Infrastructure?

On Monday I went on my first real outing for my assignment and went to visit a wholesale market on the outskirts of Monrovia. The Kuwait market is one of the few markets where the farmers bring their produce in bulk where it is bought by traders who take it into town to sell to people for their dinners. I was by no means expecting anything vaguely hygienic, but what I saw was probably the grossest market conditions I have ever seen (see photo below).

Not only are people forced to buy and sell food in ankle deep mud, but there is absolutely no running water in the country, no electricity and certainly no sewer system. For water, people link the pipes in their house to the large plastic tanks that are filled by a water delivery service. Electricity is provided by generators that guzzle expensive gasoline. Last night 5 gallons of gas were stolen from our office. My colleagues are choosing to believe that it was a thief jumping the barb-wire crested wall. I believe it was the gate guards that came with the property and are subsidizing their income, which is a fraction of the income of our own security guards. The biggest problem is the lack of a sewer system in a city that is the capital with the highest annual rainfall in the world. Yesterday I went to the gym up the street from the hotel and had to walk back to the hotel in the rain. The soaking after my run felt good, but I couldn’t enjoy it as I knew I was walk through ankle deep sewer sludge. Gross.

The irony is that the other half of my project here is focusing on community infrastructure. There is just so much to do. Rebuilding the main coastal road heading South. Rebuilding the Parliament building. And most ironically, on Monday we have a groundbraking ceremony for the rebuilding of the Ministry of Public Works which has only three walls and no roof.