely a composite. So much cooler. And the walls were made of BRICKS which I was convinced had been kiln fired. They made a clink when tapped together, and seemed to have a glaze, albeit slight. I got a little excited, thinking there was a large kiln in the area. I had asked earlier about this and Charles said that Firestone had a kiln somewhere.
However they were sun fired. We actually saw them being made. Down the back of the college, a few guys had a really nice looking brick pressing machine. They used only a little cement, and local soil. The soil here seems absolutely perfect. They could pres rectangular bricks, larger than the standard size at home but smaller than a mud brick. They also pressed bricks with perfectly rounded corners, used on walls and also brick supporting columns in the cloister. After drying, the bricks made a ‘clink’ when tapped. Beautiful. The team were selling bricks for 35 cents each, but also mentioned the machine could be hired. I really like this brick; I took some photos I’ll upload. Karrus, Johnny and Snyder were really surprised at how cool the rooms were, with no fans or aircon. It was great as I had been trying to explain the difference between brick/tile and concrete/tin buildings for some time, socializing a change from the default, and now we had a real example. That brick is perfect for the new school, and knowing the soil types we can make them ourselves. The brick builders mentioned that in some areas they add sand, but in others the soil is sandy enough. We have sandy soil away from the swamp, but also clean river sand near our land.
It was all good. Sometimes, good things just seem to fall out of the sky.
The plane was a new 737-800 with a US and a local pilot. When we boarded, I found I had a centre seat between 2 big guys and was cramped. I was in seat 15B. We waited while everyone boarded, then had the usual pre-flight messages and prepared for take off. But something had been vaguely nagging me tha I couldnt put my finger on. Then I had a sudden flash about the number of passengers, something odd. The terminal was quite small and I think there were about only 100 or so passengers in the room. Why were we so crowded on a 737? And I realized I had seen hardly anyone walking down the aisle past row 15 while I was waiting.
I unbuckled and turned around to look down the plane. I was sitting right on the wing. Rows 1-16 had 6 people per row each, 3 per side, and the rest of the plane behind the wing had just 8 people. Including business class, that made about 120 in front of the wing, with around 8 people scattered behind the wing. It was so unusual that I started doing some calculations; I didnt know if that would cause the plane to be nose heavy. Average 70kg per passenger gave us 8.4 tonnes of humans in front of the wing and just half a tonne behind. It didnt sound right.
We took off and in a bored, distracted way, I casually looked for evidence of the plane struggling to climb, but everthing was normal. When we hit cruising altitide I took my belt off and moved to an empty triple seat. Everyone else stayed packed together. The flight was direct and comfortable. The landing was a little heavy; we bounced and touched down again a few seconds later. But nothing serious. I am still curious whether you can distribute passengers like that.
Roberts airport has a very efficient way of allocating and printing boarding passes. I think the first passenger is allocated 1A, the next 1B, the next 1C. If there were only 3 people on the whole flight, those 3 would be crowded together.
Flying into Accra, I was genuinely stunned at how big it was, and how well lit, in the dark. Usually Ikando very kindly pick me up at the airport. This time I said I would be fine. New arrivals in Accra find the airport drivers daunting, if not terrifying, the first visit. But I had taken both Ouaga and Monrovian taxis in the last couple of weeks and these Accra guys were etiquette graduates in comparison. And I was feeling very tired and did not have my usual patience for negotiating fares.
The first guy who approached me in the terminal I just ignored; they are there just looking for westerners. I think they pay for the privilege of being indoors, and wear neat shirts. The second one just outside the exit was persistent and I told him to go away; they usually want double. I walked down to the rank and said to the first guy, Nima Police Station (near the apartment), 5 cedis. He said, Fine, fine, its 7, come on, lets go.
Too tired for this; not cross, just tired. A few other drivers were watching. I said No, 5. He said Lets go, 7. I said, ‘i am NOT some obruni guy and i KNOW that its 5 from the airport to town and i am NOT going to pay some new price just because I look western.’ The other drivers backed me up, saying ‘Go with him, he’s first, but it should be 5′ and he agreed. When you’ve been in a Monrovian share taxi, which would have to be the world’s worst with the possible exception of a Mongolian yak taxi, I think I have these Accra drivers sorted out now.
It was 8pm so I hit Busy Internet for a bit, where having both bandwidth and aircon seemed very modern and luxurious. I realized that it had been exhausting being in Monrovia. I must have had my early warning system turned to 10 the whole time, and the constant concentration on the environment for so long had been wearying. It lifted in Accra and Ifelt very relaxed and refreshed during the safe, uncomplicated, lamplit walk home at night.