earth walk

This blog is now up and running again on new servers, after a night of installing linux, databases, wordpress and all the bits and pieces, and applying backups. I lost the last 2 posts I think. I am glad its all back again and thank goodness for backing up data. Unfortunately I didn’t back up the new wiki site, it being only 2 weeks old and me being careless. There’s a lesson there. Hopefully it will be back in a couple of days.

after a sudden mysql and hence site collapse, re-building slowly.
images will be missing for a day; its midnight and im tired, i wont get images updated till tomorrow.

I just added a google site search (see right) which is working so much better than the older wordpress one; it was very easy to add on, and the entire site is now catalogued with the google search engine. I am also experimenting with google adsense, to see if relevant links appear. Stay tuned.

It has taken over a year but we now have not just village level transfer and recognition of our ownership of the land, but also government recognition on a land survey deed. I had been expecting maybe a little more detail but given the timeline will settle for the result. Actually its fantastic to have achieved this milestone.

I received an email from Luca today, the passionate italian (is there another type?) who was born in Robertsport. He uploaded some photos of his journey through Liberia, mainly Robertsport and Cape Mount. So many of them incredibly striking and beautiful. The countryside is so very different from Monrovia. He is a graphic artist and photographer, apparently a very good one, who has been exploring Liberia recently.

http://varabis.blogspot.com/2009/03/robertsport-grand-cape-mount-county.html

This is Luca:

Sigh. Tonight 7 of us went to dinner, all Ikando people: Martin, Quarshie, Ralph, Kelly, Megan, Charlotte and Kathleen. We took taxis to Osu - Martin is a fierce taxi negotiator and seems to get an extra cedi off anything I can. He knew a wonderful outdoor cafe where we had Banku Tilapia, which is banku (a ball of corn and cassava dough), river fish and a hot pepper sauce. Each diner gets a water dish and a tea towel. There is no cutlery; eating only with your right hand, you scoop bits off the banku, and dip it in the sauce and vegetables, and break pieces from the whole fish. The outdoor seats were a bit dark so you couldn’t actually see the food, but it was wonderful. Good call son, I told Martin. The sauce was so hot that Star beers all round were a given.

Over here there are a few ways to rapidly clear an eating area of a crowd: shouting ‘Fire’ works least well. Running in screaming with AK47’s blazing is pretty good. But using your left hand to eat food or even bring it near your bowl is easily the fastest. Enough said. You use the water bowl and towel to rinse and dry your right hand. In Ghana, they do love their Fufu and Banku.

There have been cool breezes outdoors the last few nights, which have been wonderfully refreshing. A couple of guys with a guitar and an african drum played slow Bob Marley. We headed back late, Martin again leading the charge home in a taxi negotiation and ride home that I will save for over the bbq. I thought I had these guys sorted out, but this tall guy from Tipperary makes me look easy. I get the street rate; he gets lower. But for long term volunteers, every day and cedi counts.

Kathleen is an architect (hello!!!!) working with a well known sustainable architect firm here in Accra, but with offices in Washington. She is really good value and we had a few interesting discussions on architecture styles here.  She pointed me to the place where she was working:

http://www.constructsllc.com/en/home.html

which looks perfect. Unfortunately Joe, the lead, was en route from Wahington and we would miss. However I emailed him an introduction, and he replied that it is possible we could meet up at Heathrow on Saturday morning as he is transiting through. I hope we can, and if somehow professionals with local experience like  Kathleen and Joe were on board in somehow, or we could work out some engagement model, that would be great. I inadvertently created a new architecture joke based on my limited knowledge of autocad: is the latest release still R-13? Among architects it brings the house down.

I love this one, Tom sent me the link. Alfred runs a web site in Monrovia, that requires no electricity or network connections. There are no data centres in Liberia outside the major embassies.  I like how Alfred gets his news both in and out.

http://www.neatorama.com/2009/03/23/the-blackboard-blogger-of-africa/

Also, he is immune to computer viruses, stays up in power failures, and is robust with network and router failures. Seriously, Liberia is a land of amazing opportunity. Despite everything, ingenuity and enterprise are everywhere. Its like the US or Australia were in the very early days; anything is possible.

I still have felt a bit weary after returning from Liberia, and needed time just to switch off and relax a little. I spent just some social time with some of the Ikando volunteers over here in Accra.

Ikando has a great complex for volunteers in central Accra, in the Nima district. There were a few volunteers there: Martin, an irish guy from Tipperary, Tom from the US, Megan and Kathleen from London, Kelly from the UK and Charlotte, a new arrival. There is usually someone arriving and someone departing. Ikando has an excellent reputation for looking after its volunteers; everyone is met at the airport on arrival (uneventful car rides home!), has a clean and comfortable room in the complex, and spends the first day with Quarshie on an orientation to Ghana life skill basics (sim cards, transport, banking, water and food…) I have met a lot of volunteers from other organizations working here and from some of the experiences they relate, I think that Ikando is easily the best run, and takes the best care of its volunteers. Hilda and Gladys clean the rooms and kitchens meticulously each day, Rose and George manage the office, responding to queries and managing the logistics of placements and movements.  Quarshie is 24×7 general support for volunteers on any issue large or small. Dedicated security guards keep an eye on the complex at night. It is very well run and managed. Every volunteer I have ever met on each trip can’t speak highly enough of Ikando. I am also a parent with grown children, and my son-in-law Paul spent a few weeks with Ikando last year on a first placement, having an awesome experience. I know there are parents of new graduates considering volunteering in Africa, who worry. If someone is considering a placement but is a little uncertain, Ikando is a great and reliable organization in Ghana to consider.

http://www.ikando.org

If anyone would like specific information or has questions on volunteering in Ghana in general  (no question is silly), feel free to email me (links on the right).

I know a few current and former volunteers who are tracking the blog, and someone pointed this out:  somewhere in internet land there is an isolated comment from a known dis-gruntled temporary employee, who was moved on quite some time ago after an incomplete probation. (Ikando puts all new employees on a managed probation period. The current dozen or so staff here are all happily gruntled.) If you are an Ikando ex or current volunteer and have the time, do a google, find the traveller’s site concerned, and assess for yourself if her isolated comment sanity checks at any level. There is space to respond and I would encourage you to do so; potential volunteers could be seriously misled which would be a real shame. The other tens and tens of comments on the web are all positive.

On Monday night, Martin, Kathleen and myself wandered down to a beachside cafe/bar, and watched and  listened to the crashing waves, from a table on rocks just metres from the surf below. There was a cool sea breeze and life was very good. The Harmattan had just been clearing suddenly in the last few days. This is the annual Sahara sand and dust storm that hazes all of West Africa for about 3 months a year. When I came here a few weeks ago, the sky was just an even grey. Yesterday I saw patches of blue, and could distinguish some white clouds. And tonight, for the first time, stars in the night sky.

I looked to the south over the sea, and there it was: the Southern Cross. Higher in the sky than you would think, considering we were on the equator. For an Australian who had not seen any stars in the sky for some weeks it was a beautiful sight, and I felt it was calling me home. I have been missing children and loved ones; in just 2 more days I fly to London on the way home.

I just uploaded a couple of photos, but I will keep uploading to this album over the next week. I took quite a lot, but these first two are the most memorable for me.

http://picasaweb.google.com/ralph.stone/LiberiaMarch2009#

I have been so tired the last couple of days. I spent most of Friday just sitting at Busy Internet in the aircon cafe, alternately doing some email, blog and random surfing, wandering to the restaurant and having something light or cool, and watching the simply awful but compelling african soap operas on the restaurant tv.  

I was going to have an early night on Saturday, however on the way home from Busy Internet I walked past the Tropicana restaurant on my street. It is a real surprise, and  inside it could be any average Melbourne laneway restaurant/bar. I knew they had live music on Saturday nights and I was curious.

I entered and there was a really good local blues/soul band playing. I sat down to listen while they quietly played a lot of 50’s and 60’s standards. After a few weeks of being surrounded by african music, which I like, this was a surprising change. By the way, I noticed that you dont hear much music in Liberia except in hotels and the odd local place with a generator. No electricity means no music. Its odd walking through a busy west african street and not hearing competing music. Back here in Ghana its hard not to hear music. When you’re over here and you cant hear any music for a while, it seems strange.

Anyway at Tropicana, I was sitting opposite an older Ghanean guy, who was about my height but 20Kg lighter, and wearing a blues brothers style porkpie hat. It was a cool look for such an old guy, and I said, the band are good. Oh yes, he said, they are good. A couple of songs later he wandered up, took the microphone, and sang a set. He had a great voice, a bit Ray Charles. Then he was joined by a franco african chanteuse, who earlier had been handing out Alliance Francaise brochures with a schedule of events. She pointed out her own band which was playing the following week. She had an amazing voice too, and together they were magical. There were also 2 saxophone players who took turns with solos.

Later, as the place was closing,  I met Pavle, the owner of the restaurant. He is Serbian and had been there for 15 years. As a boy his father had been the Yugoslav ambassador in Ghana for a few years. Pavle came back as an adult. He is also a well known photographer here, and had amazing prints of local scenes on the restaurant walls. We had a nice chat, myself, Pavle and 2 other Serbian guys. and as I was about to leave, he said, Please let me offer you some Sljivovica, a home made Serbian plum wine. The guy at the bar reached under the counter and pulled out a plastic 2 litre lemonade bottle, with a home made yellowish spirit. Pavle explained that he doesnt sell it at the bar, it is just for himself and friends after hours. He poured just a small shot glass, not much bigger than a medicine glass. That’s all you need. It was very smooth and wonderful: when I get home, I’m planting plum trees, look out.

So it was a late night, but a good one. Home was just 200m away and I slept deeply.

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.

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.

I decided to return to Ghana a few days early. I had most of what I needed at this stage, and I think what I needed most now was bandwidth. It would have been nice to return to Suakoko again but that would have meant another 2 days car hire, guest house and meal expenses, another USD 500.

I usually book all my own travel online. However for the Air Kenya flight from Accra to Monrovia, I went through a travel agent at Flight Centre just around the corner from work. Kylie Luttrell arranged it all and it was a very easy experience.

5am in the morning my time, 4pm Melbourne time, I called Kylie and said I’m on a Liberian phone card, could you pls check the options for pulling my flight back a few days, and I’ll phone back in an hour? A 30 second conversation. I phoned an hour later and she said there are only 2 options, Wednesday or Saturday, 17.30pm. I said let’s do Wednesday and she said “OK, its done, same credit card as last time? I’ll email the new e-ticket. Have a good flight!” All in all another 30 seconds call.

You have to love the service. It would have been really awkward trying to do it myself, directly with Air Kenya by phone. I am sure it would have taken me more than 60 seconds. Thanks Kylie!

On the way to Robertsport we were stopped at an immigration checkpoint. The officer at the gate said to me, ‘Please sir, can we know you?’ Of course, i said, showing my passport. Could you please come to sign in? I left the cruiser and a man behind a desk wrote my passport details in a large ledger. They were very polite and friendly. The woman officer from the gate then said the Commandant would like to meet me. Another office and a uniformed man greeted me warmly, the inevitable ‘You are welcome’, and chatted about australia, why was I here, you are a fine man and you are welcome. Karrus and Snyder drifted in.

I know about checkpoints where there is some problem and you need to pay a bribe.This however was the opposite. I didnt get the protocol and I sort of said thanks, shook hands and walked out. They had been hoping that I would offer them something, but they wouldnt ask. One of the guys stayed behind and gave them a dollar, saying they were SO happy and grateful. That made me feel sorry for them, an unusual way to feel about people at checkpoints wanting money. But the fact that they werent going to ask, and a dollar between 5 people made them really happy and grateful, put a spin on it. I would arc up if I was under pressure for a bribe. But I did feel sorry for these guys who probably get paid 50/month each to man a gate all day, out in the sticks, and just hope passing westerners will offer a dollar. The number of passing private citizens like me going that way would be a couple a week I am guessing, as opposed to the streams of UN and major NGO vehicles. The unnamed Liberian who gave them the money felt no pressure and liked talking to them. He also said he felt a bit sorry for them. I still have mixed thoughts about where corruption starts, and the thin edge of the wedge; after all it was still a government immigration checkpoint. It was just the way they didnt ask for anything and just looked hopeful, you had to be there.

Remember I was only there 10 days; but here are some thoughts.

1. Take plenty of USD in. There are no banks and no cards work at all. Western Union and Moneygram are everywhere and work fine. I suggest having at least 400 on you at all times (its buys a couple of nights in a hotel). You also need Liberian dollars. Transactions include both. LIB 64 = USD 1. In practice people use LIB 30 as 50 cents, so you will get change with a combination of notes. For example, a $3.50 purchase with a $5 note gives you a USD 1 dollar note plus 30 Liberian dollars as change. br />

2. Take a laptop. Hotels have wireless internet but internet cafes are so poor as to be unusable.

3. The following 4 hotels are recommended as a base: Mamba Point, Cape Hotel, Kristals, and the Royal. They all charge 150/night but it is essential to have a drink with expats the first day or 2, get the local advice, have a smallnew network and support group, and get your bearings. There are also a couple of Chinese hotels in Sinkor, hard to miss, at 120/night.

4. It is a safe city in daylight. Avoid the Redlight district altogether. There is little power or street lighting after dark. Aim to be back at your accomodation before dark, just relax and stay there.

5. Hotels have cars and drivers for a flat $10 per hour for short trips. Avis near the port has Landcruisers and drivers for 150 per day plus fuel. Dont be tempted to drive around yourself. There are no traffic lights, UN convoys and police drive at high speed, and after dark the chances of you hitting a pedestrian on an unlit street are high. Western drivers in an accident are unpopular and a crowd may gather. I found our Avis driver Morris to be excellent. Avis number is +231 6 810 177

6. The centre of town is the corner of Broad and Randall streets. Its all fine before dark. The city street lights that work are powered by diesel generators in the odd disused building. There is no grid.

7. Cell phone coverage is excellent, dropping out between major towns. Get a Lonestar sim. Charge cards can be bought everywhere, default values are USD 5 & 10.

8. Unusually for Africa, a walking westerner attracts little attention or nuisance sellers. They assume you might be attached to UNMIL.

9. There are a few big western supermarkets with everything. The best one is on Mechtel St between Broad St and UN drive. It doesnt look like one from the outside; it is a big green complex with Western Union and Heineken signage.

10. The bag water is suspicious, buy bottled. Some people here buy water purifier processors and start their own small business making local bag water, run to dubious standards.

11. Be polite and kind to everyone. They are really poor and you have a much more enviable lifestyle, recession or no recession.

12. Electricity is 110V;make sure your phone, laptop and camera chargers accept an input of 100-250V. Most power sockets are either 2 round pins, or 2 flat pins with parallel axes.

13. The JFK hospital near the Government House is modern and well run. Go there for attention.

14. Any area in the triangle between Mamba Point, City Centre and Sinkor, is reasonably safe. Travelling alone beyond Sinkor is not recommended.

15. There are no maps ofthe city or the area.

16. If you venture out of Monrovia for a day trip, take your passport. There are immigration and UN checkpoints.

17. When you arrive a the airport, regardless of your visa, the immigration desk will stamp you for a 7 day stay. You need to go to the immigration office in Broad Street to extend it, for around USD 25.

18. When you arrive at the airport, aim for a day arrival so there is no night time travel to the hotel.The airport is 60km out of town and is a good 1.5-2 hour drive. Take this into account when flying out. Best case is to have your hotel or a friend pick you up and travel in with someone. If you do take a taxi, the correct rate is 30 for an old taxi, 50-60 for a new hotel type car.

19. There are desktop printers in town you can take a file on a USB key to. If you need to change your e-ticket this will come in handy. There is little in the way of airline offices in either town or the airport. They are there but it is better to arrange flight changes from home, either online yourself or an agent at home, and print the new emailed ticket. The local offices may not have computers and just overbook.

20. All taxis are share taxis (except for trips to and from the airport.) Up to 10 passengers may cram into a taxi, typically a small Nissan or Datsun. Ask yourself if you really want to drive at high speed with someone sitting on your lap. The rates are by zone: 15 LIB for a short run, 20 or 30 for a trip across town, per passenger.

21. Don’t bring up the war

22. I wouldnt take pictures in the city except from a moving car. Doing so is holding up a sign saying, “I’m not UN, I’m a tourist.” Also, NEVER photograph anything remotely military, UN, police, government, convoys, UN vehicles in traffic, the US embassy…you get the idea. Unfortunately that covers 50% of the city. The various armed sentries are VERY serious about this; there is adequate signage warning you.

23. Having said all that, don’t be deterred from coming here, just come and be sensible and you’ll have a real experience.

When I told Agnes about the cost of living in Monrovia being higher than in Paris, for someone new staying in western hotels, she said that she found Monrovia to be the poorest, and the most expensive, city in the world. I am learning why.

There are classes of people in Liberia. The higher class is the western UN or NGO representative. They fly in, stay in the 150/night hotels, eat the 50/day meals, and drive in the 150/day Landcruisers plus 30/day fuel. But they dont pay any of it. It is covered by the UN or an NGO and they are personally not out of pocket a cent. I may be the only person in Liberia apart from Luca paying their own way! And every day, a few flights arrive, with hundreds of new people checking in and out of the fully booked hotels every day. The UN has its own planes, and Air Kenya, Slok, Air Brussels, Aero and Bellview also have flights.

Now you might think this is a good thing. With all that money flooding into the country, it must trickle down. But no. The city is commercially run almost exclusively by Lebanese businessmen, which will come as no surprise to anyone who knows West Africa. Not an ethnic complaint, they have been here since the 50’s, worked hard, and have a well establshed network. Commercially they have tied up all the hotels, the building and construction material suppliers, the supermarkets, and the whitegood, generator and accessory stores. I.e, all the high value commodities and services. They charge at rates the NGO’s expect and have a budget for. It is no secret that the money leaves the country for accounts back home as fast as it comes in. So on a very simple balance sheet, UN money, as well as US and european NGO money, is transferred in huge volumes from western accounts to Lebanese accounts for all representative expenses on a daily basis.

On another level, much of the western aid coming in, comes with instructions on how to spend it. Again, the result is often a transfer between 2 western bank accounts while the aid is explained to puzzled Liberians. There may be a fund for a program, which gets spent on incoming advisors who pay Lebanese hotels etc etc. There are so many NGO’s and UN branches here: UNMIL, UNESCO,UNICEF, UNIFEM,UNHCR, FAO….

The average Liberian earns somewhere between USD 50 a month to maybe USD 150 (high). A dollar is serious money. Now what I noticed is that there is nothing in the middle. There are Westerners paying between 200-350 a day, and locals earning 50-150 a month, and nothing in the middle. There’s no middle class or middle income. You either stay in a new hotel, and run around in new Landcruisers, or you live in a concrete shack without power and take share taxis.

I did a quick calculation at my hotel. There are 64 rooms at a minimum of $150. Occupancy is always around 100%. They also have a restaurant and a bar that turns over between them say $per room. Thats USD 200 x 64 x 30 per month. $400K. Now they also have a casino. I wandered in late one night and it had about 50 people, several Chinese gamblers, and a few London female pit bosses watching the tables (I never play those things; I can calculate the rate at which you lose money.) I dont know what the casino takes, but you would have to think its a few thousand a night. So I think my hotel takes between 500-600K per month.

Now for the outgoings. The hotel has about 40 staff: security guards everywhere, a bar, a restaurant, kitchen, laundry, reception, casino. The average unskilled salary is 50/m. So 30 would be unskilled: 1500 per month. 10 would be skilled or western: sushi chefs, pit bosses. Say 2000/month each, or 20K together.

So the income is 500-600K. Salaries are 22K. Trivial. Other expenses such as food, alcohol, fuel for generators etc. And cars which make a profit on an hourly rate. It leaves a healthy monthly balance and the profit must be at least 500K. Liberia doesnt see a cent of it apart from the employees salaries. And there are a dozen or so hotels such as this.

Now say the profit for this one hotel is 5M per year. Coincidentally, that is the annual budget of the Liberian Senate. I know, because it was in the news that they had run out of money early and were unable to pay salaries.

There is an awful lot of money flying around in this USD cash economy. If only the Liberians saw some of it.

Me? I stayed 4 nights in the hotels, 3 at Mamba Point, 1 at the Royal. USD 600. I also spent USD 500 for a car for 3 days plus its fuel. Maybe 300 on food, drinks, phone cards. And while the guys were with me on the road trips I covered their food and lodgings, fortunately at low country rates, still maybe 80 all up. That is how you spend USD 1500 in just 10 days. If I didnt have Agnes’ Mamba Point apartment for 5 days, it would have been USD 750 more.

I’d like to come back soon, depending on how much I can put together. If I can only save a little, I may have to take second best and settle for an apartment on the Seine instead.

I had been having trouble getting good information on yield rates, for crops other than rice or rubber. What you find is that farms dont usually have dedicated crops on dedicated blocks. Things all grow together, so there’s a pineapple bush, then a few palm trees, then some cassava and 3 plantein trees then more pineapple bushes…crops tend to be scattered at random densities and interspersed with each other, as the norm. CARI (the Cuttington Agricultural arm) has experimental fields which stand out as being rectangular and mono crop. People know that a palm tree will produce 4 or maybe 5 seed heads at a time, which gives about a gallon of palm oil, for instance. But its hard to translate that to produce per acre, as dedicated areas are so unusual. I have asked Charles to collate some expected metrics for me, for the area and soils we have.

I struggle with acres. An acre is a furlong by a chain, or alternatively 10 square chains (as a furlong is 10 chains.) You will recall that a chain is 22 yards. I just need to think in terms of 63 metre squares as acres.

A gallon is 128 fluid ounces, around 3.8 litres. In Liberia they are not aware that they are the only country in the world using acres and gallons, with the single exception of the US. So the Liberian education system teaches an obsolete measuring system used nowhere else in the world. It means that maths text books tend to be US based or nothing. There are some great Ghanean texts, all metric. Fortunately with UNMIL here, various engineers have erected road signs in Km’s, not miles.

We have a phrase at home, ‘Gone Troppo’, which means someone has adapted to a native lifestyle a little too well, and has trouble adjusting back. It pays to watch yourself, and it can be a worry when some things start appearing to be normal. I am sitting at Mamba Point and it is hot today; I’ll order a coke.

But not from that man. I know his wicked face very well. I did say, Gimme coke, and he bring it but it is NOT cold i tell you. So I say my fren, i am begging you, this is not cold. But with his very lying eyes he did deny it to my own face. I said God will bear down on your evil person.  I know that wicked man I tell you.

So I think I will place my order for refreshments with a more congenial waiter. And as ever, be vigilant,  monitoring myself for subtle changes. But so far, so good.

The 20 odd people walked with us, firstly around the boundary, then through the centre. We only walked along the southern and eastern edges, the others being either too dense or too wet (other edges, not other people). But I took a lot of photos and had a good idea of the lay of the land. I have always wanted to say ‘lay of the land’ in its original sense. It sounds good.

Speaking of sounding good, here’s a phrase I heard a couple of times and will add to my repertoire: ‘I DO know that wicked man.’ To qualify as wicked doesnt take much, it can be a social slight, or the equivalent of taking a parking spot. But for years later, if someone asks ‘Do you know John Smith’, you get to pause, look down reflectively, then look up and mutter ‘I DO know that wicked man.’ I’m going to use that.

We started to walk from the soap tree to the cutting tree along the road, all 20, with several of the family women walking together. A younger male in the family spoke english and led us. It completely floored me when he started off by saying: ‘Your land starts here…’, and later, ‘Your land is this side of that hill..’ and your land something else. We walked with Charles who pointed out some of the soil and crop features as we went.

We saw bags of palm nuts, used to make palm oil which is a cooking staple here. Workers were on the land and had been making palm oil for years, as well as harvesting rice.

On the way back we were caught in a sudden downpour and absolutely drenched. It was good though, because after that it stayed cool in Liberia for a couple of days.

We returned to the Commissioners place to finalise things. The village agreed they were happy with everything but had one big request: that the school should help the community, and not just take land and keep to itself. This sounded fine to me. We will need a lot of farmers for starters, cooks, cleaners etc so there will be a lot of jobs for the village. And I have been turning over the idea of the farm being a co-operative including the school and the village. I’ll run this by Niapele because I don’t know much about co-ops, but I do like the idea of the village being fully behind the school and vica versa.The school will also give the village a library, a womens centre, and a football field. Never underestimate the power of a football field! Its a very powerful social web.

Goodbyes and thanks all round, a quick lunch in Gbanga, and then we were on the way back to Monrovia.

2 full Landcruisers took off from the village to go to the land, about 20 peeople altogether. I know there is a lot of interest in this block from sponsors and volunteers, so I’ll detail things a bit. If you’re not into land then feel free to skip ahead.

The land is a nearly square block of 100 acres, about 640 metres per side. The southern edge is on the Suakoko-Yandawon Feeder Road, an east-west running road. This road is easy to find as it is the market road, the only real junction off the highway. It joins Suakoko and Gbengaye. The SW corner is 1100m from the junction. The SE corner is 640m east of that along the road, ie 1740m east of the junction, and has a ‘Soap’ tree. Boundary corners are marked by a ‘Soap’ tree here, which is a traditional tree used only to mark boundaries. Finding a Soap tree is like finding a fence line or pegs in the ground while walking. They have a keen eye here and if you plant a sapling, people still see it. The SE corner has a Cutting tree (distinctive) on its corner, with a Soap tree on the way. Dont ask me if Soap trees grow natively in random places and confuse things, I don’t know.

The SW corner is a swamp with a stream, and apparently a lake in rainy season, and is the lowest point on the block. It is perfect for rice growing. From there the land rises easterly and northerly, but the western edge stays low. The slopes are gentle, say 5%, with few sudden rises.

Everything grows here. There are 2 main soil types. The lower parts have a rich black organic topsoil a few centimetres thick, with a heavy wet grey clay underneath. The water table is not far from the ground here and is over ground level with rains. The upper parts have a red sandier soil which crumbles when rolled into a ball. In between one slowly transitions into the other type. Charles bought a soil auger and we took a few core samples.

I saw dense native rice, cassava, bananas, planteins, palm, pineapples and potatoes, all in abundance. This is a VERY fertile place.

The thing to do would be to draft a land usage grid. A 10×10 square grid gives acre lots. The rice would be the SW corner. Due to the land topology, the school and farm complexes would appear to be best situated in roughly the centre of the block. I estimate the school complex to be around 3 acres, the soccer field another 2, and the community centres maybe 1. Then there are farm buildings and sheds, another 3. teachers houses would spread over another 4 acres. So 12 acres is for buildings and football field. Of the rest, there are tall trees on the upper parts which could be sustainably grown and harvested for wood, and the lower parts would be for crops. Farm and school complexes in the centre. A road would need to be built from the roadway to the centre of the block. The school buildings would need to be on graded terraces, which the Bangladesh guys can do. I am really hoping that the survey includes a contour map. Otherwise it would be good to return to the block with a handheld GPS and map each acre lot. Maybe the engineers could survey the land as well for us. Did I mention I am not a fan of acres? Its a given here though.

So the land exists, it has a location, it has a topology, and is good fertile land. Together with Charles and Niapele, I think we have enough to start the land usage plan.

As planned, we met at the Commissioner’s office at 8am the next morning to walk around the land.

Just kidding, this is Africa. I was ready to leave by 7.30. Somewhere around 8.15 we arrived at Charles Mulbah’s house and got dropped off, while the driver and Snyder went to pick someone else up from another part. I was the only one who thought 8am was a real target. Anyway, Charles had real coffee in an Italian percolator which was great. While we were waiting for the car to return, he showed me a soil survey performed jointly by Cuttington and the US Dept of Agriculture, in 1977. It was very comprehensive, including soil maps and types, soil properties, water table depths, suitability for various crops, and suitability for various activities. Charles will scan it and send me a soft copy, which I’ll also forward to Niapele.

At 9.30 we arrived at the office. The Commissioner was not there yet, as it was only 9.30 which is still too early for 8 o’clock meetings. However Chief Weenah was there and started telling us about the history of the village. He is a fit and strong man in his early 70’s and had a great recollection for key dates. He recited the arrival of US forces during each of the World Wars, exact dates when the villagers and the army met to discuss terms, and key dates such as births and deaths. The Chief’s father had ruled for 40 years before he passed on. He then asked, would we like to meet his mother? She is 114. There were no birth certificates in those days, but everyone agrees that in 1912 she was a big woman and not a girl, when the Chief’s father asked her to become his wife.

He led us to the hut which was the Chief’s receiving area for a hundred years; it had fireplaces and cooking pots. His mother lived next door. He came out walking slowly, supporting her arm. She looked both frail and strong at the same time, with a clear penetrating gaze and a confident gait. She sat on a seat and the Chief asked if we had a camera. I took some photos which I will upload. His mother has a clear mind, and although she does not speak english, between the two of them they know the history of Suakoko for the last hundred years. There is a real living history project here with one of the oldest women on the planet. I wondered whether there is a history student somewhere looking for the case study of a lifetime.

He also introduced us to his older sister, another strong fit woman, and showed us the ceremonial cauldron, which had been passed down through generations. The Chief’s hut always had a full cauldron of rice for villagers and visitors; he showed it to us and it is truly an enormous cast iron pot, the diameter of a 44 gallon drum and about a third as high.For years it was permanently on the fireplace. More photos.

By now it was after 10 and people were starting to appear for our 8 o’clock.

The next step was to secure accomodation for the night. We had planned to stay at the guest rooms at Cuttington University, however they were unavailable due to renovations. So we drove a short way to Phebe Hospital, which was a sprawling complex just up the road.

Somewhere around 1950, a young graduate nurse named Carolyn Miller moved from the US to the centre of Liberia, and based herself at Phebe. She spent the next 40 years working as a nurse and training staff. She is deeply loved and remembered here. There is now a hospital, a nursing school, huge electricity generators, water, vehicles and ambulances. By western standards it would all look pretty basic, but in the middle of Bong County Liberia, it stands out. The complex had staff houses and 2 guest houses. We checked into the larger guest house. Carolyn Miller’s original house was still there, next door to us. As a child, Karrus met Carolyn Miller at school. She is still alive, strong and in her 70’s, and visited Liberia in 2008.

We drove to Gbanga for some supplies. When we returned, Karrus showed me around the grounds. We ran into his cousin, who was at the nursing school. When I asked her how she found the school, she replied that it was great, but they needed textbooks. The whole school shared just a few.

I then saw a vision. There was a large blue 1970’s era Toyota truck, troop carrier size, which looked as though it had been parked for a year or so. It was covered in dust but the tyres were still inflated. With double rear wheels, I guessed it was good for 8 tonnes.
I said to Karrus, thats might be your truck. He seemed dubious. We tracked down the hospital mechanic. He said that the truck was fine, with the exception that the clutch went last year and the board had not funded its repair. They had several new Landcruisers and Hi-Ace buses, as well as a couple of cars, and I assume a 70’s truck was not a priority. More importantly, they had not used it for a year and it had not been missed.

We tracked down the decision making authority of the truck to the medical director, who was not there. However Karrus brightened a bit when we made the connection, that if we told the director we wanted the truck for the Carolyn Mller School, it might go down well in these parts. Anyway, there was nothing to lose.

Had I been staying here longer, I would have been able to repair and or replace the clutch myself, say a days work. They had tools in the shed and worst case there was a Toyota dealership in Monrovia with parts. But we needed to get back tomorrow. I had an idea.

A few minutes from Phebe were 2 large military complexes: the Bangladesh Engineering Unit, and an UNMIL complex. We drove down to the bangladesh guys and i walked to the gate. I thought these guys spoke english? But it took about 10 minutes before a fluent speaker came down. I showed him my australian passport to identify myself, and he said that the boys had a cricket pitch, was I up for a game some time? Much as I’d love to, I dont think that the fit young Bangladesh soldiers would be able to stand up to my bowling. My Bosie-Googly is a wonder to behold. I did them a favour and gracefully declined. I explained about the school project, and that there was a potential truck, we had a clutch problem, and you guys are engineers…Well, he was genuinely interested, and said a couple of interesting things.

1. We are not mechanical engineers but road engineers. If you need any heavy earthmoving or grading done, just ask. Its in our brief to help the community. The protocol is that if the Commissioner was to ask us for earth works, we would be happy to assist.

2. UNMIL over the road has a transport and mechanical division.

So the plan is to see the Medical Director, hope he gives us a truck, and ask UNMIL to repair the clutch and hopefully give it a nice overhaul while they’re at it. And when it is time to build the school, we have graders.

That night the guys cooked a fish, pepper and rice thing which tasted great. I picked up some extra mosquito coils and went to sleep, surrounded by pesticide and surprisingly loud wildlife.

We left Cuttington and made the short drive to Suakoko. It was the weekly market day, and there were hundreds of stalls and sellers, yellow taxis everywhere, and a noisy crowd. The rest of the time it is a quiet spot, but the market is a central one for the county.

Firstly we went to visit the village Commissioner, the man who oversees all the formalities, and also judges village level misunderstandings. We sat outside his office as we arrived and watched a Judge Judy scene, something to do with a debated debt. Then we entered, and he welcomed us warmly. As we sat and talked, people started trickling in until there were around 15 in the room and another 15 pushed in the door and looking in the window. A prominent chair was set aside for a particular woman who stared at us intently. The village chief, Chief Weenah, then came in wearing ceremonial dress and carrying a staff. Apart from us, only the Commissioner and the Chief spoke english, the rest speaking a local dialect.

Chief Weenah then spoke to us in english and welcomed us to the village and the community. He then handed me a silver bowl containing a ten dollar liberian note, and a pine nut. He explained that the pine nut represented peace, and the note represented the land. The tradition was for all of us to bite into the nut, and for me to accept the note. Everyone in the room was staring at me but it was dead quiet. I then understood that this was a land transfer ritual. The woman in the chair opposite me represented the famiy who owned the school land. All land actually belongs to the village and is assigned by the chief, and today the village was formally handing over to us the 100 acres.

Speaking for the woman and her family, the chief explained the responsibilities that went with the land transfer, the understanding that our project should benefit the whole community and not the school in isolation, and the understanding that if the project did not proceed, or the purpose of the land changed, then we would need to hand the land back to the village.

There was a second part to the transfer which would take place the next day. All of us in the room would go to the land and walk around the boundary, then the transfer was complete. I am still not clear how this overlays with title deeds and foreigners. But out here in the villages, the Chief and the elders are the law.

The ceremony concluded, and we agreed to meet back at the Commissioner’s office at 8am the next morning for the boundary walk. I have to tell you that this was a very sobering day. I was very happy that we were making progress on the land. But I had just assumed a major responsibility. The woman who owned the land spent the whole time searching my eyes to see what sort of man she was handing the land to. As we didnt have a common language, I tried to just give the non verbal message that I was committed to seeing the school built, and committed to having it supporting the village. Finally she relaxed a little and smiled, so we ended up with an understanding.

Ok, now the bit I mostly came for.

Karrus had said that the village of Suakoko had donated 100 acres of land to the school. However the location was unclear, the status of ownership in doubt, and whether the land was suitable for a school or a supporting farm, no idea. So we took off in the Landcruiser with the wonderful Morris driving. Now you DONT want to drive in Monrovia at all. Its dodgem cars all the time, takes hours, and it just looks like hard work. A funny thing happened. I said to Morris, this looks hard. he said, oh yeah, traffic here is very hard work. I told him that the biggest problem we have in Melbourne is that when someone changes lanes without indicating, everyone gets upset. Chuckle. A minute later I think to myself, ‘Whats that clack clack sound?’ it sounds familiar but not something I have heard for a while. Morris is using the indicators. He may well be the only one in the city of Monrovia. I think I have started something.

The drive to Suakoko was easy, as the roads were great. Chinese roadbuilders. We also passed a huge factory complex, the biggest in the country, new and modern. A chinese cement works. These guys are serious. The chinese are well respected here and looked up to. They do serious projects: rebuilding the roads and highways quickly and well, rebuilding the steel works, rebuilding the city’s destroyed electrycity plant. Thats right, a plant the size of Yallourn was trashed in the war. Its in the city and is the biggest building complex there. it just doesnt produce electricity. There are a few chinese hotels in Sinkor: Happy Feng, with chinese characters outside.

We got to Suakoko in 3 hours. It is a good 160km from the city centre, which takes ages to go through. On the way we passed Firestone, the giant rubber tree plantations. I hadnt seen rubber trees before and they werent what I expected. There were Firestone buying stations, where they bought wet rubber and paid by the tonne. The current rate was USD 525.

If the Monrovia taxis were scary, the bush taxis were insane. They were piled with people inside, luggage in the boots and rooves, and people on top of the luggage on the roof. They just hung on. Oncoming trucks had not just countless people in the back (expected) but people on the cabin roof with legs outstretched (unexpected).

We passed a few UN checkpoints and roadblocks. I have some travel technicals, some khaki, some dark olive; not military particularly but quite passable at a distance. Today I had the olive shirt and was wearing sunglasses. Every point our white unmarked Landcruiser was waved through and the UNMIL guys at the gate saluted while I looked ahead.

The villages en route were very poor, predominantly mud, reed and bamboo, thatched rooves, a little concrete and zinc. Countless people watching us pass.

Finally we reached Cuttington University and were close to Suakoko. In its heyday Cuttington was prestigious and enormous; now it is rebuilding. There are 2000 students there today.

We met Charles Mulbah, who will be a key person for this whole project. Charles is a Renaaissance man here. He was born here and speaks the local dialect. But he obtained his agriculture and soil PhD in the states and knows all about the local soils and crops. He is a walking encyclopedia of statistics. A typical sample of our conversations:

R. Do they grow rice here?
C. yes, there are several varieties, some local, some introduced.
R. What are the yield rates?
C. 2.5-3 tonnes/hectare if the crop is managed, 1.5 tonne/hectare if it is unmanaged and traditionally farmed.
R. How many crops a year?
C. Up to 3; and the first harvest is between 90-120 days after planting, depending on the species.

He never had to look anything up; it was all in his head. he also knew the rates of growth for rice and other crops against different local soil types.

I drew some money out again from Western Union on the campus (thanks Daniel), and we piled in the car again to go to Suakoko.

I found out why the school guys here get alarmed if you mention alternate building materials such as earth or bamboo. The poorest of the poor here live in mud, stick and bamboo homes with palm thatching. The mud is crumbly, wattle and daub homes have sticks showing through, and the bamboo is used for rough walls. A lot of structures are simply stick frameworks with palm leaves thrown on top, no walls or flooring. Whole families live like that.

Now Leslie’s home was the best designed and most functional house I had seen so far in West Africa, with its rendered earth walls and high ceilings. She is a great architect. Thats what I have in mind, or something such as Alistair Knox in Melbourne might have designed. But here, people picture the primitive mud huts. Outside the capital and other cities, the entire country lives in mud huts. If we use earth bricks in any way to reduce costs, it will take people a bit of convincing first.

There is an Avis dealership in town who has about 40 Landcruisers. The UN and NGO’s sell Landcruisers here when they replace them with new ones, and this guy stocked up on them for 15,000 each. Around town you see hundreds of them. UN convoys are one of the few things that makes all cars instantly clear the streets and pull over. The rumour is that if you dont pull over, it will end badly and quickly, and no one wants to find out. There are UNMIL bases everywhere. For some reason Indiam women miltary have a strong presence around the presidential house. They wear a blue and black camouflage? which would be handy if you wanted to blend into a coral reef. Everyone has an AK47.

I hired a Landcruiser for 3 days. Day 1 was to go to Robertsport to see Cori Stern’s Strongheart House. She asked me to check on it while I was in Liberia and take some pictures. We had a great driver: Morris. Over the entire 3 days, he was careful, risk averse and smooth. And the car was perfect for our trips. Landcruisers are really cool vehicles for long trips on uneven roads.

Now everyone in Liberia underestimates times and distances. General consensus is that Robertsport is 1 and a half hours drive. It took nearly 3. I pointed this out and people said, oh that was because of the traffic so it took longer. But you guys told me the traffic was always like that? Ralph you are right. Sigh.

The first 100km or so was fine, a smooth, good sealed road. When we turned leftfor the last 46km to Robertsport, the road was heavily furrowed the entire way, with no let up, and also huge potholes. It was a compressed dirt road. You know when you get ripples across the entire road length, that are only centimetres apart, and the faster you drive the more things vibrate? 46km was like that.

When we got there, we had no idea where the house was. So I had the idea of going to the very top of the hill, looking around, and asking the first people we saw. I thought if we said Cori Stern or Strongheart we might get a blank look. So we pulled up to a nice looking home with a woman in traditional African dress and headdress. She said, Can I help you? Yes, we are looking for the big house that the american woman painted. That sounded clear and unambiguous. She replied, Who me? I repeated and she looked confused.

Agnes WAS american and had just renovated and painted this house. She was brought up in the US but her mother had lived here. Agnes decided to sell up in the States and move here. She had only been here a month. There were 2 american women who had painted houses.

She invited us all in for lunch (me, Karrus, Johnny, Snyder from Niapele, and our driver.) We had a great lunch of rice, bean salad, and potato geens with fish. Agnes’ house was beautiful. She had just extended and renovated it, with a western eye. She was just off the sand, up a hill. It was a beautiful surf beach with huge wide sands. We stayed for some time and chatted. Coincidentally, she had another western visitor. Luca was Italian, but was born in Robertsport to doctor parents and went to the local school. Before the war started he went to live in Italy. He looked very Italian, my age, wild hair, extravagant hand gestures.

Liberian english is very hard to follow at first. They are as hard to follow here as the jive turkeys on flying high. I need to concentrate and tune in. If I’m just sitting back in the car and the guys are talking and laughing, I cant follow a word. But if I concentrate and tune in I pick up about 70%. Luca is fluent, and a really nice guy. He didnt have a plan - just left Italy and came here to look around. He was staying that night in a Red Cross guest house.

Agnes asked me how long I was in Liberia for. I said thats a good question. I planned to stay for 2 weeks, but this place is killing me. Hotels are 150, vehicles 150/day plus fuel, I may need to ship out earlier. Agnes then told me she had an apartment in Mamba Point, and I was welcome to stay there. Was I interested? Oh yeah. That was a very generous offer. She told me where it was and where to pick up the key. Its about 200m from the Mamba Point Hotel. Agnes was a very wonderful and generous hostess. The apartment will save me at least 150 per day. And it all started asking for directions from the only other american woman in Robertsport who had recently painted a house.

Time to go, and I really enjoyed the company of Agnes and Luca. BTW some south african guys have set up a nice ‘tent hotel’ right on the beach and are attracting surfers. The tents are on wooden raised platforms and look very comfortable, like those outback tent hotels at home in Port Douglas or Uluru. There is a good restaurant. They are Agnes’ neighbours. Apparently Robertsport is one of the world’s great surf beaches. Try a google of Robertsport + surf, and Robertsport + accomodation + tent. The surf certainly looked huge, there was a peninsula and a cove thing happening.

We checked out Cori’s place, which Luca had seen. It looked like it needed a lot of work but had a lot of potential. It was uninhabited but right on the sand, and enormous. I think it needs a rock wall as the high tide was only about 30m from the building. I’ll ship Cori a report and some photos when I get back to Ghana; pictures wont upload from here with this bandwidth.

Surprisingly the trip back took as long as the trip up. Something to do with using the same roads, and having the same traffic problems in Monrovia. Everyone but me was surprised that it took longer than an hour and a half.

I moved across the Royal Hotel in Sinkor, same rate but I wanted to have a couple of places in my mind for the next trip. It was near Karrus, and also near a huge UNMIL base,with mainly UN and NGO clientelle. It turned out to be nice, with a huge restaurant at the back that was lively with westerners. I find i need some ex-pat ambience every now and then.

There was just one surprise at checkin: the 100% deposit. I suggested this was more of a payment in advance than a deposit? The partial payment being the whole point of a deposit. No sir, thats just a deposit. O..kay. I was glad I was staying just the one night. Tomorrow would be a 2 day trip to Bong County to see the school, and an overnight stay there. On my return I would be staying at Agnes’ apartment. So i handed over USD 150, which I am getting really good at now. And in one of those frequent incongruous scenes that is a daily African experience, I watched 4 Japanese sushi chefs prepare my Udon noodles, Miso soup and Sashimi platter.

There are 4 internet cafes in Monrovia. Each has about 8 PC’s. They are old, slow, and have almost no bandwidth. I find them unusable.

I cant update facebook, as its too big and chatty. Any page using Ajax grinds me to a halt. it took me 30 minutes just to update my status on facebook once, so people wouldnt worry when I arrived here.

The big hotels have wireless. At the moment I am on a time bomb on a borrowed Mac laptop, at the Mamba Point Hotel. Powerbook G4. Safari (Mac browser) is barely usable, and freezes and crashes a lot. To work on the blog, i found that the laptop has Internet Explorer 5 installed and runs on the old Mac Classic environment. Its the only way I can survive: old dumb browsers work fine, and I guess they dont know modern javascript or make ajax calls. A nice thing about the blog is that once the page opens, I can just type away then post it. But if I have gmail or facebook open, they tie up the bandwidth doing background things that starve me out.

Next trip I will DEFINETELY bring a laptop, as its the only was to stay connected in liberia. Note this is a 110V country (they follow the US in everything!) and the power points are 2 flat pins with parallel axes, like the verticals in the letter H. Fortunately my Nokia charger, and my camera charger, both accept input 100 ~ 250V.

Apologies for the typos and grammaticals; I’ll clean the entries up whenI hit Accra.

The first person to open a decent internet cafe here, with a good satellite link and modern PC’s, will clean up. This is a city of over a million people, and there is no competition.

K and A needed to leave for the airport. I found out that the drive to the back blocks had been an eye opener, as usually they see the Western hotels and conference centres when they travel somewhere. Bouncing around on dirt roads with mud huts had been a bit of an adventure. Before she left, A said, here’s a number you can call from anywhere, 24×7. If you need UNMIL, medical evacuation, or get into any troubleyou cant handle, call it and we’ll come and get you. That was nice and hopefully I’ll never find out what the response time is.

A dozen older students came to see K and A off at the hotel; they all walked for hours to get here. A brief ceremony. The next step is for me to send a report to K in New York. She will try to arrange a presentation and they discussed flying Karrus over, if he can get a visa. It may not proceed to funding but its exciting.

Back home, opening a new petrol station looks expensive. But here, you can do it for under $20. Here’s how.

You need a table, about card table size, although kitchen table size is nice. 2 or 3 glass bottles each 1 gallon size. Then a few empty plastic bottles, and some buckets and plastic rubbish bins. Nothing needs a lid. 2 funnels and some garden hose.

Fill each of the containers with petrol, half of them orange petrol, half of them black diesel. Write in chalk somewhere: ‘180′ (liberian dollars per gallon).

Seriously. There are a few bowser stations in Monrovia, but everywhere else in the country, thats a fuel stop.

If you see 3 tyres stacked on top of each other on the side of the road, with a 4th tyre placed upright at the top of them, that means the guy has an air compressor and you can pay to pump your tyres.

In the morning we met up with K and a friend of hers, A, who worked with the UN. A was canadian and had been sent to 55 countries. A also wanted to see the school. We hired the hotel car, a Nissan 4WD, and the driver. We ended up 4 in the back but after the share taxi experience I was very comfortable.

The traffic was atrocious. When it wasnt gridlocked, it was chaotic, fast and all over the place. If you know Ghana, imagine an entire city like Kaneshie Market. cars and taxis pull in, and to do a U turn, you just do it and beep. There are no traffic lights, give way signs, or roundabouts anywhere. The only controlled intersections have a uniformed policeman doing his best. The policemen here have a perfect copy of the NYPD blue uniform, same hat, same badge. All policemen are unarmed, as UNMIL and the Liberian Army have the only arms still, until the police force is mature as an organization. Apparently policemen do arrest thieves, but only with the help of an enthusiastic crowd of civilians. I think the thieves are glad to reach jail. One area, Redlight, is the wild west and no westerner goes there alone or after dark. We drove through there and there was a policeman every 20 metres on the road.

The driver was abysmal. Slow, jerky and could have been a learner. The drive took an hour across town.We reached the school to learn that we were actually visiting 3 different schools, no 2 close to each other. K and A were under time pressure so we tried to hurry things along. The Nissan cracked its exhaust and we sounded like a tractor. It bounced around and rattled alarmingly. To be fair, out of town the roads were terrible, with enormous potholes, rocks and ravines. K and A bailed out and got their own driver to come and rescue them, so we now had 2 vehicles.

Mental note: Landcruisers are good. From now on, its a Landcruiser or nothing.

The houses started to be mud, thatch, wattle and daub, with the odd concrete block house. Most people looked desperately poor. There was no electricity anywhere.

We visited the school. I got there around 2pm. I hadnt realized, but they had been waiting for us. The school day finishes at 12.30. I thought it was still on. then the principal asked if the little ones could go home (4-5 yo) as they were hungry and hadnt eaten. There is no school feeding program. Then it dawned on me that 550 students had been kept back for the visitors. They released the preps, and we were surrounded by children who hadnt seen westerners. They all wanted to touch hands and crowded around your knees, giggling. Unfortunately my camera battery was flat.

I made a speech to the whole school and thanked them all, and told them what a fine school it was, and good luck with the studies. Then the students went home. K asked the teachers some questions and we inspected the temporary school. They have class sizes of 60, in rooms 8m x 6m.

Home we went, via 2 more schools. K and A zapped home in the LandCruiser, and the rest of us survived the journey home in the Nissan with the learner driver.

Karrus had told me that there was a woman from a US NGO staying at my hotel, who wanted to visit a couple of students. She had a relative sponsoring them so it was an informal and personal visit, not directly related to her work here. Her name was K and she worked for an NGO who I wont name just yet.

I wanted to go to bed early that night but as I was leaving the restaurant, the satellite TV in the bar started to play a zombie movie, ‘Dawn of the Dead’. I could not look away. The living were trapped in a shopping centre. I thought of the embassy up the road. Around 11pm, K arrived. I heard her tell a friend that she was visiting a school tomorrow, so I introduced myself. Karrus had called her about me too. She asked me what I was doing here, and who I worked with. I explained that I wanted to assist Carolyn Miller with a plan, logistics, and a budget so we could put together a proper proposal. But I didnt want to go anywhere near a potential sponsor until I had everything right. As I hadnt seen the land yet, i couldnt in good faith ask any sponsor to fund a project with so many unknowns. She was really interested in this bit and kept quizzing me on the whole approach, in what I thought was a lot of detail for midnight after a long day.

I have to say K looked out of place; New York young corporate lawyer look in Monrovia. She had had a long day but it was funny when she asked the bartender for a cold beer NOW please and yes i know the bar is closed but I have had a LONG day and I really need a beer NOW.

Anyway she said the reason she was so interested is that the whole lack of planning and asking for blanket funds was the bane of her life. Her NGO had serious funding and was here looking to support projects with a womens focus, in particular girls education. I had told her that almost all teachers are male and I wanted to encourage women teachers, and girls education. K said there was a possible synergy and opportunity, and although she had a very tight schedule (there was a Women’s Symposium in town), could she come out to see the Carolyn Miller interim school in Monrovia tomorrow? It was quite possible that the school was in their immediate circle of interest, and a solid plan would make their analysis so much easier.

We really need sponsorship and relationships if the project is to get off the ground. I asked her to tell me about her NGO, and she was surpsised I hadnt heard of it. There were 1500 staff globally, and 400 in New York. She reported to M who was on the board. Now M is instantly included in anyones list of the top 5 powerful women in the US (no, its not Oprah.)

This was good.

We flagged down a taxi. There are millions of these things, they are yellow, typically an older battered Datsun Sunny or a Nissan, and they jusy fly. Cars here weave everywhere and beep. We got into the taxi. Karrus went for the back seat but I said, you take the front. I was so young, and so naive.

So off we went. For about 200m, when we were flagged down by 2 women. They jumped in the back. Karrus said, Ralph, do you want to swap? It may get crowded there. That should have been a clue but I said, no, Im fine. We are flagged down again. Two more women jump in the back. Thats 5 in the back. One of the women in the first pair just sidled over into her friends lap. Off we go. Flagged down again. A guy jumps in. Now we have 2 pairs of women sitting in each others lap, with a guy each side. 6 in the back. That is a total of 8 in the sedan. Do you know how many people you can get into a Datsun Sunny? I do. 10 adults, or 12 if there are some children, in the one car. I took a couple more trips by taxi with Karrus. There is even a protocol. I never needed to get cosy with a fellow passenger myself. But when someone moves across and sits in a total strangers lap, they one doing the sitting says, hello, and the one getting sat on replies, hello. Now me, you would need to also buy me a few drinks and take me to the movies.

The reason it is like this is because there is a huge shortage of vehicles in the city. perversely, the traffic is terrible and roads are clogged. But the taxi fars is a fixed rate per passenger, in zones. So town centre to Sinkor is LIB 15. If the driver gets more and more passengers, they all pay 15 each. And if he can drive really FAST and squeeze more trips into a day, he earns more. Its scary, man. Also, I dont think they have drivers licenses here. people just drive. Roadworthies are not done, cars just go. The whole of West Africa, taxis are a seat belt free zone.

Later on I was to see bush taxis out of town. Apart from the people in the car, people sit on the roof with luggage and just hang on.

One time we were at a busy junction and there were crowds of people waiting for a taxi. As a taxi with seating approached, the crowd surged. The driver didnt stop, but slowed down, and people ran to it and grabbed the handles. The driver keeps moving at a running pace. I think this is a survival thing for the driver, as it thins the herd. When there are only about 6 people left competing, he stops. Natural selection via jostling, and trying to squeeze into the same door 2 at a time. Again its not violent, Liberians would clean up in an annual stocktaking sales. Off he goes again with somewhere between 8 and 11 passengers, and another taxi approaches the mob.

Cars here are ridiculously expensive. Second hand battered things cost between 5000 and 10000 USD. There is a huge market shortage. Trucks in any condition are like gold. They dont seem to have that many tro-tros here; the yellow taxi is ubiquitous.

The next morning Karrus met me for breakfast at the hotel, and we went for a walk into the centre of town. It was better than I expected. I had been expecting badly potholed roads, shelled buildings, hardly any open shops or stalls, and a grim population. In fact, it could have been any city in West Africa. The roads were basically sealed and in good condition. This is Africa so there were still potholes, but it was totally drivable. Karrus explained that the Chinese had been in replacing roads and highways. Many roads looked new. Apparently President Johnson Sirleaf had engaged Liberian engineers to start replacing road a few years ago. They did, but the roads quickly fell apart. The Chinese rebuilt the roads again, very professionally, using huge heavy machinery. Many times in this trip I would point something out and ask about it, and the answer was, the Chinese are building that.

There were certainly a lot of building shells: concrete structures a few stories high, with no windows or doors. And if you looked you would see evidence of rocket holes. RPG’s were used indiscrimanetely during the war. But the strongest impression was simply, this is a typical West African city. I was really surprised. Karrus said that 4 years ago it looked like a war zone, but now it had vastly improved.

The city is a total cash economy. I doubt anyone uses the local banks or pays taxes. US dollars are used for any amounts over $1, and Liberian dollars (64 per US dollar) are used as coins. It means paying something in US dollars, say handing over $5 for a $3.50 purchase, means you might get USD 1 and LIB 50 change; or you may get LIB 230 change, same thing. It takes a bit of getting used to. You need to carry both currencies on you and notes just fly around.

A hotel car costs $10 per hour, and a Landcruiser with a driver is $150 per day, plus fuel. Getting around would be expensive. As an experiment I went with Karrus to his place in Sinkor, about 6Km out, in a taxi.

I took a taxi to Accra airport and checked in for my Air Kenya flight to Monrovia. By coincidence, Karrus had been in Accra and was also returning to Monrovia. I was Air Kenya, he was on BellView taking off an hour earlier. He had with him about 30kg of school supplies. As it turned out, his flight took off about the same time as mine. That was because he and 2 friends didnt hear the announcement and they delayed the flight an hour. We landed not too far apart.

The flight was easy. There were a few americans on the plane who had been there befre and I asked them to paint a picture. The consensus was that it was safe, but dont go out by yourself at night, and dont drive after dark. Any car trip was fraught with danger in the dark. Cars with no lights, taxis that hurtle rather than drive, and people wandering aimlessly on unlit streets. if you didnt have something hit you, you risked hitting a person. So from 6pm on just relax at home.

We landed and I just couldnt see an airport at all. We may well have landed on a roadway. But a truck with steps arrived, and we walked to a very small terminal. The airport was actually an american WW2 landing strip, still in use. It was 60km from town though. Immigration were polite and friendly, and I was waved aroud the customs queue. The usual advice is to make sure your hotel meets you at the airport, dont take a taxi yourself. But karrus had arranged a taxi and it was middle of the day, so I wasnt too worried. We put out bags in the back of a taxi and under normal circumstances would have then entered the taxi. However a few guys came and started pulling our luggage out of the taxi. Our driver pulled on the cases, literally they were fighting over the luggage. It turns out there was a protocol with taxi order, a dispatcher settles disputes, and we should have been in another car. So we hopped in the other vehicle. it hadnt been threatening, more like women in a stock take sale pulling on the same dress, but that was my first impression of Monrovia, fighting taxi drivers. It worked out OK, as the first driver was asking USD 50, and this one charged USD 25.

On the drive in, we passed an UNMIL compound with rows of helicopters, trucks and military vehicles. It was the first of many very large military compounds I would see.

I arrived at the Mamba Point Hotel in Monrovia an hour later. This is a modern, comfortable hotel with all amenities, on Mamba Point, considered the most secure sector in Monrovia. The hotel had been recommended by Lonely Planet. It was 200m from the US Embassy. As the guide said, the hotel has a few things going for it: comfortable, good food, UN and diplomatic guests, and running distance to the US Embassy. I like that in a hotel. As it turns out, the proximity to the Embassy means that there are soldiers, guards and sentries everywhere.

The US Embassy in Monrovia is where the last surviving humans will take refuge when zombies have dominated the planet. It has huge high double walls, razor wire, and a number of double gates. If you see a gate open, there is a second gate about 10 metres inside that. So all vehicles entering go through an airlock where they are locked in before the inner gate opens. I have been short listing zombie proof refuges and noted it down.

I got a pleasant surprise checking in: a VISA sign on the counter, and a preferred method of payment checkbox on the checkin form. I selected Visa and thought, thats a relief. Hotels here are USD 150 a night. Thats a lot. I thought that I’d start safe and conservative, spend the first 3 nights here, then maybe look at cheaper options once I had my bearings.

Skipping ahead a bit, when I checked out, they were surprised when I produced the Visa card for payment. Apparently it had never worked as they can never get a connection to the wireless visa network. An awkward moment was avoided when I asked the owner if his driver could take me to Western Union. Always have a plan B. In case there was a Visa problem, I had asked Daniel to wire USD 500 to be ready on the checkout day. We picked up the cash fine, and with the 3 nights at 150 a night, i had just spent the first wired transfer on the hotel.

Here’s some advice. Monrovia is the most expensive city on the world. And the poorest. There are so many thousands and thousands of UN and NGO’s here that the western facing hotels and restaurants start at 150/night, meals are 15-50, a cold drink is 3. The UN and NGO’s have a budget here for those prices but it means all other westerners get caught up in it too. I was burning cash here faster than in paris, london or anywhere else. So if you come here, don’t stress too much about being robbed. Just bring at least USD 2000. Being robbed is not good, but is unlikely, and whether you have 100 or 2000 on you, you end up with nothing in a robbery anyway. But running out of cash in a city like this is not funny, especially after dark. You can’t take a taxi, eat, or stay in a hotel. I know some local guys here so if worst came to worst I would go local for a bit. But it is better to just bring in enough cash that you don’t need to worry.

The hotel room was clean and comfortable. There were about 15 uniformed security guards everywhere around the hotel. I took a meal and a drink in the outside restaurant, listened to the surf crash on the beach, and went to bed and crashed myself.

It was unusual landing in Ghana with the feeling that I had arrived in a futuristic metropolis. Usually I have just taken off from Paris or London and I am ready for a shift in the other direction. But now, even the chaos at the terminal with the taxi drivers seemed well ordered, because at least I knew the rules. The well dressed ones in the terminal look for westerners who dont know the prices. One guy followed me all the way out. Finally I said, OK, how much to Nima? His price was triple. I walked to the outside rank past the crowd and got one for the usual $5.

Ghana is getting wealthier. Every time I go there, the cars seem newer, and the taxis are on average getting more up market. Across the board, prices go up a notch each time. There is now a western style shopping mall just past the airport. I walked through it, and it could have been any mall anywhere, with chains such as Puma,and the equivalent of K-Mart/Walmarts. There were a lot of people walking through, although not many seemed to be buying. And in Osu, there was a Pierre Cardin shop on Oxford Street, a perfectly presented shop with the suit range displayed on mannequins in the shop window. In front of the shop were the usual 9,000 street hawkers. Incongruous. And there is no way I could wear a jacket of any description in this climate.

I met a few people this trip. Laura from Ikando had an innovative idea for their web site, something which would both support and complement the volunteer side of the organization. It sounded viable and would fit a market need in Ghana. I committed to supporting the technical side with design and web software. I explained that for me, the technical bits are the easy part and work fine, the creative ideas and the business side is the rocket science. For Laura it was the other way around. We met with a couple of business people with the commercial and marketing, and the plan is to take things to the next stage. A proof of concept on a small hosted server, some web/php code on mysql would do the job.

I also met a remarkable woman who was born in Ghana, but educated in London. She certainly sounds very London. Leslie Lokko is a brilliant architect (PhD) who designed the only house I have seen in Ghana that is a great design. It uses rendered earth walls, is open plan living, and has natural airflows. In her library she has books on Australian Architecture with pictures of the open plan Australian styles. I assisted with working out why the imported Ikea kitchen drawers didnt close; I think one of the panels went in upside down and things didnt line up. Anyway she lives in both London and Accra, going back and forth, and is a best selling author internationally. You run into some really interesting people sometimes.

It rained! Heavily. The water here seems to hit the ground harder than at home. Everything cooled right down, and for the first time in a long time, I didnt feel very hot. It was wonderful. After such a long drought at home, you really appreciate standing in a heavy downpour.

One last thing before the trip tomorrow to Liberia. I knew that there were no usable banks in Liberia, no ATM’s, and that US dollars and Liberian dollars co-existed. I had a cunning plan to ship money in though. rather than carry around enough money for 2 weeks, I would take a few hundred with me, then go to internet cafes and use Western Union to transfer money to myself regularly. Such a clever plan.

So I went to Busy Internet in Accra a couple of hours before the flight, and logged onto Western Union. I transferred USD 500 to Mr Ralph Stone for pickup in Liberia. Authorisation declined. Dont panic anyone, I half expected this. I phoned my bank at home, Westpac, explained the situation, and said it appeared that their fraud algorithms had blocked the transaction. Except it hadnt. i had already pre-arranged with Westpac and explained my plans, and they had been expectint the transactions. It wasnt us.

The truth dawned. The Western Union site asks for your country, and from the drop down list I select Australia. West African countries arent in the list. They knew from my IP address that someone in Ghana was saying they were in Australia, and it was WU who blocked it. I would have the same problem in Liberia; the plan to ship money to myself online wouldnt work.

There was an emergency plan C. I would hit Liberia with USD 500 on me, then after that, call home and ask my son Daniel to manually ship 500 at a time over the WU counter in Melbourne. If there was some glitch with plan C, I would be in Liberia and run out of cash. Something to think about.

I decided to take a flight back from Ouaga to Accra. Although I enjoyed the bus trip, the recovery slowed me down a it for a day or two. So I found the airline offices on the main street and made a few queries. I ended up booking a flight on Air Burkina for 180,000 CFA which was around $300.

At 6am the next morning, I was picked up by a taxi arranged by the hotel and driven to the airport. When I say airport, I mean a building site with a door surrounded by scaffolding. The driver had already told me that there was coffee there this time of morning. Wonderful, I thought, there is a Qantas lounge here! I can check in, relax, catch up on emails and have some fine brewed coffee.

There was no Qantas lounge. But there was a guy with a thermos of Nescafe on the road outside the airport. It went down well. I then checked in, which was easy as there was jusy one counter and one terminal. Another western guy came in and sat down next to me. We chatted for a bit about the usual pleasantries and the festival. then he asked me, ‘Vous etes de quel pays?’ or what country are you from? Australia. Which city? Melbourne. Me too! Switch to Aussie dialect. Turns out Malcolm moved here 6 years ago and is a resident with a church group. He has 3 children, all bilingual, and the 5 year old was born here. He loves it here. He said that on a visit to the States, the kids hated the food and wanted kenke and yams. Coincidence? I’ll give you coincidence. We talked about the bushfires and I was more up to speed and filled him in. When I mentioned Noojee, he said his parents lived there: the Hubbards. Just a short distance from where I used to live.

It wa really refreshing to relax and chat in the native dialect. You do miss it. It reminded me that in a volunteer/refugee environment, you really look forward to the end of day debrief with other volunteers.

Air Burkina is a great airline! I was hoping to have an Indiana Jones experience, with a propellor plane, mid air drama, and a walk along the wing to repair the engine. But instead we were in a modern MacDonnell Douglas MD40 (an Air Delta mid range workhorse) with perfect takeoffs, landings (stopover at Abidjan) and friendly service. Air Burkina has a fleet of only 5 I think, all modern leased planes, and a mix of local and overseas pilots. Dull really. Some peope like that in a plane.

Back in Accra, which felt familiar. I navigated the taxi drivers who meet you in the terminal, wanting $10 for the trip to town, and walked to the ranks to negotiate the more correct $5 fare.

I never thought I would ever say this about Accra, but everything is relative. After nearly a week in Burkina faso, Accra was Silicon valley.

The films in Ouaga were wonderful. The 3 cinemas showed a range from the entire african continent. Local Burkina films were obviously popular, as were Moroccan and Algerian films. The most modern cinema, Cinema Burkina, was air conditioned and western style. It attracted the most visitors and was often booked out. There were some very long queues which sometimes extended 50m or more. It was possible to buy a festival pass, which avoided the queues altogether, and to enter by an entrance with a long red carpet which was laid on the closed roadway outside. However I just bought tickets as I went. I didnt need to spend the extra for the numerous hotel functions that the pass covered.

I really had wanted to see a Burkina film called Le Lion D’Or, which everyone was raving about. However, one look at the queue, and I assessed that I would both be waiting over 45 minutes, and would enter the cinema late. The one and only ticket booth was not high speed. So I wandered around the corner to the Cinema Oubre, which was a half outdoor, half indoor one. The rear of the cinema was under cover, but at a great height, say 10m, like a factory warehouse roof. It had 3 huge ceiling fans. The front half was open with an outdoor screen. There were iron and wooden benches. I loved the projector; it was standing at the rear on the ground, just behind the last row, and was an old fashioned full height projector with film spools about 1m in diameter, just like the ones you see at a drive in movie, if you peek in the windows while walking from the car to get chocolate ice creams in the break. I watched the whole film loading and spooling procedure, it was fascinating and seemed very 1920’s.

The film was an Algerian film called ‘Mascarade.’ The plot was a Shakespearean comedy; boy meets girl, girl likes boy, confusion when village thinks a visiting american millionaire proposes, the misunderstanding suits the family, lots of deceptions and nearly being found out, lots of near misses. It was enjoyable and a window onto things you wouldnt normally see, which is what I enjoy most about foreign films; it extends you a bit. But the audience were hilarious. The mainly local audience (the celebrities being next door) found it all the funniest thing they had ever seen. You know when you are watching people double up over something silly, and its hard not to join in? If you saw Michael Caton in The Castle, watching Red Faces, it was that sort of thing. I kept thinking, he’ll jump the fence to escape the protective brother, but the brother will double back, and the suitor will be surprised, and the brother will glare and the suitor will go aiyeeee. Thus was it so. But half the audience howled with laughter and pointed, and I couldnt help finding it funny too. Most of the film went like that. Great atmosphere and a really enjoyable night.

1. The name. Come on, its the coolest name ever for a capital city. Only Reykjavic is even remotely close.

2. The local beer is called So.Ba.Bra, pronounced sor-bay-bra, and the dots are important. Who else has 2 full stops in the name of a beer.

3. Its in the middle of nowhere but laid out like Paris with roundabouts, grand avenues and boulevards.

4. They have an international film festival and 3 cinemas, one outdoors

5. Its Islamic and french speaking at the same time

6. The Sahara is just over there.

7. Its surrounded by hundreds of km’s of mudbrick villages and donkeys.

8. There are bike repair shops everywhere; they make their own wheels and spokes. Heavy duty wheels have steel reinforcing rod for spokes. You dont see that on the Tour de France.

9. The Hotel des Palmiers. Seriously laid back.

10. The music, a melage of West African, Reggae, French 50’s style, and Mali. Its all good. And they dont have tinny speakers here like in Ghana!

Its crazy town, off the wall, mad and chaotic, hot and dusty, 12 out of 10 experience wise, busy, crowded and stifling. The restaurants and food stalls dont look like restaurants and food stalls and are sort of hard to identify, hard to explain. I now have my bearings just fine, and between a growing library of landmarks and alternate street names, can get around just fine day or night. I carry a small LED torch which has been invaluable, I flash it on the roadway when a car with no lights is hurtling towards me so they veer. The traffic and the shared zone factor makes walking anywhere exhausting, as you are constantly concentrating and trying to second guess traffic movements.

Centre Ville is a square about 1.5km by 1.5km. I can find my way there from anywhere and it does NOT involve leaving the ground at a 40 degree angle. There is an entire area of town that is all dust, newly graded, getting laid out for new drainage and roads. It is an area of about 1km square. Apparently a few years ago it was a ramshackle part of town with lots of mudbrick buildings, very old and decidedly un-modern. The authorities simply bulldozed the lot, an entire sq km in the city centre. Its still just flat dust, but at least it is getting laid out now. They’re not into incremental gentrification.

The airport is also in Centre Ville. You can walk to the terminal from the main street.

One thing I admire about this place. Here you are, you’re the worlds poorest country (in the bottom 3 the rankings are probably arguable), and landlocked. Sahel on the south side, Sahara on the north. What do you do? You organize an International Film Festival every odd numbered year.  It attraacts thousands of Western tourists and film makers who all stay for a week. On average, including accomodation, the thousands of Westerners spend a couple of thousand each. From just an idea, and a serious interest in cinematography, they are getting a lot of euros and dollars coming in. The big modern hotels, with their 200 to 300 rooms each, and all the little restaurants and bars around, are all employing thousands of locals. Taxis are earning money. Its amazing that from a single idea, a poor city in the middle of the desert is able to look after its people a bit.

I would have liked to have been there though, at the inception. I imagine a few guys in an adobe thatched hut sitting in the sand, discussing the usual things, when suddenly one of them comes up with an idea: lets start a biannual pan african film festival along the lines of Cannes. We’ll host it in Ouagadougou and invite international jurists and directors. I bet he got some odd looks that night.

A few things are coming together. Walking and navigating traffic is really hard work, as you are constantly dodging cars and bikes from all angles. The bikes are like an incessant oncoming sea of locusts, they swarm around you and you sort of swim through them. It very suddenly dawned on me that no one uses indicators at all, ever, even once. Cars whizz along then suddenly turn. Once you see it then you wonder why you didnt see it before, its so obvious. Its crazy town all the time.

Tuesday was another nice start over breakfast. The delightful german couple is giving everyone disapproving looks. I dont know why, its not as though we invaded Poland. The coffee is great. 

I was a bit tired all day, I think the bus trip and lack of sleep caught up with me. And I probably need to drink more water. I have never lived in a muslim city before, or spent much time in one. It is a very different feel. I know that North Africa is a hybrid of African and Arab cultures, and I think it starts somewhere Burkina Faso.  

The fimm estival is huge. There are thousands of visitors from all over the world. They dont seem to walk around much, whereas I attract attention usually. It seems most visitors congregate around a few huge western hotels and dont venture out much, except for Fespaco films and functions. I went to the Hotel Independence for a visit, and found hundreds of visitors around a huge luxury pool sipping wine. The Independence is one of those over the top hotels that could be anywhere in the world, and its 230 rooms were fully booked.

The Who’s Who of the cinematic world was there. By Who’s Who, I mean, I didnt know who was who, but they all looked like a Who’s Who. A lot of French, American and European director types, and another big contingent of young film makers to be who often carried Sony video cameras with them, filming everything in sight. It was a very loud and energetic crowd, but good fun too. Some cool african rasta guys wandered around, and for some reason whatever they had to say was particularly fascinating for western women film makers between the ages of 22 and 30. They seemed to hang on every word and laughed out loud a lot.

It was very hard to get a programme of films! There wasnt a catalogue you could just take. I ended up at the Fespaco office, in an administration room, while someone photocopied a dozen pages for me. They are displayed on walls of cinemas,  but not distributed as programmes. That seemed odd.

Home again for a rest, i’ll start the films tomorrow. With the film festival just a km away, I dozed off watching Canal+ satellite TV under a ceiling fan.

In no particular order. Weekdays were so different from the Sunday.

Very busy. Very hot, very dusty and sandy. There are a few cars, much less dense than Accra; the taxis are ancient Renaults and Peugeots, an odd dark green. For every car though there are at least 50 bikes and motor cycles. Its totally mad. No 2 bikes are alike. Lots of Moped Peugeot type things, pedal off to start then a small motor kicks in. Lots of very small cc motorcycles, nearly all between 80 and 150cc. I have seen thousands of them now but not a single 900cc or larger. Even the police and soldiers ride small bikes. There are models I have never seen, a huge range. Most are old fashioned and look like smaller versions of the American style in the 50’s.

Complete chaos. The roads are all well made and sealed, but there is no footpath. Where the roadside ends, there is a dust zone between the road and the shops/houses. That is a shared zone for pedestrians, moving vehicles, and parking. Theyre all packed with parked bikes of all types, which you weave around, negotiating the moving bikes and cars as well.

Very muslim. A huge mosque, the Grande Mosquée, dominates centre ville. People have mats facing east on paths everywhere and prostrate suddenly. There is a huge market in the centre which I understand is off limits to non muslims, I’m trying to confirm that. The worlds most polite hawkers. Unlike Ghana, where you can but anything at all from an army of roving merchants who carry things on their head, no one does that here. Lots more small fixed stalls. Countless roving hawkers as well though, selling just a few things: belts, lottery tickets, phone cards.

A lot of Bedouin dressed people. The day I got completely lost, a raison de dodgy maps, I asked a Bedouin guy for the way to Centre Ville. Centre Ville? Oui, SVP. He pointed in an unexpected direction. I didnt mind which way he pointed horizontally, but he pointed into the sky maybe a 40 degree azimuth. I followed the direction of his finger and we gazed into the sky together. Then I confirmed, Centre Ville? Centre Ville. Merci! It is so limiting when you stay grounded in a city. Apparently, onward and upward is liberating.

Dust and sand and dust and sand. This is what I do  couple of times a day. Go back to the hotel and shower. I wash my shirt and sometimes pants while there. Then i put them back on and go out again. It is very wet and cool for 1 minute in the sun, damp and cool for up to 10 minutes more, then bone dry and back to normal. The coolness buys me a little extra time in the heat and feels great. You can do that for everything except socks.

French cuisine everywhere, poulet roti, legumes et haricots verts, salade avocat, cote d’agneau. Today I’ll try to find something more local. They have stalls selling skewered grasscutters, which is a rodent the size of a small rabbit but the shape of a large rat. Complete english free zone, I cant even find a single newspaper. I helped one Japanese guy in a cyber cafe who spoke no french and just a little heavily accented english. He wanted to confirm, before buying time, that the PC’s would display Japanese writing. I translated and I wish I had a video for the reaction from the desk. They may still be laughing. As it turns out, they do show script, at least his yahoo mail. I wondered how he gets by with no language at all, that must be really challenging.

Did I mention dust and sand? But the streets are very clean, no rubbish anywhere, and people sweep the dust outside their houses and shops regularly.

My visa card works fine here for cash, which is always a relief this part of the world. Savings/ATM cards, and Mastercards, dont work at all. Just the one and only Visa card. Plan B, if I lose it or it fails, is to send money to myself using a web browser and Western Union. Western Union are really everywhere, even small African towns.

The big avenues do have proper footpaths. Theyre very wide, multi lane, and converge on huge roundabouts. I can never see the sun due to the haze, except for dawn and dusk, when it looks like a pale moon rising and setting. There are no animals in the city at all. Occasionally someone carries 10 perplexed hens, upside down and together, on a motor cycle.

Theyre not big on roadworthy vehicles. Avoiding getting hit it tricky enough as it is, but after dark headlights are optional. Lots of dark bikes and cars whizzing around, using the road and the shared zone to pass each other. 

That was day two.

I woke early the next morning and had a delicious breakfast in the hotel shaded garden. The staff are very friendly and the atmosphere was very relaxed and civilized. With the exception of local fruit juices, the cuisine for breakfast and meals is decidedly french, nothing african to see here. So it was croissants, real coffee, and fruit juice, which suited me just fine. With the exception of the glaring german couple, everyone seemed very content and it was like a Parisien breakfast in a shady setting. Now dont get me wrong, the germans are a wonderful people. The only real complaint I would have, and its a minor one, is the tendency to try to take over the world every 30 years or so. Thats understandable, and I myself sometimes leave the lid off the toothpaste. But I think its best if we dont mention the war.

According to Wikipedia, the catalyst for World War 1 was the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria on June 28, 1914. Following that…Sorry everyone, its like trying to not think of an elephant. Lets just let it go.

I studied and STUDIED the Lonely Planet map of the city over breakfast. There were a couple of things to throw you; one was that only every fourth street was named, although all the major avenues were, and there were a couple of typos. There were 2 maps in the book and they differed in a couple of places. Anyway, i decided to succeed in the walk I attempted yesterday. I walked along my hotel street, Rue Joseph Bouard, and went north to the next intersection, Rue Patrice Lumumba. The street sign said it was the corner of Avenue Mobo Naba Koom I and the Rue du Travail. Uh huh. Yesterday I realized I had done a slow clockwise circle and had tried to pick up the top of my street by crossing it, but I never found it. I kept walking and with the exception of the major avenues, found that the street names as signed were all different from that of the maps.
I returned to the hotel and asked the desk for the name of the street the hotel was on. Rue Joseph Badoua monsieur. That sounded right and its what I told the taxi driver, although he may have known the hotel by name. The desk had no idea what I meant by the street sign problems.

Next walk I ran into countless street hawkers who, I must say, are very polite. And ‘Bonjour Monsieur’ has a nicer ring to it than ‘Hey white man, buy something.’ One ran through a list of things I didnt have any need for, before saying ‘Plan de Ville?’, which is a street map of the city. I bought it then sat down to compare maps. The street map in my hand and the Lonely Plant map agreed on avenues, but not streets. Most of the french street names had been replaced by arabic and african sounding ones.

You would have thought that would explain things, but it didnt end there. Acting on a hunch I asked a second guy at the hotel for the name of the street the hotel was on. Avenue Mogho Naba Koom, monsieur. Had he heard of Rue Joseph Badoua? Puzzled look, non. I checked again at the desk; was there a story to the street names, recent changes? Puzzled look, non. To complicate things just a little more, about 12 different streets around me were named Rue Mogho Naba <something>. And often the street sign did not reflect either the street map, or the Lonely Planet one. That explained the disorientation. Thgere are 2 guys working at the same hotel who think the hotel is on a different street.

I still find it hard to navigate here but I have just gone blonde.  I use the Places and Boulevards as a baseline, and memorize the pretty mailboxes and shoe shops for the streets. I just hope I dont need to reverse a trailer while I’m here.

We passed a sign saying Welcome to Ouagadougou, but everything looked about the same. Then a few concrete shacks sprung up, then a few more. Then the bus pulled into a football sized dustbowl with about 20 other buses and trucks, and countless battered taxis. This was the Gare Rouliere, the main bus station. We got out of the bus, fetched the bags, and looked around. There was a grey sky above, dust underneath, and no sign of a city anywhere. I had already read that the station was 3km south of the city centre, but i thought there would have been a bit more evidence of a capital city, even so.

I negotiated a taxi to take the westerners to centre ville. as it turned out all our hotels were in a line en route. My share was about $2. The Hotel Les Palmiers turned out to be wonderful, and despite being mid range, turned out to be possibly the only aesthetic and tranquil spot in the city. There was a closed green garden, with grass, bougainvilleas, shady trees and a small pool. My room was clean, simple and cool. Every guest was western, and almost without exception french. There was a round of Bonjour Monsieur/Madame whenever people passed, with the exception of a German couple who just stared and ignored everyone. Not to be judgemental at all; the Germans are a wonderful people in general, and if you prefer sauerkraut to creme brulee, you would get on just fine. Just dont say good morning.

I wandered around Centre Ville for a bit and was a little surprised to find it almost deserted with everything shut. It was Sunday afternoon though. The impression of a dusty city under a dusty sky persisted. It is a very clean city though - no rubbish, graffiti or urban decay that way. Whereas Accra is an extended rubbish tip in every direction, Ouaga is relatively very neat and clean. Just dusty. You cant stop the Saharan sands from blowing in. Its also a very muslim city. There is one catholic cathedral, with a resident cardinal, just around from my hotel. Just 10% of the population are christian, mostly catholic. The other 90% are a debatable mix of Islamic and animist.

I had a bit of trouble with the map and somehow became disoriented. This should have been difficult, as the city is well laid out along Parisien lines. There are a few large central roundabouts (Places) with large avenues radiqting outwards, with names like Avenue d’Independence, Charles de Gaulle, Liberation etc. The streets between were mostly a rectangular grid, north south oriented. Very hard to get lost. But i didn’t just get lost, I got severely disoriented. For a moment I thought I may have been dehydrated? as it wasnt making sense, and I couldnt find my street again. I had the Lonely Planet guide and maps, and was doing all the right things. Eventually I tracked to the largest Place de Nations, a central point for the city, and found my way home, but again with difficulty. It turned out to be a 3 hour walk. I topped up with water, showered the dust off, and crashed early.

Tomorrow I would find out why.

The drive between Bongatanga and the border was strikingly different from anything I had seen before. Although it was only 20km, I realized that it had been dark for the last several hours drive, and perhaps the landscape had been like this for some time.

We were now in the Sahel. There are 4 climate zones in West Africa. Going northwards from Accra you have the coast, followed by the mountains and rainforests, then the Sahel, then the Sahara. So the Sahel is a transition between the rainforests and the desert. It looks a little like the Australian deserts - red soils with spinifex like grasses and stunted trees. However what struck me was the fact that all buildings were now mudbrick, hundreds and hundreds of them over the 20km. They seemed to be mainly family size, and were not clustered into villages, just evenly distributed every few hundred metres or so. They were only about 2m high, with thatched rooves, and almost all had round turret like structures with thatching at the corners.

It was also the middle of the Harmattan. This is the annual sand storm from the Sahara that blankets the whole of West Africa in a grey haze. The sky has not been blue since I got here. It looks grey and overcast, but there are no clouds. Everything gets covered in a sandy dust.

There were no cars apart from the buses and odd vehicle along the highway. But there were lots of bicycles. Children and adults were riding ancient bikes aong the dirt tracks connecting houses. Every now and then, you would see a tall shady tree. Underneath were 10 to 20 people sitting under it, on the ground or occasionally on a wooden bench, listening to a central standing figure. Beside the tree was a row of bicycles. I wondered if that was what a school looked like here.

There were also donkeys, cattle and pigs roaming around. Donkey and cart was very common, the cart being an industrial type with a car axle and wheels, as you might see in India, but either pulled by a donkey or by a few people. A couple of times we drove through a small shanty village, which had cement block walls and tin roof stalls. Not surprisingly, there were a few bike repair shops and lots of activity.

The dress code was becoming a little more Bedouin. On our bus, we had a very elderly gentleman dressed from head to toe in a colourful Arab costume and headgear. Several times during the night the bus stopped by the side of the road to allow him a restroom stop. A teenage boy assisted him from his seat and out of the bus, which took easily 5 minutes from seat to door, as he was quite frail.  No one minded at all though, and there was a lot of respect and sympathy for him. He made apologetic gestures but everyone was very reassuring. I have noticed a reverence in the way people treat the elderly in this part of the world.

At 8:30am we reached the border. The border was actually a pair of borders, Ghana and Burkina Faso, separated by a 300m no mans land. We pulled up next to the Ghana immigration block, and disembarked the bus, handing over our passports as we did so to a military type standing at the door. We were then directed to an office block to fill out a departure form and have the passports stamped after a brief interview. All quite smooth, but it took an hour to process the whole bus. I was processed early so spent time wandering the no mans land. It was actually a small busy village, with hawkers, money changers and food stalls. I already had CFA’s on me; CFA (pronounced see-fars) is the central african franc, the common currency in several West African french countries, including Burkina Faso. There are around 500 to a cedi, and I needed a lot more coffee before even contemplating my first purchase.

We then got on board the bus again, and drove to the Burkina Faso immigration complex. Again, our passports were collected on disembarking the bus. But the comparison to the Ghanean border could not have been more different. The immigration hall, literally, was a few rows of wooden benches under a thatched roof. The structure was made of a dozen sticks, not rounded poles but uneven sticks, 6 to a side. Each stick was just 2m high and was forked at the top. The forks supported cross sticks, and a rough thatching that gave shade but would not be rainproof. You needed to duck under it as the height of the roof varied, sit on a bench, and wait. Nearby was a single room concrete office where the passports were processed. Again, Chris and I were processed quickly as we had visas. You can get visas here, however as the english girls and a couple of others found, it means filling a form and waiting for an hour. After getting our passports back, we were free to wander over to the bus. There was a complete luggage free for all. All the bags had been removed from the bus and lined up for a customs inspection. There was a long table under shade, and apparently the thing to do was to accompany your bag while it moved along the table and customs officials opened them. I assume they were customs officials, guys in old colourful t shirts all look the same. I eventually found my case on the other side of the bus; apparently it had already been processed and returned. The inspection was like a crowded noisy market, customs staff and passengers all jostling and shouting.

We were also suddenly in an english free zone, it was french or nothing. I found something extraordinary that has persisted. The Burkinasé are very easy to understand. The french accent here is basically parisien, not discernibly different to my ear at least. People speak slowly and clearly, and all the french protocols for geetings and requests are in place. What is unusual is that I have trouble following Liberian english, which is fluent english but with a strong local accent. But I had no trouble following the burkinasé french.

We eventually got on the bus again, after a total of 3 hours border crossing. The drive to Ouagadougou was more of what we had seen.  Sahel, countless mudbrick houses, bikes, donkeys and the odd shanty village. At one village, 2 soldiers got on with AK47’s for a ride to the next village. They were polite and friendly and seemed to know the driver.

Apparently Burkina Faso is nearly the world’s poorest country. You really dont need to know that, as you can work it out just by looking. There are 15 million people in a country half the size of France. Unemployment is 80%, literacy is 20%, and life expectancy is 50. Most people survive on less than a dollar a day, although what people in the mudbrick buildings would do with a dollar is not clear. It seemed very subsistence living out there.

150km later we finally reached Ouagadougou, around 2pm Saturday afternoon, just on 24 hours after leaving Accra. Despite the long and arduous journey, I was glad to have taken the bus. It was certainly an amazing experience, and just to have slowly taken in the countryside and mud houses was sensational. Even the delays with the bus, and later at the border, had been a vibrant experience and not an annoyance at all.

The Saturday morning bus to Ouaga was scheduled to leave at 9am, however you had to register at 8am. Accordingly I set the alarm for 6am and woke early and ready. It was easy to get to the STC bus station by taxi, and I actually arrived around 7.30 with plenty of time. Now i had wondered about the bus timetable. The trip is a total of 1000km and apparently took 24 hours. I wondered why. I found out.

At 8 oclock precisely the passengers needed to line up their baggage for weighing. Luggage was extra. That bit went sort of OK, and I paid 2 cedis for an 11kg case to go under the bus. So far so good. 9 oclock came and went. As did 10, 11, and 12. Then an announcement about a mechanical difficulty. During this time the other 3 westerners on the bus and I congregated to swap notes: Chris, an IT guy from the US who had residency here, and Shannon and Caroline, 2 english girls over for the festival. The STC station was a bit basic, being an overhead tin roof with open walls, and the usual 100 or so odd stallkeepers and small merchants selling most things. Then I realized that the more delay, the better.

Apparently the border at Burkina Faso closes at 6pm and doesnt open until 8:30am. The bus arrives at a town near the border, Bongatanga, and basically waits till the border opens. It usually gets there midnight or so. You then fill in the next 8 hours on a stationary bus at a basic bus stop.

Now is it just me? Or would it be better if the bus left at say 6pm in the evening, and arrived at the border roughly the time it opens? It had nothing to do with dropping passengers en route during sensible hours, as there was a different bus to Tamale geared up for just that. The Ouaga bus was nearly all Ouaga destination passengers. Anyway, just a thought.

At 1pm the bus pulled in ready to go. It was a modern design, aircon and relatively comfortable seats. Not that we got on then. There was clearly more luggage than a bus could carry. A lot of logistics planning sessions, pointing, shouting, rethinking. Given that the WWF was not being screened as a diversion to passengers, it did the job. The double bed frame someone had was not helping. Do you know how strong Samsonite suitcases are? I do. I witnessed an amazing stress test of case versus strong porters trying to put it where it didnt fit. Score: my case 5, defeated the valiant porters 1. They eventually put it somewhere it did fit, which was a good result for everyone. By this stage I was thinking, if I never see this case again, not much goes wrong. Essential stuff is on me.

Around 1.45pm we rolled, just a few hours after schedule. Now the 200km journey to Kumasi took nearly 5 hours; thats right, average speed of 40km/h. An awful lot of roadworks the Accra end, and after that, lots of sitting behind slow vehicles. Something I was happy about was our driver (actually the pair of changeover drivers.) totally risk averse, choosing to stay behind a very slow vehicle until there was a long safe straight. I think this made them the only ones. Countless times I saw this: a vehicle overtakes us with limited visibility, an oncoming car appears with headlights flashing, and the only way to avoid a collision is for our bus to decelerate, the oncoming one to slow down also, the overtaking one cuts in and the oncoming one goes off road a bit at reduced speed. All this takes place in 5 seconds. Maybe 50 times I saw that.

Halfway to Kumasi we pulled into a huge, modern, western style roadhouse with a great choice of local foods, drinks, and clean restrooms for a 15 minute stop. I thought, if they’re all like this on the way, I’ll be happy. Unfortunately, it was the one and only one.

The next few hours were dark. We stopped a few times at nondescript bus stations. At each one there were say 30 to 40 small stalls offering basic food and drink. I am always surprised that some people man a tiny stall 24 by 7 on the offchance someone will buy something. At midnight, the biggest stall was selling raw yams. This is not normally on my impulse buy list and I wondered if they ever sold any raw yams to bus passengers at midnight.

Sleeping on a bus is always difficult. Realizing this, STC management took the approach that no one was going to sleep anyway, and screened a film on the single screen up front. There were fortunately big speakers just behind me. It was a local Ghanean TV series called the Wild Heart I think. It went non stop from 5pm until Ouagadougou 12 hours later. It was a local Bold and the Beautiful, with the acting 100 times worse. I’ll let that sink in.

That’s right. Lots of dramatic statements, posing, a rich guy, 2 gorgeous vying women who kept attacking each other, then one turns out to be a detective and the guy ends up reporting to her, somehow they have a daughter SHE DIDNT KNOW ABOUT? but he did, so he steals drug money evidence to pay for the daughter’s heart operation or she dies, then everyone offers their heart to keep her alive, including mother, father and evil grandfather (don’t ask.) By this stage we cannot look away. Half the bus is in tears. The most compatible heart is the 50 year old portly grandfather’s (wha?)  and the doctor has an ethical dilemma, which one will kill themselves first. He prefers the donors to be already deceased. Whew. Hard to sleep with the volume, but I drifted in and out a few times, just enough to keep up with the plot.

I kept thinking, haven’t we all suffered enough? The humanity, the humanity…

At 5am we rolled into Bongatanga. It was an open shed. The bus parked, and we all either found a wooden bench to sleep on (luxury after the same single seat!) or some slept on the bus. At 7am a few stalls opened, and one cool guy served egg sandwiches and coffee. Magnifique. We then left for the 20km stretch to the border.

On Friday morning I walked over to the Ikando offices; apparently the PC’s there were grinding to a halt. All the prices in Accra seem to have gone up a notch since last year; taxis, tro tros and food seems to have increased by 50%. However the noticeable rise was in top end items; newish PC’s were no longer around 700 but closer to 1000 cedis. An office spec PC is cheaper than that in Australia. For an NGO, the purchase of 2 new PC’s at that rate was not trivial, but seemed inevitable. I had a quick look and found that they were Dell P4’s, ok but too low in memory, with only 256M for XP. I thought that for office type things they should have been fine with a quick upgrade. I was able to find memory in a shop around the corner of all places, so between that and a bit of a clean up, they were up and running again. I am always happy to help the Ikando guys out if I can, qnd they have always been wonderfully supportive to me when I am over here.

I had a sit down and a bit of breakfast at the Paloma Hotel, which is a sort of default base in town. I remember Mark Davis saying once, ‘the Paloma; we all start at the Paloma.’ But they do a nice buffet in a cool setting, with newspapers and real coffee.

I then went to the Burkina Faso embassy for a visa, but found that they have time windows for applications. I needed to have submitted mine by 11am for an afternoon approval. It was now after 11, and to make it worse, they were just closing for  2 hour break. I came back afterwards and was directed to the Consul, who was sympathetic but explained that there was not much to do. I wasnt too stressed as I knew you could get visas at the border, but I wanted to simplify things as much as possible. I then explained that I had the bus ticket already, and asked , ‘pour votre conseille, monsieur.’ That seemed to help a little, and an hour later I had the visa for the normal price.

By now it was late afternoon. I needed to be at the STC bus station on the other side of town by 8am the next morning. So I stocked up on a few supplies for the trip: ginger biscuits, bread and water. Fortunately the local Star Beer was still a just a cedi/dollar a bottle, so I sat on the verandah with an ale under a fan, and in the dusk I read a book I found in Paris called ‘Afrika Trek’. Its about a young couple who walk everywhere. A few years ago they did the Ewan MacGregor thing, but on foot with minimal backpacks. Its a great read; they dont plan accomodation ahead at all, just relying on local hospitality on a day to day basis. They started south at the Cape, the very point where the Atlantic and Pacific meet, and the book traces their northward walk along the eastern coast to Israel. It took 18 months, and each day they need to meet new people. Now that is intrepid. I then  packed for the early start, and headed for bed.

Last night, Wednesday, I landed in Accra about 9:30pm, and was met at the airport by Quarshi and Hilda from Ikando. It was not as hot as I was expecting, maybe 30′ish. It is really good to be back here. The agenda for Thursday is to secure the transport to Burkina Faso for the weekend, and to do the usual fussy first day things (buy mosquito repellent, change down notes to coins somehow, fire up local sim card.) This time around it is a little more relaxed and I am planning mainly to just orientate, and change gears to local mode, on the first day. I will also find the local Burkina Faso embassy and get a visa happening.

As homesick as you get, and as much as you miss loved ones, there is still a part of me that feels like I would like to be based in Africa sometimes. This could work: 6 months at home, a month or 2 in West Africa, a month or 2 in Europe, and a month or 2 exploring elsewhere. The only thing missing is vast sums of money to support it. But I think that may be the only issue.

It has turned out to be quite hot: only mid thirties, but the humidity is 70% so it feels hot and sticky. I walked quite a bit today, partly to see and absorb a couple of areas I hadn’t seen yet. I forgot about the taxi drivers, who beep all non-Africans about 100 times. If the Dalai Lama were here, even he would lose it and reach in to throttle someone.

I could get plane tickets to Ouagadougou, but they are a bit steep: USD 1000+ return. This for the more minor and hence more exciting airways too. So I decided to take the STC bus, which is an air conditioned, modern government bus line. When I told Laura and Rose this at Ikando, they exchanged a knowing glance, so reading between the lines I investigated alternatives first. However with just a coupleof days notice this turned out to be the best option available, and even that nearly not. I think I got squeezed in somewhere after chatting at the help desk counter. The first enquiry I made was negative for Saturday departure (booked out), but OK for Monday. I wanted to be there on Sunday. When I then asked at another desk if there were alternative bus lines that they could recommend, they asked if I had my passport on me, which I didn’t. But if I could have it there by end of day they could arrange a ticket for Saturday. I did a quick round trip and now have a seat for Saturday morning departure on a 1000km, 24 hour bus trip.  There are a couple of cons: time on the bus, and maybe reliability. There are a couple of pros: the cost was $31, and I will get to see a bit of countryside. There are also a couple of random factors: the person sitting next to you, possible breakdowns, and the driver. One thing I like about STC though is that there are 2 drivers who drive/rest. If it is a bit exhausting on the way up, I will fly back.

What could possibly go wrong. I have a very good feeling about this trip. And I am really looking forward to the film festival.

China has just signed a USD $2.6 billion contract with Liberia to develop the derelict steel mills in Bong County, a 25 year agreement that will directly add 3000 jobs. Wow. That is an enormous amount and will be life changing for the region.

http://steelguru.com/news/index/2009/01/21/Nzk0NzQ%3D/Liberia_inks_pact_with_China_Union_for_Bong_iron_ore_mines.html

In the last couple of years there has been a huge move by China to invest in African infrastructure. As opposed to the Western aid model, the Chinese have more of a peer to peer business model. The relationship is very controversial as it is in direct competition to Western interests, and the western (US, EU) approach, which is still a bit paternalistic. Obviously the Chinese want to establish partnerships to access Africa’s oil and resources, but in general the response by African leaders has been positive. There was a summit in Beijing a year or so ago at which almost all African leaders were represented. Only 3 countries now do not have a trade agreement in place. The jury is still out on the long term benefits.

If you really want to start an argument at a dinner party, read the book ‘Dead Aid’ or quote the author, Dambisa Moyo, who argues that all aid into Africa increases debt, discourages real business and investment, and leaves everyone worse off (with the exception of natural disaster relief aid). I just finished reading it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/feb/19/dambisa-moyo-dead-aid-africa

She is a fan of Chinese investment. In the case of Liberia, USD billions with none of the usual aid strings is huge. Usually the IMF/World Bank give a country money for food or infrastructure, then as a condition, nominate the Western food suppliers or engineering companies who they need to give the money back to to buy the food or service. Local farmers miss out. It does seem more like global money laundering and jobs back home, rather than assistance sometimes.

I will be in Bong County soon so I will be curious to learn more about the Chinese investment strategy there.

In August 2008 Celina Guich of Niapele went over to Liberia to investigate the farm side of things. Now I had been thinking, its just too easy. we need a challenge. Celina rose to the occasion. From an email 28 August:

‘I have returned from Liberia and have been to the site of the future CAMES school in Bong County.  I have sent a link to the photos in a separate email…OK—so —the land is essentially a forest that will completely need to be cleared in order to develop it as the the site to build the school and the future site for the farm…We could only see the land from the dirt road we were walking on, as you can see from the pictures I sent.  And looking to the left where the land is, its just looked like a big green rain forest.’

That’s not such a bad thing. It means we will potentially have building timber longer term, and can get some sustainable cycles happening. But it also means we have a major clearing exercise ahead. The survey is now much more important, as we need to clear the appropriate areas. Celina also did a lot of fine work in her time with Charles Mulbah of Cuttington University, which has a first class agricultural centre specializing in the West African environment. She left with the farm and agriculture roadmap well advanced.

Another item for the list: are there graders that can be leased in Bong County?  (I am going to feel real silly if grading is done here by oxen on an acre basis.)

Following feedback I now understand why 1 acre is equal to the area of 1 furlong by 1 chain. That is how much land a single oxen can reasonably plow in a day. Now I am converted. If someone is looking at a field and saying to their friend, ‘Look at all that land. I know how many furlongs and chains it is, but how long will it take this oxen of mine to plow?’, then I am just sort of going to tell him, casual like, then turn around and walk away real slow. Yeah.